Little Dave “Argue” 1997

a creative madness soaks my conscience
pulsing emotion wets me up
i panic with the breaking of the news
i unsuccessfully reach back in time to grab the facts
an attempt to change them
a pathetic, bleeding hope to remove them
to reform my eternal reality

I WANT FOR IT TO BE A LIE
I WANT FOR IT TO BE UNTRUE
I WANT FOR IT TO BE FALSE

but it’s not
any of those things

inside my body
my blood slows and warms
almost as if i’ve been pumped with drugs
like him
there’s suddenly no weight on my neck and shoulders
and so i disappear into blackness
but i can not hide
he’s dead there too

er-poem1i witness the punctured flesh that lines his skeleton
and the bulging blood shot eyes
i hold his ashed fingers that once held a camera or a spray paint can
he wears the clothes that are still in style back home
but not in the ground
not in the grave
and so i lie down too

I WANT FOR IT TO BE ME
I WANT TO GO ALSO
I WANT TO FADE AWAY

but i can not
i awake again

only to remember what i saw
and my perception of twenty years shifts
i no longer believe those years are filled with life
cause if they were why would they end in tragedy?
gunshots straight to the heart
plunging pins into the skins of those we knew as “the innocent”
self-inflicted murder

suicide
homicide
genocide
all in the first twenty years?

how is there such a thing as a beginning
when recently life has become automatic death?
how do you breathe when start turns into finish
and 1 winds up being 100
and on instantly becomes OFF?

do we still open our eyes in the morning?
is there still morning somewhere?
or is night forever arise?

black skies
navy oceans

i’m so aware of the horror approaching
i’m waiting patiently for my name to be called
for it’s already engulfed the world i live in
it’s taken so many parts of me
and yet i am such a part of it
i am involved and invoked and participating

it’s the nightmares at night that creep
and it’s the memory of his ashed hand that

I WANT TO CONTROL
I WANT TO CHANGE
I WANT TO RECREATE

let me minus his pain and subtract his illness
let me diminish his addiction and absolve his guilt

cause in a place where clouds march and angels sing
where children laugh and sun beams

there is a creative madness soaking his conscience
and he’s painting a picture of what could have been.

Photo Credit: © Elizabeth Regen All Rights Reserved

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Elizabeth Regen lives in Los Angeles but is a 3rd generation Manhattanite, hailing from NY, NY. Elizabeth is a mom of two girls, ages 13 and 4. She's been married for over 10 yrs. to her hard working husband. She is an actor and a writer and believes in finding creative ways to empower women and young people.

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