Dump: A Commissioned Poem
Someone commissioned me to write a poem about the word, dump. Not a pretty word, but a workingman's word, full of possibilities and mystifications. Gratefully accepted.
so many, endlessly endless.
bringing paper, cans, compacted
words,
all in need of special disposal,
special handling,
individuation of caring.
I split myself into multiple personas.
blue, green and some other color,
divine myself into receptacles for the sounds
you write, that must be read aloud, slowly,
in order to properly, allocate,
to dispose,
of.
sustainability.
not the planet,
something smaller,
more
man-ageable,
man-agreeable.
your verse!
you in verse is multidimensional,
yet unified,
one theme,
single answer to a questioned couched
a thousand different ways,
a thousand different poem titles!
how can I sustain myself?
sustain
— verb (used with object)
to support, hold, or bear up from below; bear the weight of, as a structure.
to bear (a burden, charge, etc.).
to undergo, experience, or suffer (injury, loss, etc.); endure without giving way or yielding.
to keep (a person, the mind, the spirits, etc.) from giving way, as under trial or affliction.
to keep up or keep going, as an action or process: to sustain a conversation.
to supply with food, drink, and other necessities of life.
to provide for by furnishing means or funds.
to support (a cause or the like) by aid or approval.
to uphold as valid, just, or correct, as a claim or the person making it
you are in the dictionary,
did you know that?
now I will answer in a free man's verse,
written without hesitation but with plenty of
tears and tissues
and rememberings of his own
wasted days, major successes,
bathtub ships,
righted
and passengers saved.
Words written in a single breath,
no exhalation just simple purity,
best wishes that any man can have,
if daring, he reaches inside and,
rips himself open,
saying it's ok, and meaning it,.
so here I am
standing looking you in the eye,
sitting with both arms draped
over your body,
saying
dump,
dump it all on me.
Cause I got a billion words that rhyme with
comfort.
Bring me the past and the future uncertain.
I already told you
never read a poem I did not like.
got slots for cans paper and compost,
got slots for fear, heartache and a big ole wide one for
pain.
got a heart shaped dump
that never closes.
The city council complains,
your name ain't Moses,
you are a city boy,
why you hanging in the wilderness for forty more,
didn't you do your time?
ex wife that brutalized your soul.
two sons who barely speak to you.
let someone else take over,
and I smile saying exactly,
I got experience,
I got Kleenex,
don't know nobody else better
Boy Scout
Be Prepared.
See,
even you can dump on me
effortlessly.
So.
ask not what you will bring.
cause I got an opening for anything you can
dump,
and land fill of me that has so much space,
billions of acres and neurons that will lay fallow,
until your poems, plaints, sailings and wailings
fill them.
so that is my poem,
dump,
even,
I like it.
May even dump some of mine on someone
like you.
after all
who in this world cannot use some
sustaining.
Next word, please
