![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 7 of 7. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Atticus on August 28, 2004, at 21:11:59
Cocoa Pebbles Madness, 1989
First bolt of purple-white spinal lightning
Crackles up my vertebrae
From the small of my back
To the place where my skull
Screws onto my neck,
And I feel its luscious,
Mind-frying electrical vitality
Scorching across
The crenulations of my brain
Like a sustained Muddy Waters high-note,
Crunchy and lusty and soulful and blue,
Setting my whole essence
Vibrating in sync
With the strings
Singing beautiful screams
Along the neck
Of his guitar.And I thank
Great God Almighty
That I had the foresight
To eat not one
But two bowls
Of the high-octane
Mental propane
Take the A Train
Breakfast cereal,
Because now
I’m tripping
In the grip
Of
Cocoa Pebbles Madness,
And there ain’t no cure for that
But getting
Cerebellum meltingly
Funky
With everyone I meet
Until the 800 pounds
Of sugar
I’ve just pumped into my body
Flames out like the Hindenberg,
Sending me crashing
To the ground
As blissed-out wreckage,
A smoky smile,
A cooling super nova
Of incandescent
Neon that sputters,
Sparks,
Flutters,
Then winks out.I slip from the breakfast table
As my girlfriend, Alyssa,
Looks on,
Crunching her Cheerios,
Her long blonde hair
Looking wild and tangled and dazzling
And arousing
As it tumbles to the shoulders
Of her robe
In the morning sunshine
Slicing through
The metal slats
Of the fire escape
Outside the window.
Her bright blue eyes,
Mirrors of my own,
Reflect an attitude
Of lassitude,
Flash her trés groovy
Preternatural serenity.
She’s unmindful of
The demon chile
That Post Cereals
Has just dropped
Into her lap.I pop a Hendrix CD
Into the boombox,
Cue it to “Funky Lady,”
And with the first
Aural adrenaline rush
Sizzling from the speakers,
Smile as I prowl
Toward her
And quote Jimi
As he wolfishly intones,
“Here I come.
I’m comin’
Ta
Git’cha.”She puts down her spoon,
Her expression now
All bedroom eyes
And mischief.
“Why, thet’s not very
Suth-ehn of you,” she purrs,
Exaggerating her soft accent and
Mocking something
That her mother,
Who hails
From Richmond,
Once said of me.I’d gone
To meet Alyssa
And her folks
For lunch
At the Plaza,
In the over-gilded
Over-priced
Over-the-top
King George Room,
And when I stalked in,
Resplendent
In my ratty
Black leather Buffalo
Motorcycle jacket,
Steel-toed Harley-Davidson boots,
Oil-paint bedecked jeans
And a Butthole Surfers t-shirt,
All topped with my usual
Crown of spiked hair,
Alyssa told me her mother
Had said in a shocked
And displeased aside,
“That’s not very
Southern of him,”
And Alyssa had burst out laughing
As Tara found itself
Cheek by jowl
With the punk couture
Of CBGB.“Why suh,” Alyssa giggles,
Slipping off her robe
And sitting naked
On her chair.
“Ah do hope youh
Intentions are …
Honorable.”
I scoop her up by the waist
And we tumble over the back
Of the threadbare couch,
Landing in a tangle of flesh
On the mismatched cushions.
She runs her fingernails down my side,
Peeling back my own robe
In the process.
“Now see heah,” she begins in mock protest,
But I slide my fingers
Ever so lightly
Along her left jawline
And cup my lips to hers
Before moving to her neck.
“Scarlett,” I say,
“You surely do strike me
As a woman
Who needs ticklin’,”
And I gently slide my
Mouth to the nape of a neck
That would make
The most graceful swan
Weep with envy
At its beauty,
Kissing it softly
Again and again
Until
She squeals as I hit
The killer spot
Just above her shoulders
And run my tongue
Along it
Ever so lightly.After five minutes
Of shrieks,
Punctuated by staccato eruptions
Of red-faced laughter,
She gasps, “OK, Boo, Stop.
I mean it. I can’t, I can’t –”
But the sentence remains
Forever incomplete
As I move in
To finish her off,
Diving
For the place,
The place that only
I know about,
Just above and slightly back
From her right hipbone,
Grazing it lightly
With my teeth
And sending her back arching.
