Andy

 

ANDY
By Teak Kilmer
 
Andy ─ tee shirt, sweatshirt, plaid flannel shirt
thick cotton zip-up jacket shirt unzipped
white, maroon, dark green with black and yellow stripes
deep blue; dark cap tilted over eyes
 
Has to aim chin at us to see us which he does
occasionally sort of, kind of askance, fleetingly
when it’s his turn to share and less often
when another of us ‘froot’ ‘lupes’ takes a turn.
 
God, we’re funny; I can’t get this smirk
off the lower end of my face
I’ve found myself a playground among the often
miserable, the mentally-genetically oppressed
 
Andy is what you get. He’s who shows up
he’s been ground round and down till all
that’s left is just little old he. Andy’s one of us
‘a’moldering’ candles on this party cake of distorted life
 
We have a lot to be grateful for, proud of and amazed at
We know a bliss by overcoming, a victory that arrives
from having one’s emotional face repeatedly used as a ball bat
Andy’s a regular guy as real as mother’s milk and as honest as hunger
 
We knights (and dames) of this square table are here to shore up
the despairing of us, that part of us and those people of us
who are living in that desolation –
this evening, this week, this life time
 
Now I’m in deep-water-drilling into this dis-ease, my “without ease” if you please
and often I hear this voice: “Get with it, Thalas, I have work for you, stories to tell
and songs, poetry, prose and even more than those I suppose
so find a grind stone for you nose upon to pose; start talking,” He says to me
 
Do you know how I hear this voice? You know …
But you’re maybe not aware you know
I hope you’re aware, ‘cuz’ you’re freer if you are
 
Pain and bliss, these are God’s voice
I do that, I feel pain; I do this, I feel bliss … I do this
Oh, how I hope to Heaven that I do this
 
When I can … I do this