Towering Figures

a poem

sometimes I wonder
about the regular-ness of life
and each age's desire to make
heroes and villains of small men

Miller mentioned quiet desperation
and we build cathedrals to our bodies
our vanity
our need to be affirmed

in a desperate attempt to distract
us from the fact that not everyone
gets the same
is the same at all

in the darkness of many cold rooms
in institutions from my youth on
I thought about all the holidays
that I was allowed to miss

reintegration of a lost soul
is not possible
regeneration of a broken boy
is not in the cards

across the table from me
a man is holding pocket kings
and I can see right through him
I fold my aces anyways

self-destruction in a verse
immolation in a chorus
sung to the high heavens
in a vibrato tuned to a high E

there was a cave and I saw
the shadows on the wall
long before I struck them all down
long before someone wrote my name

in the nominations before the committees
and in the backroom dealing
there are no stories
of a hero to look up to

it is not disappointment
not for a single second
it is, in fact expected results
of a boy who dreams in triolets

in the mornings I hum sonnets
and in the evenings I dance odes
I eat elegies in the late nights
snacks I just cannot resist 

I had a teacher once who tried
and thought he should show me Milton
and there I met a fanciful Lucifer
a pretty boy, whose eyes were stars

and saw that it is in the hearts of men
to be fallen
to be broken
to be unhealed

and of all the times I tasted love
it was but a false amber shade
of indigestion and physical desire
a fluttering of bats

in the comic stories
billionaires have hearts of gold
and boys of all shapes and sizes
believe in the leaders we see

in the reality we all share
however it is that we see it
it turns out there is no Batman
and he beat up the poor anyway

the colorful villains always escape
and always kill again 
and always kill again
and always kill again

I stood in the pantry
with a towel around my neck
and I leapt towards you
and you let me fall

and you let me fall.