Jack McCarthy Gets Up (with apologies to Leo Kottke)
by Lea C. Deschenes
Every day in the morning we get up and we crawl
out of bed and we crawl out of bed and we crawl
out of bed, trying to make today a slightly better self
to parade before screens and pens and paper—
our litany of foibles hung like mobile astronomy
with the stars hanging still, phosphorescent paint
hurled up at the ceiling with a fraying brush
outlining our B-movie graveyard monsters.
Every day in the morning we get up and we crawl
from primordial ooze toward coffee and breakfast
like Dawn of the Dead coming home from the mall
in pancake blue with our ripped skins spilling
curdled casein ink and imagery bitter as burnt espresso…
better latte than never…speaking of our lives like they matter
to anyone but creditors bursting through the walls.
Every day in the morning we get up and we crawl
from embracing flannel sheets with the rags of our dreams,
our pointed bowers of twigs and nails with our heads on backwards
like twist-tied windchimes making pretty tinkling noises—
facing the pillow like a mirror—grabbing our ears two-handed
in a loud salute of ungainly pops to reorient face-forward,
stiff and stubborn—asking for aspirin before we look
to the running text beneath the anchor of CNN.
Every day in the morning we get up and we shuffle like Yeats
toward Bethlehem doing a lively jig, playing sprightly fiddle tunes
to distract us from the scorch all around—the carbonous, volatile air
licking our legs like dogs, nosing the firmness of our flesh before
closing in for a bear-trap bite—checking the doneness of the meat.
We wonder why the hell we got up at all today,
and then we remember Jack.
If fortune excludes you from standing in the eye of the storm,
where the wind whips round like a tetherball chain—
The pole’s name is Jack: sunk in deep and steady as she goes.
He’ll say, “I stumbled in here when I went out for a beer
and thought better of it. Who knows where I’ll end up tomorrow?”
He’ll pat you on the head and he’ll hand you a map of the stars
that make sense of Mercator—everything flat but in scale
to the frazzled edge of its end-heavy lean.
If SETI ever makes it to the ending of its mission,
aliens will pour out of their spaceships. They will surely say,
“Where’s Jack McCarthy at? We’d like to shake his hand
with a ready appendage.” or maybe they’ll just applaud
in standing ovation, passing the planet by for demolition
waiting to see what he’ll take on next, knowing they’ll laugh
like when they were wee spider-things out on the Horsehead Nebula
and cry like their first moulting.
Anyone who can make a room full of Red Sox hopefuls
on the eve of potential World Series mourn Bill Buckner
like the relative they never knew who left them a box
full of rare records worth millions to collectors
must surely have a reservation at the best buffet table in heaven
with a gilded namecard and a footrest stool set up for his ease
or maybe a lawn chair mated with a swan to make him feel at home.
We get up in the morning and we crawl through our nonchalance
in the face of every botched attempt to clear hurdles without tripping,
the failure in us all listing impossibilities like perpetual motion
or positive change or getting a decent cup of coffee to shepherd us
toward sentience at the reading—cracking under the sincerity of
“shh…beloved…” Jack’s whisper sinking like a bedtime prayer
we believed wholeheartedly for the fragile instant before waking.
The word I’m searching for is “hope,” diction often buried six-feet
by potential risk and sprinkled dirt and flowery metaphors
clawing for attention like zombies going after brains.
Hope is a pretty zombie that never drops a toe—bandied about
like a blue rubber ball we beat back with a paddle,
breaking windows without ever making the catch.
And these abstracts we wear as close to our skin as sweat,
stinking up the room, chasing them down with shotguns—
they say you need to get Death right between the eyes
before it’s down for the count, Love dragging its high heels
in a straight-legged gait, reaching for your brains to eat them whole,
while Hope takes out your favorite crystal pitcher bouncing
from the stars hung on the ceiling, stillborn.
Jack gets up behind the mike like the friendliest scarecrow,
as harmless as a hamster and twice as fuzzy,
bearing unabashed tears and unbridled sentiment
more genuine than our lowest grumblings, setting a high bar
for our Calaveras jumping by letting the heart whine
until it’s indulgent and then rolling up the newspaper,
beating back the dogs still sniffing at our legs
like a buffet in heaven crashed by some canine militia.
When we fall on our face, he clucks his tongue
and dresses skinned knees with his mild-mannered gaze
and his Clark Kent shirt and his kindliest, “Hmmm…”
…but the aliens are going to ask us where he is and what
we’ve done and who let these dogs in? …If they ever get here
to build that highway and have to decide if we’re worth
taking one more exit to the mobile on the ceiling with still stars—
so get your ass out of bed and jump a little higher with a running start.
We bring our best gifts when he’s in town—eager to show
our crayon-scrawling, kindergarten finest moments
polished like river stones—common and layered beauty
flung with a fraying brush at the phosphorescent bedroom sky.
We hang crude pictures up for show, for a nod—
a line-up of gold sticker children—and the knowledge
that someone, tonight, is paying attention.
Jack gets up from his chair after making note of
each sparrow-fall leap over wrinkles in the rug
and the dust on the floor we forgot to sweep because
we were too busy chasing coffee like the living dead
and facing the pillow like a mirror or a B-movie graveyard
ready to erupt and eat our brains like Love.
We toe the microphone mark, getting ready to run
and leap and fall and run and leap and fall and run
and leap and fall until we sleep and get up in the morning
and we crawl out of bed and we crawl out of bed and we crawl
out of bed trying to do justice to the rubber-ball spring
in our step.