April 2003 | back-issues, Patrick Seth Williams, poetry
I sit across from a man,
we look at each other
without shifting our heads,
it’s a staring contest
like the ones from lunch
in junior high school.
My opponent has no face
I am afraid he might win.
I try to picture him with
eyes, blinking, signifying
my victory, but I cannot.
He is tougher than to fall
for such trickery. He simply
sits there blankly, wearing
me to the point of exhaustion.
I rapidly throw my hands
above my head, screaming:
He has won! He has won!
I have no time for games
that are unfair towards me.
I run circles about the table
chanting silly rhymes and
his eyeless face stares
to where I was sitting.
It is pointless. He has
won and is still playing.
I sit back down, rest
my head against the table
and fall into a deep sleep.
Later…I wake, blink–
surprised at man laying
on the table sleeping,
and how he looks like me.
April 2003 | back-issues, Patrick Seth Williams, poetry
When we talk about making love; it is
as though we already are; it is as though
the world has collapsed at our feet and
all the walls that held us at their mercy
have been destroyed and we are left among
the ashen ruins; as though we have been
placed there all along; it is as though we are
Adam and Eve, sent to make our Eden
from these crumbs, this devastation left; and
in that hour when we hold each others’ bodies
naked in the cold sun, when our bodies
lie exhausted quivering; it will be
as though we never parted before or
holding forever while time slips endless.
April 2003 | back-issues, Patrick Seth Williams, poetry
___________
Well, it’s 2am, which could only mean one thing I’m working. The front desk job is not helping at all with the bout of insomnia I’ve been having. I never thought I would say it, but I hate fucking school and just want to drop out, living in my car off McDonald’s food and poetry writing. Maybe I’ll skip down to Mexico and die of exposure, like my prot�g� (Neal Cassady). Other than the normal depression (angst) I’m all peaches and cream.
I find it odd writing letters at this time of day. Maybe I know that they will probably never be sent, but more likely it is because I know when I wake up (that is if I go to sleep) I won’t be the same person. I’ve found that I’m happier with my fa�ade then I am with myself, which causes problems beyond my rational train of thought at the moment. As it has shut down, uncoupled, and garaged sleeping peacefully wishing my body would join it.
I’ve also found myself considering something, which a friend once told me, “kisses used to mean something.” Why I remember I don’t know. Still, I’m drawn to believe that yes kisses did mean something, or should mean something still. Yet, I’ve never felt the faint mystic power of a physical connection. I’ve never been in love, and mostly likely will die without ever feeling its affects. In fact, I wish that I were chaste as Hippolytus, who spat in the face of Aphrodite. Yes, to you love, I bid you a long goodbye.
Still, I should not find myself so dreadfully alone in the few waning seconds before I sleep. And I do question my own sanity because of this. Is it love that makes us human, or are we human because we love? In which case, I am neither.
There are a million things I want to say. My mind is a myriad of thoughts and complex mathematical equations (last time I do Calc II after midnight). I felt the rush of warm air and knew that it was spring anew. I want to feel the slight caress of the girl I gave up on before I knew her. I want to drag the knife one more time down my triceps to see if I still bleed, to feel the pain, to feel anything instead of nothing, my hollow shell in the great social masquerade ball.
pat williams
spring 2001
April 2003 | back-issues, Patrick Seth Williams, poetry
__________
God knows how many letters I’m going to write before I send anything off. Unfortunately, god didn’t inform me on his/her decision and if he/she did, it must have been during a time when I was refusing to believe in him/her. Anyway, I hope things on the home front are looking up. Hopefully, you have found someone that has restored your faith in males, even though we all are childish and immature.
There really should be a class that tells you how to live. No, scratch that. There should be a class that tells you how not to live. Maybe run it on HBO and call it Life: It’s so Goddamn Fun. Wait, I think they already have a show like that.
If you are wondering why it’s only the third paragraph and I’m already disillusional it’s because I’ve been sick all day. My body temperature has been fluxuating from, I swear, 97-101� and my throat feels like I swallowed the neighbor’s cat. Except instead of getting it all the way down, it got lodged in my esophagus and is clawing me repeatedly. Needless to say, I feel horrible and I’m working.
Some things I have noticed while being ill are dreams become really strange. This usually happens, but what I’ve noticed is the stranger they become the more lifelike they are. Last night, I made up with my ex-girlfriend, had sex with a complete stranger, and was thrown in jail, all while sleeping peacefully. And I used to think dreams were abstract.
I’m freezing again. Thought I’d share.
I’m surprised I’m still functioning.
I feel like a reptile, my blood cooling,
my appendages becoming stiff. As
soon as I hit my bed though, I’ll be
sweating bullets. Stupid flu.
Ah ha, I knew in my repressed memory I had a question to ask you. Were you still interested in being part of the English Society I mentioned? If you are, do you know of others we can drag on board? I seem to be a dying breed amongst my peers, as everyone that used to write in my circle has given it up. Either way, it’s still over a month away and I’m not sure if I’m coming back to Emporia yet. Here is where I say Guten Nacht.
pat williams
spring 2001
April 2003 | back-issues, Patrick Seth Williams, poetry
At the soles of passing shoes,
on the road no one travels,
the place ants have invented
a specific feeler wave: Rock Land.
It isn’t all bad, the fixed monotony
of the day, shuffling from place
to place with a bit of leaf fragment,
granules of undigested sugar,
a fallen comrade’s body.
A simple sexless society; exist
to work for the collective, ensure
the survival of the commune.
Marxis, or a greater monastic order?
One scampers over scaled-down
mountains, going around those
that seem too much effort
for a quick run, almost mindlessly
(maybe they’re evolved beyond minds).
They are content, while the heat
of the day begins to make the back
of your neck itch with impatience.
There is something else to be done,
a task not yet complete.
Shouldn’t we begin asking
when are we going to be unlike
Sisyphus and let our stone drop?
April 2003 | back-issues, Patrick Seth Williams, poetry
I am coming
the second coming this year
preceded by my friends’ same
worn routine:
“When will you come?
Today? This hour?
In a month, or two,
or…what?
We’ll have cold beer!
Maybe even a keg!
And will sit at your feet
listen to stories
of places you’ve been.”
I wish I could raise them
to their feet and shake each
calloused hand of those
that have remained to work
on the farms or in the plant.
Show them I am no better
because I’ve been at the
un-i-vers-ity, bein’ pointless
book l’arned while they’ve been
workin’ workin’ workin’
punchin’ the clock at 7 A.M.
shortly after I’ve fallen asleep.
I’ve no good stories to tell,
no knowledge to bestow
that they haven’t already
known for years.
Here are my hands
to prove it, the scars have healed.
Now they are just useless,
long spindly fingers, that could
and would snap in an instant.
Here are my sides
free of marks–bruised
& broken ribs, this is what
the years have given me,
what they have taken away.
And I can’t drink much,
anymore.
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