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Pinocchio As An Old Man

from Kill Starlings by Christian Drake

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lyrics

Pinocchio As An Old Man

If I could make my wish again,
I would have liked
to have been a tree instead.

When the fairy asked me,
half boy and half pine,
to choose between blood and wood,
no one knows I hesitated,
and chose mostly for the old man's sake.
He had worked so hard to carve me
out of the gnarled heartwood
into a doll in the shape of a son,
and I wanted so badly to please him.
Love was an irresistible unknown then.
My true mother cast me down a hill
as a seed cone, and I was not born
until after the forest fire.

So when the fairy asked me to choose,
I told her I wanted to be a real boy,
and my nose did not grow one inch,
though a termite chomped at my heart.

It has been a good life, by anyone's measure.
The old man taught me carpentry,
how to shear wood into a violin, or a toy ballerina,
or a crucifix, but I never showed a talent for it.
My hands were unsteady.

After he died, I joined the navy
to be as far as possible from forests
and the incessant crickets that kept me up nights.
But the ship's timbers told me war stories at sea
in a haunted baritone, and the mast waved slowly
and steadily as a pine in the strong wind.
The other sailors laughed at my stammering horror
whenever we passed a pod of whales.

After that, I became a lawyer, and was very good at it.
I took a wife, and had children we named after saints.
I know pain, and the pleasure of soft flesh.
Grandchildren try to climb me,
play hide-and-seek around my legs,
and this makes me happy.

But the termite is still in my heart, fat and relentless,
its jaws sticky with blood and resin.
It is still my habit to sit in my rocking chair
in the sun, letting the wind pass through my splayed fingers,
and listening to the soft rattle of maple leaves,
the pines rubbing their trunks together like cello necks.
Rheumatism creaks in my axe-handle bones now,
and I still dream about my ship's bare-breasted masthead,
and my wife complains about my dirt-caked toenails
after I've taken my coffee in the garden
and dug my knotty toes into the topsoil,
tightly as a fist's grip.
I wonder if I was ever made for adventuring,
rather than staying in one place
and simply praising the sun.

Blue star, grant me one more wish.
When they bury me,
don't let them put me in a wooden coffin.
Plant a sapling as my headstone
where its roots can reach my blood.
A pear, perhaps. Something I can offer
my great-grandchildren
who steal them from my branches
and fall asleep in my shade
as I whisper, Hush,

Husssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh.

credits

from Kill Starlings, released January 26, 2012

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Christian Drake Dhaka Division, Bangladesh

Christian Drake is a six-time National Poetry Slam team member and has performed on three National Poetry Slam Finals stages. Originally from New England, he bas been a host of popular slams, poetry shows and burlesques in San Francisco, CA and Albuquerque, NM. He's best known for his often loud, erotic, and political nature poetry. He currently a science teacher in the New England wilderness. ... more

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