Member Poem

Invocation to an Open Mike

I know that you have come this evening
            because the indigo hours of this day,
that streamed in your window to awaken you,
the ones you had counted on to last,
failed, the light crumbling
into this—this dark wreckage.
I know that you have come this evening
because in the darkness, someone
sang a green song
that drifted over the rooftops and called you.
I know that you have come this evening
            because as you stood at the window of your kitchen looking out,
you thought of leaving, of the trains or buses
that might bear you away, but you stood, rooted
and did not go nor speak of going.
I know that you have come this evening
because of the scars you bear,
the ones you wear ripe and angry on your skin
            and the ones inside that wear you out every day.
I know that you have come this evening,
            because you had believed that love would always save you,
that love would refit your bones, would lift you
up and out of the gray steps into which you carefully placed
your feet; only what you were so sure was love
veiled itself with a bruised and brutal disguise,
and when you were fool enough to follow,
it abandoned you, and in that darkness,
you did not know the way.
I know that you have come this evening
because somewhere, somewhen, you stood in a library,
opened a book to that page which ignited a hunger in you
that you were not even aware of, until that moment,
had been clawing at your gut—and now, with every book
you open, you hunt for such words to fill this craving.
I know that you have come this evening
            because of a silence that has taken root within you,
            a silence that you were not born with, 
            a silence that day by creeping day grows more uncomfortable
in its mute witness of the gray frost that forms
as you turn your ear to all that the world’s relentless screaming.
I know that you have come this evening
            to relieve the boredom
            and the itch of boredom you cannot help scratching.
I know that you have come this evening
            because of the great dusty distance you have travelled
            and because of an even greater distance there remains
            that you must walk alone without map or compass.
I know that you come this evening
            seeking a friend
            or permission
            or some truth that you might ink into your skin
            or stitch into your bones (as have I).
I know that you have come this evening
            because each of us has come here, too,
looking for something that not one of us can name
—and even if we could, how could we speak
those clumsy words in a language we do not yet understand?
How could we give voice to each accented syllable 
as if it were an incantation, an invitation for a life
we do not even begin to understand             but cannot live without?