The Centaur's Gift

Once again, my eyeballs are sinking in shit,
as if someone has thrust their arm down my throat,
grabbed ahold of my small intestine,
and turned me inside out,
spewing years of coagulated hatred,
sticky deposits of despair,
and toxic infestations of guilt.
The tide of bile rises until I'm gagging
and gasping for air.

I want this poem to open my eyes.
Not a zen epiphany by a cool mountain stream;
not a lightbulb illuminating my cartoon head;
but eyes zapped open wide
and sucking in great gulps of life
like a drowning man hauled up on a beach.

This is a poem for those
who wrestle sweaty sheets each night,
tortured by the storm behind their eyes
as the rising sun burns through
the cracks in the blinds.

This is a poem for those
whose yammering brains talk and talk and won't shut up,
whispering malice and destruction in their ears
like medieval incubi and succubi.

This is a poem for those
whose terror is contained by lines in a spiral notebook,
their frenzied scribbling restraining evil
like a necromancer's magick circle.

This is a poem for those
whose brains belch fire
and peel their eyeballs back like hard-boiled eggs;
who can't work for fear they'll blacken the world
with their cerebral thunderbolts.

This is a poem for those
who want to die
because the sun has been snuffed out, never to return;
for those encased in ice, shivering alone and forgotten
in the middle of a moonless ocean.

This poem is a poem of love.
Because the love that keeps the universe glued together
is the love that keeps your bones
from falling into the dustbin,
and keeps your brain from slopping out of your ear
like a wayward jellyfish.

It's the love that says what is
and the love that says "I am."

And maybe if we eat that love
--pour it on our cereal in the morning like milk--
maybe that love can re-arrange us.

Maybe that love can change lions to lambs,
water to wine, fear to joy;
take you from your dunce cap corner
and put you in the middle of a noisy, laughing,
bouncing off the walls party;
crack open your head
and let the imps and hobgoblins vacate the premises,
and then plant a garden with flowers and herbs
to cure all the ailments in the world.

Maybe that love can give your heart a complete overhaul,
replace the rusty parts, clean away the grease and grime,
and restore it to it's shiny pinkness,
like when you were a kid.

And what about all those ghosts?
Those monsters that live inside of you?
The victimizers, oppressors, tyrants,
traitors, abandoners and abusers?
Maybe love can give them new lines to recite?

I want this poem to open my eyes
so that I can see what the giant actor sees;
the procession through the wheel,
each character putting on it's new life,
stepping out onto the stage of space and time.
The curtain rises, the curtain falls,
the bad guy takes off his black hat and mustache
and puts on the white suit and shiny teeth;
the rich man takes off his top hat
and picks up his begging bowl;
the lumberjack puts down his axe
and suckles a baby at his breast.

And those phantoms inside of you
are revealed to be musty old costumes
flapping around the barn
with pigs and chickens trapped inside of them,
just like on Scooby Doo.

And love is the only reward
those meddling kids will accept.

David Aronson
June 2008