Moon Jam 2 by Robert Frederic Kenter

      Alex Weimer CC



Moon Jam 2


One For the Demon

Moon jam
For the road
Jammed up in January
In the moon light
Waking
Exposed
To the night light

I feel broken
Talking about this
Painful life
of anhedonia

buried in pain
and broken in spirit
how much illness and pain
and misunderstanding
detachment and emptiness
in exchange for a room
food and a bed

how much can be endured
and its impact
on the soul

to be led to the point of
exhaustion beyond what is endurable
and have to choose
which kind of soul death
is the one to best secure
the possibility for
grave rest   for gravity
for the sacrifice
of a life of silence

putting up in order to endure
an even colder harsher
moon
lit
road

I am impure
I have done what I needed to survive
Been down in a whirlpool of lying to survive
Taken what I needed
Lied about the rest
Held whose ever hand needed holding
So I might find some money to eat and to rest and to feel at least a bit blessed to not be on the floor of a
​rooming house with only a brown door between me and the street

whether it is burial by drugs that numb and bury
or whether it is the unendurable pain
of invisible illness
that shows in the blood and body but not in the face not the
authorities who decide whether you can rest or have to burst
inside and crawl standing upright merciless aching legs and fever and sorrow at the factory door

still there is love and gratitude
in being taken in without expectation even though
the violent disconnect and incomprehension
sadness and loneliness   of material things reminds of the family
of ghosts and endless violence

in no longer having to be the one
who carries everyone else’s burdens while dragging
broken along a road
that leads nowhere and spills the gifts
given
out like
blood from a knife cut
that served no purpose
on one’s arm
but to let you know – enough --   if you don’t get it stop yelling to make it something other than what it is
I abide but not in such issues
If I can’t move and if I have seizures it’s nothing to do with
Wanting intentionally to be –
Anything you want me to be a mirror for your own pain
A punching bag   -- yes – I still
Take and need morphine.

no It didn’t even un-numb the pain
not even for a moment
it just made it worse
you say you’ve heard enough of my voice
or we’ve been given a universe of power and choice
and now it’s our turn to be shut down

perhaps it’s true I always believed in a way
it was time to sweep myself far away
and even give up what I wrote to you
to let you put your  name to -- in the end
what difference does it make you can't take back that kind of theft
with an oh well you gave it to me, I saw where you signed my name  

but it’s hard to get inside the reasons or the meaning
of this kind of visceral collapse
the body misremembering and misunderstood and ravenous
perhaps for  sleep for final sleep

how is it
the body finally waking up after being hit by a streetcar
on a winter street
almost like some dream
more like sleep

I thought, whatever, I might join my mother now
Missing her anyway and I had always this vow I would carry her soul with me
Even in winter draw monarch butterflies in the snow  making dark snow angels
sow what you reap

Waking up when the streetcar hit
And I saw your face again and felt your soft hands
Pulling me away from the danger at hand
Beat up messed up broken up yes
But I heard you whisper wake up  
And write about us
Wake up now
And forget about this abutment of burial and bones and self mutilation with stones

Wake up now and string the verse
With veins of your hand into a lyre
Wait for the Muse    actively call Her and search and whet the rhythm with your knowledge of notation
and feeding others with spoons
occurs

You do what you have to
Talk to yourself in mirrors
Lift weights
Feel the blood in the soul balance even though you hurt surrounded always alone

Wake up
Stand up
Become
Emerge
Speak

Tell your story
Sunflower
Of broken mouth and bleeding seed
Blackened and falling
In the soil    baskets full of salted seeds like water   quenching thirst in the market
No matter how bad it is
I have salt
And beautiful wounds to pore into

Wake up
Before the last call
Wake up before the night falls

​

Robert Frederic Kenter is a writer and visual artist currently based in Toronto, Canada.  He has published poetry, stories, created theatre works, draws, paints, & makes photo-based hybrid images. He is working on collaborations and a manuscript of hybrids. Publications: Burning House Press, ARC, Grain, New Quarterly, Writ, Prairie Fire, Cough, Paragraph, Lost & Found Times, and numerous others. Chapbook: Office Crime from Ice Floe Press.   Follow him at Twitter @frede_kenter

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