ARS POETICA CHEMISTRICA
alchemy: a medieval chemical science and speculative philosophy aiming to achieve the transmutation of the base metals into gold, the discovery of a universal cure for disease, and the discovery of a means of indefinitely prolonging life.
Taking Chemistry class with 10th graders, I attempted—late to the college prep party—to catch up with a legit science course, having decided to suddenly become a poet, or, as my stoner friends said, a fucking poet, the earnest underclassmen adopted me as their mascot burnout, the football coach/teacher who remembered my brother his star running back, rounding my grade upward to passing, and all was going well until Charles, one of the beaker-geeks, my lab partner, blew his eyebrows to the ceiling and cracked a lab table in half following my advice to let’s just see what happens after spending lunchtime getting high in the parking lot (as I usually did) and mayhem ensued and I was sent home to rest awhile while they figured out the ins and outs of my future in chemistry and the State of Charles, but Charles got a new pair of glasses and refused to blame me, a sudden celebrity in our school of mostly future factory workers in a robin-hoodish kind of way and I returned a week later, excused from further labs, exiled to paper tests where I was given answers by a kindly 10th grade girl who also admitted to writing poetry and nearly exploded my heart. For the rest of my life, I have been trying to recreate that explosion, that ringing in my ears, having missed the unit on alchemy coming in late from the parking lot.
HITTING THE BULLSEYE OF DEPRESSION
Having been here before,
I recognize the landmarks
as I pay for parking
and begin the long hike
from the pot-holed parking lot,
ignoring the shuttle bus
on principle or desperation,
exaggerating my limp.
I am only just beginning
to enter the sadness arcade
pushing my way through
the barred one-way gate
but I already have the lack
of rules memorized. All I know
is that I’m tall enough
to go on all the rides.
