Outcast

by Don Hagelberg

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Outcast
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Toxic Antithesis

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Outcast

For Michael Jackson

I

The whisper burrows in my ear
In waxing words says,
“You can’t live without leaf.”
This domestic gossip accuses me
Of not having will enough
To tell the leaf
To go to hell.
Me? I nod in assent.
I nod in sympathy.
I nod because I am captive
To my momentary loss of pain.

II

Did that pain once ache in my shoulder?
Did that pain once throb in my past?
Do my iambic feet blister with this history?
Leaf! Sweet leaf!
Smoke! Sweet smoke!
I have become a prisoner of that which reeks.
The blood vessels pulse
But do not pump, just smolder
With the hearsay haze of the leaf.
You don’t have to make ale available.
You don’t have to offer me wine.

III

My bitterness incenses.
I am my own worst convict,
Arrested in growth
By the smoke, by the leaf.
Chattered charm
Rises from the edge of its burn.
The father who beat out the flame
Ceases to boil over in passionate pimples.
Insults, spit while walking the street
In search of younger feet, leave
In favor of smoke. Sweet smoke!

IV

Suck in. Gasp. Pant out.
Suck in. Gasp. Pant out.
My thoughts race towards nothing.
They smile. They laugh.
I hear a baglama’s string
Plucked like the flower’s head:
Bald father of all its petals which grew
Into leaves. Sweet leaves,
From whose smoke I coat
My lungs in social lubricant
With the branded medicine of “Forgetfulness.”