POEM: Nea/il
Despite allowing a new cold to slowly strip me of my voice and attention span (not this week, God please), I was at First Draft Open Mic last night. The emergency venue - Kick Start - is cool, and the staff is REAL cool. I'm "Hot Chocolate Guy".
I didn't have anything new to read. I just wanted to zone out to the show (Patrick Russel's feature was extremely solid. I can tell he's a pressure writer, like me). Besides being slapped and heckling a little, I didn't have much to offer.
But Ed brought his son Neal (sp. Neil? I'm going to use both here until Ed corrects me) and that kid always gets my attention.
Neal is autistic, and it manifests in a way that I find fascinating. Ed would obviously have more insight into all the ways that Neil interacts with the world around him (while not seeming to at all, which is simply not true), but when I've seen him he always looks like he's riding an invisible motorcycle. He makes a quick clicking sound with his tongue, like he's trying to roll a Spainsh "r" that never ends, and sometimes he has his arms straight out, like he's riding something, and occasionaly he'll "rev the engine" by twisting his left hand up and down. I don't think he's thinking" motorcycle" or "bike", but then, none of us knows what he's thinking. But it's something.
So I ended up writing this poem about Neil while sittingthere. When I went up, I announced that this poem was for Ed. Based on audience reaction, I think people thought I was going to do a race war poem. I am, in fact, working on one, but that wasn't what I did.
This is what I did:
Nea/il
Neal doesn't speak, but he does.
He rides a third rail no one else saw
when they came in.
He rides it like a tricycle.
It would electrocute anyone else.
We all still want to ride.
He speaks; we just
don't know the language.
It is a playing card in the spokes
of a bike I used to have,
but lost, but found,
but never ride anymore.
So Neil stole mybike,
but really: he rides it
better than I ever did.
I didn't have anything new to read. I just wanted to zone out to the show (Patrick Russel's feature was extremely solid. I can tell he's a pressure writer, like me). Besides being slapped and heckling a little, I didn't have much to offer.
But Ed brought his son Neal (sp. Neil? I'm going to use both here until Ed corrects me) and that kid always gets my attention.
Neal is autistic, and it manifests in a way that I find fascinating. Ed would obviously have more insight into all the ways that Neil interacts with the world around him (while not seeming to at all, which is simply not true), but when I've seen him he always looks like he's riding an invisible motorcycle. He makes a quick clicking sound with his tongue, like he's trying to roll a Spainsh "r" that never ends, and sometimes he has his arms straight out, like he's riding something, and occasionaly he'll "rev the engine" by twisting his left hand up and down. I don't think he's thinking" motorcycle" or "bike", but then, none of us knows what he's thinking. But it's something.
So I ended up writing this poem about Neil while sittingthere. When I went up, I announced that this poem was for Ed. Based on audience reaction, I think people thought I was going to do a race war poem. I am, in fact, working on one, but that wasn't what I did.
This is what I did:
Nea/il
Neal doesn't speak, but he does.
He rides a third rail no one else saw
when they came in.
He rides it like a tricycle.
It would electrocute anyone else.
We all still want to ride.
He speaks; we just
don't know the language.
It is a playing card in the spokes
of a bike I used to have,
but lost, but found,
but never ride anymore.
So Neil stole mybike,
but really: he rides it
better than I ever did.