She snatches my hair
And whispers,
“Ah have always
Counted
On the kindness
Of strangers.”
I answer
In my best Brooklynese,
“You come to da
Right place, lady,”
And the afternoon
Passes
In bouts of lovemaking,
Until the room
Begins to darken.In the hallway outside,
My Batman t-shirt
Dangles from the doorknob,
A pre-arranged signal
Between me
And my apartment-mate,
Acid-Addled Walter,
That we call
The Bat Signal,
Only this one
Is anything
But
A distress call,
And I wonder,
For a moment,
How many times today
He’s trudged up the stairs
To our flat,
Then cursed
When he saw
That the damned thing
Was still there.I get up,
Light a Marlboro,
Then snatch up a coffee mug
From the table
And set it on the arm
Of the couch
To use as an ashtray
Before leaning back against
Alyssa’s enveloping warmth.
She wraps
Her arms around me,
I exhale,
Flick a few spent cinders
Into the cup,
And she says,
“Tell me about Temple.”I’d figured
This conversation
Would arrive
Sooner or later,
So we shift positions,
And I roll
Onto my back,
Pulling her
On top of me.
She fidgets with
A strand of her hair,
Then suddenly tickles
My nose with it.
I twist my head to the side.
“Jesus, stop – ” I manage
Before letting out
A hellacious sneeze.
She lowers her head
To kiss me,
And I hand her the cigarette butt
So she can toss it into the mug
Perched out of sight
Behind my head.“No need for torture,” I grin.
“What do you want to know?”
She rests her chin on my chest,
And says nothing,
Rolling her next words
Over in her mind.
I’m pretty sure
What they’re going to be.
I take her head in both my hands
And touch my forehead to hers,
Our eyes centimeters apart.
“We dated in high school, Wyssie,” I say,
Using her childhood nickname.
“It ended when high school did,
Maybe
Even before that.”But that’s not the real question
She wants answered,
And I understand
That Alyssa needs to peeled
Delicately,
Each translucent emotional layer
Of onion-skin
Removed with infinite care
Infinite patience
Infinite reassurance
Because of all the protective shields
That fly up
In an instant
If she feels threatened
Or frightened
Or rejected,
A freight train
Worth of baggage
Loaded piece
By piece
As she grew up
With the fear and uncertainty
Generated
By having a manic-depressive mother,
Whose mercurial moods
Rolled in like flash floods
And tornadoes
And hurricanes.“Did you love her?” Alyssa asks,
And I answer honestly, “Yes.”
“Do you love her?” she adds,
And we finally reach the onion’s core.
“She’s a good friend, Wyssie,
I love her as a friend. But –”
And her eyes darken
At what may follow this word,
Because I know that,
As always,
She’s assuming the worst,
That she’s less attractive
Less desirable
Less of a woman.
“But,” I continue, “Even
When I loved her most,
It wasn’t even close
To how much I love you.”
Her eyes moisten,
As if she just can’t believe
Anyone would feel
The way I do
About her.
“Really?” She asks.
“Really really,” I say,
Tilting my head upward
To kiss away the single tear
Moving down her left cheek.I touch my fingertips
To the edges
Of her mouth,
Gently pushing
Them upward
Until she breaks
Into a real smile.
I think about how
I acquired the nickname “Boo,”
Something only she calls me,
And smile back.As I approached
The table in the Plaza
Where she and her mother and father
Were seated,
Her parents’ faces
Frozen in rictus grins,
Alyssa said, with a puckish smile,
“Mother, Daddy, I’d like you to meet
Mister Arthur Radley,”
Pausing
Before adding casually,
“But you can call him ‘Boo.’”
I began to laugh,
And her parents
Hated everything,
Everything,
About me
Instantly,
Clearly
Ruing the day
They let their teenaged
Daughter
Leave Virginia and
Attend a university
On the not-at-all-genteel
Island of Manhattan,
Where she could freely
Mix with riffraff
And lowlifes
Like me.
They wanted
Ashley Wilkes
And they got
Joey Ramone.And Alyssa didn’t care
What they thought,
She didn’t care
One damn bit.
Not because
She was rebellious,
But because,
I realized in that instant,
She loved me enough
To put up
With whatever grief
Our relationship
Would bring down
Upon her head
From the mother
She both wanted to love
And yet feared
So much.“I love you, too, Boo,” Alyssa
Whispers in my ear.
