I can’t tell whether the flowers are falling or
floating in this painting just as I can’t tell whether
I am falling or floating, especially when I’m
writing a poem, because writing poems has become like
doing crack for me. Not that I ever did crack, what
with my delicate heart and it’s not that I had
anything against crack, it’s just that I didn’t think
I could survive anything that intense and I always
found it annoying when kids used the term “crackhead”
to describe anyone they thought was kind of dumb
because when I lived in New York I seemed to be
surrounded by crackheads in the building where I lived
and “dumb” was not the word I would have used to describe
them and not even “crackhead” even though they were
crackheads, because there’s no intensity in dumb, no
drive toward obliterating the future tense, and
the crackheads were intense, and now that I hardly
even drink, poetry has become my new addiction,
my high, my crack, and I’m never quite sure if with it
I’m falling or floating or slowly obliterating
the future tense, and sometimes the past tense as well,
until everything becomes one endless moment
in a present tense in which though I’m physically safe,
my mind is walking a tightrope without a net, and
each time I get on the tightrope I feel like a beginner
again, because that’s the thrill, to make it feel like it’s
the first time all over again and you have no idea
where you’re going to go or how you’re going to get there,
because all you want to do is go in a Faster,
Pussycat! Kill! Kill! kind of going, squeezing all
the pulp out of a situation, then giving it
a sometimes restless and always unstoppable beat
that will confuse those who think that poetry can
only be pretty words and flowers and that there’s
nothing dangerous about it, and I’m getting
a little breathless here, and if I weren’t reading this
right now I’d reach for my inhaler but my hands are
occupied holding up this damn poem, and whether you
believe it or not, I’m putting my life on the line
for you here, I’m risking my health to entertain you
fuckers. So show me some appreciation. Laugh. Applaud.
Christ, you can even give me flowers when I’m done.
-Jose Padua
Originally written for the Shenandoah Arts Council’s exhibit, Art Inspired by Art. Photo by Jose Padua. Jose Padua is co-author of the blog Shenandoah Breakdown.
Poetry