WARNING: Horror*...Readers might find this poem offensive or distressing.
______________
1)
I know
once I was just like you
I was young and furious too
the world was too much
everyone made you feel
so hopeless, you think you could ****
I know exactly
how you feel
Like the time
my parents kept on and on
about responsibility
I had to look after my things,
that made me mad
And then I decided
I must assure them
I would grow up to be responsible
make them feel confident
I must put them at ease
so I did
And the police asked me
if I knew where they'd gone
and I showed the cops my perplexity:
“They were always
responsible
in everything -
how could they
just go away
and leave me like this?”
The police and lawyers searched the house
and they found the will -
my parents had left everything to me
and had put my siblings
neat in order
stretched out on the dining table
in the basement kitchen
2
Like the time
then at work
the colleagues went on
about responsibility
and they conspired:
I was irresponsible;
they were conscientious;
I was a freeloader
Ah, the judges in one's world
the judges of one's soul
and one day
they found a worker in a bad state
dead and lying naked in the clichéd
pool of blood –
in the toilet, of all places -
with the words: *“How irresponsible”
on the floor
Everyone was in a state -
I moved inter-state
I was going places
3)
Dear, oh dear
don't cry
Darling, oh darl
don't bleed
There was a time when I married
(everyone finds it's a mistake;
they either **** their partner
or, to continue living,
they **** their own spirit)
but I was determined to grow
my body and spirit -
can we not get conventional? -
so I had minced pie for a time
and no one could bring
my wife back home
you see
wifey got
too comfy
and see she had this thing
(after respectability)
about responsibility
the role of husband and father and
parent and homeowner, mow the lawn
service the loan
and all that crap –
I quite believe she was going mad;
maybe she walked away into the woods
Was that responsible of her?
Dear, oh dear
don't cry
Darling, oh darl
don't bleed
4)
I moved into the woods
built a little cabin, below the rocks
and covered by the trees;
yet I had visitors
who had come astray into the wilderness
Someone wanting space for the night:
“Is there enough room in your cabin?”
“Why,” I said, “there’s plenty all round”
I was vegetarian
but the destitute offered themselves to me -
the religious might say:
God fed me
even in the wilderness! Ha!
A wandering woman one evening,
she offered love in return
for shelter that night
She let me lick, taste her flesh
“Bite me,” she said
offering a foretaste in our foreplay
Why would they not leave me? –
these wanderers, the intruding world
No, I had not come in like Thoreau
or the Unabomber – but maybe
like the misanthrope Timon of Athens...
afraid of my own hate; but the innocent
seemed to be drawn in as to a...an...abattoir
5)
And now here we are -
I have come into your space, your cell;
gates and doors
yield to my fingers, if you must know
(always good with my hands,
good with my teeth)
And we are here
each against one's wall -
and each wants to know
who is responsible
for this mess
Who made all this?
Who was insane to give us all this?
It was a mad God
or a meaningless universe –
either way, there is no responsibility
You and I are agreed
Here we are
each against one's wall
considering who will eat who...
*Make your move; I am famished
This poem was previously presented as a series of 5 parts during the last five days.
I have put the five parts in one complete text for readers who might be interested in reading the poem in its entirety.