Revival of the Spirit, courtesy of Mark Doty

 By Charles Bailey

Revival of the Spirit

 

The last dregs of my undergraduate college days are closing in. It is a melange of sleepless nights, anxiety, and molehills of coursework that would disturb even the most patient man. March brings me no solace or respite; Spring break is, or rather was, an evanescent reprieve from the rush of assignments thrust upon me that rarely does the college student justice. I will jump for joy when I am able to walk across that stage in May.

 

The herculean workload I am to surmount leaves me little time to pursue my own dreams. I’ve nursed aspirations of worldwide literary fame for several moons, and those beloved cogitations have waned while facing the imminent possibilities after graduation. I’ve not edited, revised, nor crafted a new poem in months, and manuscripts for class agitate my Southern-born mock ennui.

 

But then, two weeks ago, I was gifted with a 2008 edition of Five Points.

 

I’ve been quite jealous of the people who have been featured in these pages–new poets, old writers and venerable essayists that I craved to join in the annals of fame. And yet, I’ve read their pages hungrily–from the sublime Kim Addonzio to the illustrious Andre Dubus III…

 

…But this was before I read Mark Doty’s Theory of Narrative.

 

The words enflamed me: Doty’s sublime, almost happenstance meeting with another man, and tells him–”I’m a writer, I’ve written eight of them,”–grabbed my ear and pulled me by the hand along a very interesting ride. I was suddenly flying through a story worthy of epic novelization. Doty’s poem makes you feel like you are driving “in the high desert north of Mexico City” with the wind on your face and Juan’s stories in your ears.

 

By the end,

I wanted to be a musician,

Dig under a peach tree,
Read about a moral fable with a snake.

And commit the perfect crime,

And if I begged Juan to stop his tale,

That would be the perfect crime.

 

And after Five Points Volume 12, No. 1 was closed, a curious feeling swept my heart. Words reclaimed vibrancy, punctuation pierced my emotions, and I fell in love with the semicolon again like a boy of thirteen does at a school dance. Mark Doty–a bard worthy of the stanza. Read him.

 

NYTimes: The Concealed-Carry Fantasy

The Concealed-Carry Fantasy http://nyti.ms/1KzQXcJ

Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

Same-sex couples exercise long awaited freedom following Supreme Court ruling

My first article published in Georgia State University’s The Signal!!!

Follow the link!

“The Promise of More”

Charles Bailey

September 14, 2013

 

I apologize…

I apologize for being able to see the sadness in your eyes,

I despise the tremulous pain that makes you want to cry…

I realize that spitting a platitude

In your mind is simply just a lie,

So let me just step aside…

I apologize,

I apologize for my immediate interest,

I apologize for my fervent behest,

To become the man that you could love best.

I profoundly apologize for taking you by surprise

And volunteering myself for that brutal, slaughtering test.

I apologize for you having to listen to my BS,

So, I’m going to give it a rest…

 

I apologize…

I apologize that your last two boyfriends were asses,

They ruined a beautiful, susceptible creature

For romantic men who rock bi-focal glasses.

In my opinion, they can both go drink a bottle of molasses…

I apologize for denigrating them in your eyes,

So I’ll step aside, and head off to my classes.

I apologize for your bitterness towards the world,

I apologize and I am so very contrite,

Because you could be, for me, the right girl.

I’m so apologetic that my lyrics are so pathetic,

That you’re not the least bit energetic to give us a whirl…

So let me rise up and disappear like Houdini,

Before I end up with appendicitis…

I apologize for thinking you are beautiful,

Eyes, lips breasts and thighs aside,

The reasons are innumerable.

Apperceiving a chance of receiving

Transcendent ambitions of yours,

Memorizing stores of knowledge,

All the while, salivating

Over your enervating dissertation,

The framework I frame a work of art

Due to your DNA makeup.

 

I apologize for cogitations in my psyche     

Something so beautiful, I call it the

Romantic equivalent of Nike,

But I will take my aspirations of victory far away

From your radiant shores,

For I cannot be yours,

And there is no promise of more

Beyond the exchange of identity.

So taking this rejection in the face,

I’ll just close this door, myself I’ll displace,

And hope all past transgressions you endured

In the name of love will be erased.

“Impassioned”

Charles Bailey

 June 20, 2012

 

I speak as a broken man,

Lost and wandering the current time-space continuum

Amazed at the futility of courtship,

Perplexed at the ignorance.

The minutiae, the little emotional

Currents people put forth,

Creating maelstroms of trivial cannon fodder

Classified as tropical storms,

Masquerading as level 5 hurricanes,

Destabilizing the hope of the many men that wish death upon love,

And with good reason.

 

I shout to the heavens for a miracle,

A method to assuage this man and his spirit,

That there is a beautiful soul walking the

Garden of Eden; a biblical epiphany in estrogen corporeal,

One that takes the form of lyrical, metaphysical perfection,

A female masterpiece to complement my missing link of

Gentlemanly manners and sensitive prowess.

One that makes my heart sing like the octave scale,

One that energizes my iambic pentameter,

Spurs me to elucidate the world’s greatest novel,

Croon the sweetest melody…

Is she here…?

