Banana Fever

Craig Kirchner

              And I can’t be running back and forth forever,

                    between grief and high delight.

                           — J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

To empathize without restraint

is strangely suicidal -

you rambling fools content

to write yourselves another Bible

have traveled long to Magdalene,

to drink the never-ending,

but you’ll be delayed in yards,

to wait for merchants ever-spending.

Here to sit and grit the worst,

of epitaphs and clichés -

It’s all been said.  Pass the pipe.

Would you buy a crab from me, please?

Then as sure as Galilee’s whore

they’ll want to know the reason,

why one so young and atrophied,

should tamper with such treasons.

You’ll reply with tongue of fire,

that there are things along the way

one must get straight before the flood,

before the Day of Days.

Your forehead gnaws,

you raise yourself,

you rush into the street -

a woman passing by in rags,

flashes attention to your feet.

Wash not these feet with your hair of straw,

I’ll need them along the way.

  You poets are all alike somehow-

trying to die for love or hate,

but your pompous ass will die in vain,

they’ll carry you to your grave,

they’ll mumble words and epitaphs,

that you’ll know are just more clichés.

Her cup of angst will outlast love,

though gorged to the brim with flesh -

you’ll reply to the rest of the group,

that your exit is clear of regret,

you’ll brace yourself with dove at temple,

scream as if for rain,

To die for death, now there’s a fate!

‘It’s all been’ said can’t touch or name.

Craig Kirchner is retired and thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves storytelling and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. He has had two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems in a folder on a laptop. These words tend to keep him straight. After a writing hiatus he was recently published in Poetry Quarterly, Decadent Review, New World Writing, WordSwell, , 7^th Circle Pyrite, Ariel Chart, Blotter, Bombfire, Borderless Crossings, Cape Magazine, Carolina Muse, , Coneflower Café, Edge of Humanity, Fairfield Scribe, Fixator, Flora Fiction, Floyd County, Gas, Ginosko, Globe Review, Hamilton Stone Review, Impspired, Ink in Thirds, Journal of Expressive Writing, Kleksograph, Last Leaves, Last Stanza, Light Ekphrastic, Lit Shark, Literary Heist, Literary Yard, Loud Coffee, Medusa’s Kitchen, Moria, Neologism, Poetry Super Highway, Punk Monk, Quail Bell, Same Faces, Scab, Skinny, Spillwords, Scars. Sybil, The Argyle, The Lake, Timada’s Diary, Unbroken, Unlikely Stories, Valiant Scribe, Variety Pack, Versification, Wild Violet, Wise Owl, The Good Men, Witcraft, Lothlorien, Yellow Mama, Young Ravens, Arlington Literary, Glacial Hills Review, Your Impossible Voice and work forthcoming at Poetry Breakfast, Muse India, Writers Resist, Rushing thru the Dark, Sparks of Calliope, Stereo Stories, Floyd County, Dark Winter, Gargoyle Magazine, Vine Leaf Press, Abstract, Chiron Review, Coffee and Conversation, and The Main Street Rag.