ChadMay dot Com

I had a female friend in my early 20’s who was eccentric and attractive in a geeky kind of way. I like to sit and listen to her speak in a kind of melodic meditation of what her life was like. And I would rub her feet, so to stay connected with her. And in a few moments, one night, it felt a little bit sexual, but only for a brief instant, and then the sexual component would disappear. Obviously, we weren’t drinking 🙂 So, um, I was both happy for the experience, but aware that I wanted so much more than a “hang out” buddy. It seemed that the only way I could relate to her, and garner her company, was to be this attentive, giving male. But that’s not so bad, is it?

Use me
As a honeybee does a flower
Walk upon my soft petals
with prickly limbs
collecting sweet nectar
along the way.
And
when you’ve had your fill,
and all you can stand,
while you still can,fly away
go forth,
vivify others

Again, in 1993, I think Amy Holte was the inspiration for this one:

Avoid my chaos and fuck me not!
For with many contradictions I am fraught…
Whatever you give,
You will certainly lose,
Pity me so,
I love while I use.

I think this is my own harshest internal criticism in writing. Or at least I hope that’s all it is/was. I knew that I was needy. But what to do? You can’t make yourself unneedy. And just like “not drinking” doesn’t cure the alcoholic… abstinance from affection doesn’t… well, you know.

– Chad

Actually, it was a haiku.

I was in the sixth grade. My teacher (wish I could remember her name) gave us an assignment: Write a haiku.

So, I searched my soul. I was being a rather melancholic little kid at that time. I think this was after I had finally successfully shot something with my pellet rifle. Please understand, that I shot many things with my pellet rifle. And I never hit anything, until a little bird fell into the water, lifeless and dead. I went to pick him up, then realized that he was actually d-e-a-d. And I started to cry, and felt awful about what I had done. I held him in my stiff gloves, and carried his limp body back to the shore, and left it there. I realized my mistake.

So, I wrote:
Be a meadowlark
ever so humble
then, die
your soul to crumble

I remember the perplexed look my teacher had. She showed the poem to my mother, to see if “everything was alright” back at home. Well, it wasn’t. But dead birds were the least of our problems.
In 1979, at Scales Elementary in Brentwood TN, there weren’t any precocious kids other than myself.

– Chad

I am putty in the hands of a sensuous woman…
And how do I know this?
Because I’ve filled-in the crack,
between the window and the wall,
That separates someone’s insides,
from their outsides.

This I wrote in 1993, while trying to be honest with myself about the way Nora affected me. Nora Farmer. Hi Nora, if you ever read this.
She is a Scorpio, too. And a very beautiful, exotic, sexy one at that.

– Chad

Writing poetry was a big breakthrough for me. Somehow, it was healing. During the months when I did most of my writing, and I’ve not written much, I felt like I finally accepted who I am, via my ability to *say* who I am.

And, hey, it is a little like mental masturbation. Writing is. Being hip and cool is.

During this summer of 1993, I was struggling just to feel ok with being alone. I was 24 years old, and too sensitive for my own good.

One night, I was sitting at Bongo Java, and I thought to myself I would feel better if I could write something poetic. “Mary” was serving coffee. She didn’t look happy *at all*. And I felt myself energetically probing her, and both wanting her attention and wanting to cheer her up. She wouldn’t budge. With that in mind and heart, I sat down and wrote:

Humming, drumming, restless mind fumbling….
What to think?
“Please go to sleep!”
Could I want, something to eat?
Who broke the clock, dropped on the floor?
Who left the sock, not in the drawer?
Trains!
Plastic spoons!
Snowballs!
Pink bassoons????
Thoughts so random, flowing so fast….
Rest my love, and sleep, at last.

This was about how your mind comes-up with the craziest of random thoughts, right as you drift off to sleep. I was so pleased with myself that I had written this… and I copied it onto a slip of paper, and handed it to Mary, with my phone number.
She barely looked at me, and glanced at the piece of paper, and slipped it into her pocket. I saw her only a few times thereafter, and she never noticed me. She was probably in her late 20’s. Oh well. But I had the poetry, anyway.

– Chad

When I was a (sick) vegetarian, I was very sensitive to Kundalini energy. But, being a pasty, sickly, frail fliver of a man as I was, rare would be the woman wanting to have a piece of that. So to say. So, what to do with that energy? I mean, besides the obvious?
Great horny-toads Batman, write about it! And in the summer of 1993, I often went to a dance club where I would really get wound-up. I could feel this intoxicating energy flow like a reverse waterfall up my spine, and spiral out my head and limbs.
And then there was kissing Amy. We were both stoned, and I think that was the most inspiration for what follows:

Caduceus kissing,
Reptilian twisting,
Tongues upon themselves turning round.
Heavy breathing, kundalini seathing,
Up your spine spiralling down.
Self control lost,
Individuality the cost,
Lovers synchronistically found.

Chaos in kissing,
Tongues barely missing,
Circling and stopping, I lick your lips,
Teasing… taunting… in random dips.
If this keeps going,
By darkness’s end,
Will we have merged,
Or simply sinned?

– Chad May

I went to a poetry reading… once, and a few times even. I went to read, but of course listened, too. It was mostly guys like myself wooing unseen victims with non-rhyming words of love-n-humpin’. Damn, is that how I am, too? Maybe I was hoping that some beautiful woman would hear my heart, my words, and snatch me away from my stinging loneliness. Um, that didn’t happen, and that was in 1993.

I can only conclude that poetry should be defined as “Man’s first attempt at non-violent seduction”.