I have ye to thank,
all ye actors and poets and marvels
(and DCs and everything in between)
for I have lived with ye, and amongst ye,
and ye have gently inspired genuine genius
in all ye holes in the wall
and all ye pens and strings and voices.
I thank you for the endless memories
of conversations of unnecessary furor and consuming hysteria
of brilliant surprises from elegant unknown talents
of tossed salad people and places and history and interaction
of a night lost in glowsticks but preserved in pictures
of a time my time in between periods of blank walls
of a blinding bolt forward in presence of mind.
For was it you
who told me about your grandfather
a man so brilliant that a mere conversation with the dean
at sixteen granted him admission to Columbia?
who told me of Canadian interlocutors
intimately engaged, only after your party had left?
who told me of amazing cliffside adventures
in education and nature's nomenclatures abound?
who discussed my heritage against that of a concrete world
of exploding dreams and collapsing stars at once,
where you take a bite but might get the proverbial worm?
or you, against that of a simple hicktown
where tractors run tandem with buicks in school lots?
Might it have been you
who watched with me psychedelic documentaries
and named canaries after variations of drug store medications?
who gallantly tolerated my most obnoxious outrageous disgusting
interesting unaffected out-of-their-mind friends?
who took me to absurd spots at absurd hours to breathe absurdity,
then churted we'd go, back the building we'd known?
who brought me in groups to feast on uncomfortable meats,
but between the awkward and networked gossip pipelines,
were enjoying the food and friends and flattery?
who drunk on dreams, droned on into darkness,
and dripped into ears of a man in his cave,
a man playfully perplexing you by pondering preposterous?
It must have been you
whose beautifully woven music reached my ears,
enveloped my being, seldom alone, and even when solo,
scattered brains with banter and brilliance combined...
who, with an open door and wide smile,
welcomed me to the mind's great opera house,
and gave audience to my own logical saga...
who in the weekend's weak end became crazy dazed amazings,
lazing in listless lack of activity, or senselessly celebrating
sins and kinship, all ways seeking erasure...
who gave me so many names against the grain,
jrosay or nerp or j or jackattack or just plain jack,
your classmate hallmate roommate or just plain friend...
who sat and sang and slew, dragons myths, moods,
and hit and clicked and ripped and spilt, toxins, guilt,
and hurt and failed and walked with me...
at least i hope it was you
you who paved platforms and bridges to raze amazing
and left vast caches of spectacular aptitude
or you who spread brilliance like plagues defined loosely,
grossly self-aware in great stares of embarrassed arrogance
and defeated demons crying freedom and bleeding love
you gave worlds great engravings, new meaning
to be me in new worlds new dreams new things
nooses spread shredded across mind fields
you lovingly led leaders over languid anguish
dangled carrotsticks and heritage bringing peace
you found you finding a place in space in winding time
under universal roofing aloof of stinking sewage
found a truth around music and beauty
shopping cart hearts that gather dust and poetry
blissful obituary tears splashing across my memory
loco rangers of brilliant oblivion armed with toothy news
slaying my molded upbringings refreshing genius
fair chance soul trade and daylong flatlines
double barreled shotgun roulette
blank charge buckshot
noisemakers both
that trigger
firing
you
?
I dedicated this poem to the people in my freshman year living-learning community at the University of Michigan. There are many references to specific moments from that academic year, but you certainly don't have to understand them to understand the poem's message. It is structured to mimic the progression of the academic year, and then beyond.