Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Jitterboy


Jitterboy lives in the darkest preserves of our
neural reserves, the fraught slave of impulses
without which we never would tremble or twitch
out of terror or rage or whatever intractable
verve must ignite in our nerves what incites
us to nth degree stages of feeling, emotional
volumes and realms, all attempting to hold back
the murderous sting of that moment’s most feared
and/or yearned-for last thing. Jitterboy’s there
to forsake all resistance: push past so the blast
overwhelms, and we’re sapped of all agency:

now we can’t opt for calm, because Jitterboy’s
lunged into us like a bomb, and shattered all
prospects but meltdown. If this makes him
sound like a sadist, a monster, a dark clown
from hell – well, I just stole a glimpse of him
trembling before me – nothing reached out
to me more than his tacit appeal for release:
for some peace: for some other recourse than
what he’d been enforced to induce: only possible
truce was with death. He shivered there, wide
eyes entreating, all jittery rapid soft breath.



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