She lazily rolls
Her head to the right,
Noticing for the first time,
That the streetlights are all on
Outside the apartment window,
Their distant glow
Reaching up
Like the embrace
Of a phantom.
“Oh my God, Walter’s
Been locked out all day,”
She says. “He must be
So pissed off.”
I stroke her hair,
Starting at the top
Of her head and
Running my hand
All the way
To her shoulder.
“He’ll live,” I answer.
“Feel like some Cocoa Pebbles?”“I don’t think so, Mr. Radley,” she says.
“I think I’m cuttin’ you off. They make
You a bit too frisky
For a fine Southern lady
Like myself.”
So we slip
Into our jeans
And t-shirts
And grab some Chinese takeout,
Sharing it with Acid-Addled Walter
When we return
To the apartment
And find him fuming.
“I guess you two’ll want
The bedroom to yourselves tonight,”
He mutters.
“You guess right,” I say, grasping
A shrimp with my chopsticks.
“So how’d you spend the day?” I ask.
“Got high with Tim,
Then hit the library downtown,”
He shrugs.
“Another productive Saturday.”Alyssa and I lie on my narrow bunk bed,
Our bodies pressed close
Both out of necessity
And out of want.
The last
Of the sugar
From the Cocoa Pebbles
Has finally
Been metabolized,
And our breathing
Becomes synchronized
As we both float,
Without a care,
Like autumn leaves,
Gilded silver
By moonlight,
Drifting
Down,
Down the river
Of night’s dreaming.
-- Atticus
Posted by malthus on August 28, 2004, at 22:17:11
In reply to poem ... Cocoa Pebbles Madness, 1989, posted by Atticus on August 28, 2004, at 21:11:59
Hi Atticus:
This poem is blissful. Although I am a bit cynical about love that ends unhappily, I do believe it can leave us liberated, more deeply insightful, and transformed.
The following line
"Mouth to the nape of a neck
That would make
The most graceful swan
Weep with envy
At its beauty,..."chokes me up and I'm really not sure why. I have a theory and it's that I feel certain nobody has ever loved me so well.
When I write about Sean I feel a release of some sort, sometimes sad, sometimes redeemed, and sometimes powerful. You said in an earlier post that you were not sure you were ready to write about Alyssa but now that you have, how do you feel?
malthus
Posted by Jai Narayan on August 29, 2004, at 7:35:35
In reply to poem ... Cocoa Pebbles Madness, 1989, posted by Atticus on August 28, 2004, at 21:11:59
Okay I can see why you love Alyssa so much.
Lovely, delightful, scary, delicate relationship. She sounds lovely looking.
the energy between the two of you is hushed, sweet, trembling...insecure.
Why are the most delicate of relationships the very ones that we hunger after.I will probably remember till my death, a day laying in bed with my first love. The languid fluid feel of my body after being loved so well.
Ya know, you're real good at writing....
I knew you were going to say Boo Radley...
you are so in "To Kill A Mockingbird".
Did you use some of the language in this poem from the book?What did this writing do to you? Are you all right?
Atticus do you remember the first time you saw her?
Have you written a poem about that first moment?As always thank you for this glimps into your life. This poem is like a luna moth...large and beautiful with dusted wings it floats into my mind.
