Poetry
Written by: Bastian Quinn
Periodically, I’m going to post some poetry that I have written. This is a sampling of some of the work I have had published in the SER. These are the first two pieces, “Breathe Into Me, Spidey” and “When the music first carried me,” which were published in 2007.
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Breathe Into Me, Spidey,
What Once Was Lost
Peter, Pete, P?
Are you there, Mr. Parker?
Reading about chemicals in dark despair?
Perhaps a chapter from Hopkins would be more apropos
to weave this web
Which winds itself tightly around your skin,
holding you closer and pulling you in.
Beware of the wolf, least you get eaten! Do you delve in carrion comfort?
Dare you untwist these last slack strands of man and unleash the Other?
You can’t throw this away, Peter Parker.
So, why would you unmask the surreality
and unleash reality on the unsuspecting Big Apple?
Ah, the Apple. Proffered by a snake, soon to be villainized
when it creates
other totemic big men of science
whose grasp well exceeds their sanity.
You’re an insect among men and should be treated as such,
All this webslinging of truth and responsibility is false courage
You abuse to remove your mystery and endanger superhuman history.
You bug people. Get under their skin, spin them, and tie them up
with all their shortcomings, prideful falls, which kick in their gut.
Friendly neighborhood, no! You’re not from around here:
To hear the kicks and shouts, “You stupid faggoty queer!”
They reach a level above what must not be said or done, in the night
Watch, cover the city in murky crimson from these fags, those dykes,
the trannies – my entire family where we create and put down our roots to relax
without a legend looking after us. Each day, again a struggle to teach the facts
by the heavenly fight or Hir chesed, you pass God’s test, O hero.
Shymmer some for the Almighty. Whom do you praise, Pete-o?
The One who pressed you deep into the dust to create a diamond
a nick elegantly displayed by your bruised form? or Spider-
Man, he
rose to keep the good fight going? Finally
overcoming the scorn, you’re entitled to your rest. Whether
achieved by God or creature forlorn (yet) pure,
Peter, you’ve earned this overdue reprieve. From a
world which ever unsure,
Uncertain we will not decimate decision. We’re losing and dying in Iraq
without you, Spidey. Nothing is bearable. And even though you lack
Without your webs, the rest of the world would “carrion comfort,
Despair,”
“Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.”
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This is from an art show I had work in, around June/July of 2009.
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When the music first carried me
The burning smell machinery sometimes has, lingers in my nose,
Reminds me of when the furnace broke and we’d light a fire in the
fireplace…..
But those were winters and these were summers,
Summers spent in a house that reeked of nostalgia,
The scent takes me home to Scarsdale houses,
Tree-lined Westchester County streets,
Filled bandstands at Eastchester Park…
Suddenly, I’m catching fireflies
climbing trees as high as I can
listening to the band play on-
Grandad’s band with bossy trumpets,
regal horns,
bassoons bigger than me,
singers who wore too much hair spray and makeup (I think they were sopranos),
and the occasional night owl
Hooot.
I smell these old music scores and I’m taken back
to the nights spent chasing other kids,
protecting the littler ones from harm,
teasing girls with awesome strange bugs I’d found,
bragging with boys over who was stronger…
And I’m sitting underneath Gran’s beach chair
only for a moment
calmly sipping her homemade iced tea-
Then back up again like a shot!
Running and play-conducting to the glorious sounds.
Those nights when the music carried me and
Grandad would carry me home,
my arms clasped tightly around his neck.
He’d tuck me into bed in the twins’ old room,
maybe tell a Texas tale (if he could tell I was faking)
of Ribbon and school mischief,
kiss my forehead and say,
“Love you. Good night.”
I’d wake up shortly after
Quietly search for his horn
I’d fall asleep curled up on the piano bench
with the cornet tucked under my arm…
