I got a degree in creative writing in the mid '90s and didn't write for years. This was the first poem I published after those years.
Inner Rage
One time as a kid at school I shut
my eyes all day,
feigning blindness, clowning for a
smile or at least a smirk.
I ended that day by leaping into
the pool, and
the cold water shoved open my eyes
with a breath.
Other times I stole money from
kids’ coats in the coatroom.
I smashed my toys, slashed flowers
down with a stick, and
broke bottles against the head of
the sun.
Decades later, I shut my eyes at a
meditation retreat, holding
in my breath, listening to
someone’s heavy breathing behind me,
remembering in it my kid brother’s
arrogant, heavy breathing at night.
It drove me wild and I wanted to
kill him.
I could have killed a buddha at
that retreat.
In my nightmare mind, I did. I
threw a bottle at his head,
knowing it was really my head and I
would carry the scars unredeemed.
I ended the day by lying down in
the coatroom
to breathe out tears, my pockets
stuffed with cash.
Today, I look at my news feed and
see Ryuichi Sakamoto
has cancer and will die soon. I
play his 12,
shut my eyes, and toy with the idea
of death.
Or at least of inner death where
rage bleeds into something else.
Something song-like and blind.
A wave, a gentle leap?
His final, silencing pieces are
bottles thrown at the sun.
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For academic reference, because I know you need it:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1551806X.2023.2230804
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