Jai Narayan
Posted by Atticus on August 29, 2004, at 7:57:21
In reply to Re: poem ... Cocoa Pebbles Madness, 1989 » Atticus, posted by malthus on August 28, 2004, at 22:17:11
Hi Malthus,
I have to admit, I approached writing about Alyssa with a huge amount of trepidation, even though she's been heretofore the (mostly) unseen sun around which most of my previous poems revolved, caught in her overpowering gravitational field. So I focused on one day very early on in our relationship, when the passion and emotions were just off the scale, and all we could do was think about each other, and all we wanted in the whole world was to be together. And now that I've gone to that place and written about it, I feel really, really good. It's as if the block of ice around my heart since 1998 has cracked wide open and finally, finally, is showing the first signs of melting. It's as if I've given myself permission to start sorting all the wonderful memories from the debris field of the break-up, and I'm at long last able to begin the process of reclaiming many of the happiest days of my entire life -- days which I've cut myself off from for six long years now (seems more like 60 years). Composing this poem just turned out to be incredibly liberating. And by the way, it's true about the Cocoa Pebbles; if you're ever down, that stuff'll blow the lid off your skull and give you the most intense sugar rush you're ever likely to experience. And that rush is, of course, a metaphor for what it feels like when you first fall deeply in love. I wouldn't fret about anyone ever loving you as much as I did (and still do, albeit from a distance) Alyssa. You never know who's waiting around the corner. Honest. You might've even passed him on the streets of Philly yesterday. :) Atticus
Posted by Atticus on August 29, 2004, at 8:27:16
In reply to Re: poem ... Cocoa Pebbles Madness, 1989, posted by Jai Narayan on August 29, 2004, at 7:35:35
Hi Jai,
I've actually still got a warm, fuzzy feeling from writing this poem. I deliberately chose a day from early on in the relationship, when we were just head-over-heels over-the-moon crazy-mad in love, and in love with the idea of being so much in love. And the effect on me has been as dramatic psychologically as the Effexor XR has been pharmocologically. As I wrote to Malthus, I just feel like I've finally given myself permission to begin reclaiming and treasuring many of the most mind-bendingly rapturous, transcendently joyous times of my life. I've spent six years looking at my relationship with Alyssa through openings in the charred wreckage of the divorce and the dark days that proceeded it. But writing this poem just somehow vaulted me over all that, and I feel wonderful this morning, wonderful. I have ideas for three more purely Alyssa poems already, and a fourth where I meet Pez for the first time and Pez teases me about some of the things she's heard about me from Alyssa. And yes, I remember every detail about the first time I say Alyssa. It was on Sept. 30, 1989, at a party for the staff of the university newspaper held at the apartment of a student reporter named Nancy. Alyssa was my editor's roommate. (And yes, one of the poems is going to be about that party and our first encounter.)
I didn't borrow any of the language from "To Kill a Mockingbird" in this poem. However, she really did call me "Boo" almost the whole time we were together. That's the first real name (or real nickname), rather than a pseudonym, that I've used in any of these poems. It really helps me put my head back in that happy time and place. :) Atticus, who is feelin' pretty groovy this morning
Posted by malthus on August 29, 2004, at 10:01:39
In reply to Re: poem ... Cocoa Pebbles Madness, 1989 » Atticus, posted by malthus on August 28, 2004, at 22:17:11
I'm really happy for you that you feel so good after writing about Alyssa. Your poem about her exhibits absolutely no rancor towards her and I wonder if the reason for this is because you have let it stay in that part of your heart that no one else can touch.
I know from reading your posts to Jai that you seem to take on much of the responsibility for the relationship ending due to your deteriorating psychological state at the time. I wonder if you are being too hard on yourself?
The reason I ask is that I saw a film last night called "Dopamine" (there's a good review of it at imdb dot com.) In the film, as a subplot, the protagonist's father is giving him all this advice about love. However it is contrary to the father's own experience of being wildly in love which lasts for his entire relationship until his wife gets Alzheimer's (very different from depression I realize.) I don't want to give too much of the rest of the film away if you see it, but if you do will you tell me what you think?malthus with a smile on his sad puppy face because Atticus is well
Posted by malthus on August 29, 2004, at 10:05:34
In reply to Re: poem ... Cocoa Pebbles Madness, 1989 » malthus, posted by Atticus on August 29, 2004, at 7:57:21
POSTING THIS WITH THE PREVIOUS POSTER'S NAME IN THE SUBJECT LINE IS DRIVING ME CRAZY :-OI'm really happy for you that you feel so good after writing about Alyssa. Your poem about her exhibits absolutely no rancor towards her and I wonder if the reason for this is because you have let it stay in that part of your heart that no one else can touch.
I know from reading your posts to Jai that you seem to take on much of the responsibility for the relationship ending due to your deteriorating psychological state at the time. I wonder if you are being too hard on yourself?
The reason I ask is that I saw a film last night called "Dopamine" (there's a good review of it at imdb dot com.) In the film, as a subplot, the protagonist's father is giving him all this advice about love. However it is contrary to the father's own experience of being wildly in love which lasts for his entire relationship until his wife gets Alzheimer's (very different from depression I realize.) I don't want to give too much of the rest of the film away if you see it, but if you do will you tell me what you think?malthus with a smile on his sad puppy face because Atticus is well
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Writing | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.