THE HOLLYWOOD RAGE PAGE

This Can’t Possibly Be My Hand Written by David Steven Simon  This can’t possibly be my hand. My hand is the tiny one That tried to weave the infinity of moonlight Into something tangible from the launching pad of a white wicker cradle My hand is the toddler one That was suffocated by a grown-up’s bigger one As we darted across The vast, black tar prairie of Jamaica Avenue In the middle of a car stampede. My hand is the kindergarten one that finger painted like Pollock Cranked a toy ukulele as if I only had minutes to live Gave life to puppets Clicked Bic pens like they were mini castanets Twirled the TV channel knob like a safecracker And tried to pin the tail on the donkey  who had suffered the tragic loss of his own My hand is the adolescent one That longed to touch the warm muffin breast of a willing girl Who would dance with me In the shadows of a school dance As my middle school manhood trembled and throbbed Like the front row of an Elvis concert. My hand is the young man’s one W

Distant love can feel so close and close love can feel so distant depending on what the commute is. I could say the same thing about memories With eyes closed but open for Dreaming Season I can feel the warm skin And inhale the ambrosial fragrance of the invisible  which sways like in the hammock of my arms as the choir of my heart sings a good-night song like Tender Shepherd which began with the question “Can anything harm us mommy after the night lights are lit?” to which mother responded  “Nothing precious. They are the eyes that a mother leaves behind to guard her children.” And then the disciples of Neverland took flight to reach whatever in life felt scary unreachable  or far far away

The living   experience loss but so do the recently dead  as they watch us grow smaller and smaller In the rearview mirror of their heaven-bound coffins feeling as forsaken as the sad-eyed man who,  after dropping off his baby at  the faraway college, had to pull off the road to cry in the confessional booth of a Circle K bathroom as gas pumps rang like slot machines Sinatra sang What’ll I Do in a nearby jukebox and an old soldier waltzed with an armful of air in the trenches of a VFW hall as the daddy heart Of the sad-eyed man emptied every memory that it could no longer hold onto the bone cracked mosaics of a just-mopped floor feeling no doubt like the departed who do not know any more than we do how to say goodbye.