 

I inquire with optimistic vision,

Is there a lady or woman worthy of the title,

Can she be denoted as one of high class,

Self-respect, esteem, and virtue,

Will my friends and I behold her strolling across our path,

Ignoring all toxic attempts, inspiring respect for her hand

From light in her eyes to the righteous step of her heels,

That is the object of my sojourn of truth,

My romantic fact-finding mission,

The search for an ancient relic lost among contemporary artifacts…

 

I am tired of drying my eyes,

Continually wiping away saline disenchantment,

Perpetually sniffing away the excuses,

“I’m too busy with school and work,” and

“I have an ongoing situation with an ex…”

Exhausted with the insincere distribution of digits,

Communication as nebulous as a police sketch artist’s rendering

And twice as difficult to apprehend the culprit with,

When a simple no will satisfy a fully matured man.

However, in misguided attempts to shield the fragile ego

That obviously exists within every man that attempts to speak,

Women give up the number, but

Their voices are shadows over the cellular network

Ninety-nine percent of the time you called.

 

I pray the expression is proven correct—

That the love of a friend is the balsam for a broken heart.

The fervent, passive wish of all lovelorn romantics,

The elegant soul that knows their spirit paramount all others,

The one that provides the most galvanizing defense against infidels,

Or so you desire…

But when that comrade makes your essence soar through the clouds,

Has you contemplating long walks bathed in the glow of natural light

Cogitating the two of you completely ensconced within the rhapsody of affection…

Sadistic reality sets in; her words a serrated edge of anguish—

Her extant mentality forbids enhancing your friendship due to trepidation

Of platonic ruin; insult to injury: your love has fallen upon deaf ears and rusty spikes

And in the near impossible chance she could love you back,

Testosterone she despises in the present; your love, your heart,

You’re the black sheep sacrificed in the place of the true culprit…

 

I yearn to be able to love again…

To appreciate the elegance and offerings of woman—

To adore the softness, sensitivities, compassion,

Wrapped within her like a quilt, safe, secure, and true.

I wish to trust you all again,

 To believe,

To honor and defend your convictions and virtue with all my love…

To one day place myself below your magnificence,

And offer all I have in the form of a diamond,

And give all I am to you, only you, and recreate your treasures

And my love into progenies…

But my passion will remain

As arctic as the polar ice caps

Until a woman’s honesty

Can dissolve my dissatisfaction.

“Free-Flow”

C-Bizzle
RGP Records—Millennium

Intro

Rap I
Bouncing back like a Super Ball
My free flow ascends, the opposite of fall
Regeneration advanced more than Logan
Ambition pythons stretch longer than Hulk Hogan
Fuck and talk like a rabbit, I keep strokin’
Strokin’ the fires of love and hate with
Tolerance more stalwart than a heavyweight.
Boxers, wrestlers, universe contestants
Attest to my prowess, they line up to take the bait
Vietnamese pitfall to combat Uncle Charlie
Abyss of spikes skewer like roads from Harleys
Free flow colder than arctic blizzards
Amphibian freestyles hop, so here lizard, lizard
Eviscerating gizzards and severing souls
Dropping L-bombs like Nagasaki,
Check out the free=flow…

Chorus
Free Flow words, like whey and curds
Listen to the rap and fly like a bird
Free flow lyrics with an intermittent message,
Heed my words, receive your true blessings…

Rap II
Refrain from mistaking my kindness for weakness
That’s comparable to God’s benevolence is bleakness
Pacifist with the heart of a reluctant militant
Full force platoon emerges from the shadows quite jubilant
Regard none of us as dilettantes to our passion,
Blacks of all trades, give no quarter or compassion
Intellectual cadre of homies, cohorts accruing,
Imagine battalions of fearless captains champions of skewering
Hewing and cleaving hordes of foes with ease
Disemboweling opponents with blade, brain, or lyrical sieves
Call us shinobi of the Leaf, elite Konoha nobles
If it’s a ninjutsu battle, my weapon is Chidori
Call me the White Fang’s son, the second Kakashi
Evolve my resolve with the Lightning Blade
I’ll commit the assassination, and return to the glade

Chorus

Rap III
Imbibe my new verse, blessings freeing you from the hearse
I can transcend colloquial; I never have to curse
Rehearse my lyrics like Elizabethan theatre
New generation Shakespeare, beloved like king Lear
I can tame a shrew as hilarity ensues
From the Othello combination of good and evil, still ain’t through
Far from ceasing this lyrical teaching, detention is over at 4 pm
I’d advise against out of school suspension
I administrate lyrical aneurysm for which no penicillin
Can convalesce your pride or recover the pen I’m stealing
Revealing nothing wrong like a Robert Greene tome
The guillotine descends, too late to see you were wrong
Call yourself Antoinette, and let them eat cake
Dawns like sunset, Louis never learned to bake
I’m influenced by rakes, scratched, cut and lewd,
Leave all contestants in the grinder,
My definition of chopped and screwed…

Chorus (Rideout)

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