"Nothing is so healing as the human touch."
Started: June 21, 2011
Finished: August 14, 2011
"Nothing is so healing as the human touch."
Purportedly, the final words of Bobby Fischer, the reclusive, oft bizarre-acting Chess Grandmaster, whose life deserves your examination.
I wasted decades of my life in a loveless, sexless, miserable marriage. I read his dying words, and the poem~notion was born, but the words had their own timetable and it made me crazy.
All the facts you need to read this old poem are now in your possession.
~-----------------------------------------------~
Most poems used to just tumble out,
Sudoku words combos,
Gunslinger I was,
poetically licensed to shoot
from the hip (the lip?).
Then you go mute, until that second,
When once again,
machine gun stanzas fall like
Cheerios
spilling all over the kitchen floor,
as they always do at Two Am
when quietude is in high season,
And the whole house is sleeping.
Once in awhile,
the title~idea recorded,
but the poem unwrit,
just won't come.
*** but no ******.
The words smack you,
write me, I deserve it,
a challenged duel glove
goes kissy kissy on your face,
but the words,
the choice of weapons
eludes for weeks, months.
So Bobby,
your challenge
long ago accepted,
but my reply imperfect,
has lain bound and gagged,
a poem-in-progress
hid in the trunk of my heart,
unable to escape, even when
escape attempted, unsuccessful.
From June till August moon,
your dying words have been
a cancer growing, within,
hiding from my bullets
invented to radiate,
your final words, explicate,
Explode and expose.
Your life,
an essay on life in solitary,
anti-social would immodestly describe your life best.
How came you then to exclaim,
re the glories of human touch?
Ah a dying man's last regret,
a simple cri du couer,
nothing extraordinaire,
a basic 101 shoulda/woulda
of "I coulda done it better,"
what's the big deal?
Until this exact second,
Sunday rain jolted body from bed
do I instant understand my obsession,
the import to me,
the need to capture
the haunt of the healing
of your dying words.
Life is small, miniaturized
when numbered in decades -
five, six, seven,
maybe,
eight nine or even ten.
How came I to pass so many,
discarded whole decades,
of the few we garner
without the sustenance of
Human Touch?
How came I to allow this
disaster to pass?
How did I advance to the next grade/decade
when a failing grade was scarlet tattooed
In ****** scars upon my chest?
Would be easy to dismiss
as just another
whiney rant
that is no longer relevant
to you,
lies I told myself,
no longer resonate,
over, now.
Never.
Everything matters.
Summation. Accumulation.
Day Counter Totals
reveal gaps of years
that cannot be refilled
so your accounting
must include a retelling of the
wasted days and acknowledge
with your dying breath,
Nothing is so healing
as the human touch.
Thank you my love.
Thank you, Mr. Fischer.
Summer
2011