Redemption
It kills me to throw them out,
I say to my mother
who’s been dead for 35 years.
I’ve been dead for 35 years, she says,
you think I care what you do with them?
You always said I don’t take care of my things, I say,
and now that your things are my things,
I want to redeem myself.
There is no redemption, she says.
My wife thinks I’m a hoarder, I say.
She thinks I’m crazy to keep them just because
they belonged to my mother.
I never liked your wife, says my mother.
You never met her, I say. I married her after you died.
Then give them to your kids, says my mother.
My kids don’t want them, I say, and even if they did,
they don’t have room for them, either.
Then sell them, she says. They’re worth a lot of money.
I tried, I say, but nobody wants to buy them.
Then throw them out, says my mother.
It kills me to throw them out, I say to my mother.
You already said that, she says.
I know, it’s the first line. It’s a good line, I say.
Is this supposed to be a poem? she says.
It could be a poem, but it isn’t cooked yet, I say.
It doesn’t sound like a poem, she says. Does it even rhyme?
I don’t write poems that rhyme anymore, Mom,
and anyway, I’ll probably end up throwing it out.
No, don’t throw it out, she says. Let’s add
a half rhyme at the end—what if
we do that, and then we give it to your wife?
~
Discus
It’s one of the oldest
sports in the world. It’s mentioned
in Homer’s Iliad. I was in 8th grade
when I almost killed a guy with one
by accident. You could
check them out, like a library book,
and bring them home on weekends
to practice throwing. I was practicing
down at the schoolyard, where he was
shooting hoops all alone over on the basketball court.
The windup starts with your back to where
you’re going to throw it, so you’re not
really looking. So I wasn’t really looking
when I spun around and around (I had
excellent form) and heaved it
as hard as I could, hooking it
in the direction of the basketball court.
He crumpled to the ground, a red trickle
from one ear. I ran all the way home
and told my mother, between sobs,
“I think I killed him.” After the death
of Patroclus, it’s featured in the funeral games
held by Achilles outside Troy. We drove him
to the emergency room, where they gave him
a neck brace and an aspirin. Five years later,
I worked it into my paper on the Iliad
in college, hoping to earn extra points.
But Professor Rodewald said it was just
a superfluous poignancy, double underlining
superfluous with his red pen.
~
My Paper on Paradise Lost
I need to find some weed so I can write
my paper on Paradise Lost. It’s due this Friday.
It took me months to read the poem. It’s long,
longer than any poem I’ve ever read.
At first I tried to read it stoned, but hell,
I couldn’t follow. So I read it straight,
like ten or twenty pages at a time,
then smoked a bowl and thought about what it said.
I think Satan would have approved of that.
Satan was heroic. I don’t think God
created the world. In fact I doubt He even
knows we’re here. I think we’re all asleep
in Heaven dreaming the world. I want to write
about that in my paper on Paradise Lost,
but I need to put a buzz on first. Beelzebub
was Satan’s right-hand angel. Beelzebub
is fun to say: Beelzebub! He’s number two
in Hell’s hierarchy. Sartre said that Hell
is other people. My mother said that weed
is of the Devil. She freaked when she found a joint
in my coat pocket. She sent me to a psychiatrist
who slurped his soup in front of me. He’d slurp
then ask me how I felt, in between slurps.
I love getting high more than anything,
more than my mother, more than God. I quit
high school after that and landed on my feet
in a college where they make us read the long poems.
Professor Rodewald says my papers are
belletristic. I had to look up belletristic.
I think it means my writing is too beautiful.
One could do worse than be a belletristic writer.
I like to write stoned because then I feel
like Adam naming all the animals. He named
everything. But he couldn’t name God. That’s
what I want to focus on in my paper
on Paradise Lost. I’m thinking of writing it
in blank verse to impress Mr. Rodewald.
But I need to smoke a bone first. For inspiration.
My mother thinks that weed is the forbidden fruit.
She may be right. I’d like to work that in
to my paper on Paradise Lost. Milton was
totally blind when he wrote it. He dictated it—
the whole thing, all twelve books—to scribes
who wrote it down for him. Holy shit!
I wonder how he kept it straight in his head.
I think about that when I’m stoned. Praise God.
~
Paul Hostovsky’s poems and essays appear widely online and in print. He has won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Only Poems, and The Writer’s Almanac. He makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter and braille instructor. Website: https://paulhostovsky.com/