Dear Henry Rollins (Former Singer of Black Flag, Now History Channel Host)
My name’s Henry, and you’re here with me now. My life It’s a song, ah … Hold out your hand to me, give me your hand. Aah, I’ll bite it off!!
— Henry Rollins “Damaged I”
As the camera pulls back
to reveal you in front of the Lincoln Memorial,
you announce: My name is Henry,
and you’re here with me now. Though the words
are the same, your voice holds
none of the steel toed self-loathing
I spent my teenage afterhours
trying to emulate, “Damaged” cranked
on my stereo, waiting for my Dad
to bang the ceiling Morse code of “turn it down.”
I’d throw middle fingers at him
through the carpet, then catch myself
in the full-length, mouth: Look at me now,
just shadows. I’m just shadows of what I was.
I was so angry, Henry,
but I still don’t know who I was
angry with. My father is seventy now. He pisses
his pants because a negligent doctor
wrecked his pelvic floor, ordered
the wrong test. Still, he swears no revenge.
He spends hours, truckers’ atlas spread
across his lap like a Gutenberg Bible,
color coding different routes to each rest area
along the 95-corridor. When I visit,
I make sure I’m up early enough
to sit with him to help point out an overlooked
Texaco station or re-arrange
his highlighters by color. I never ask where
he’s planning to go. I’d hate to think
his kind of peace makes sense to you now, Henry.
But you won’t stop playing to the camera,
nodding without question at the TV expert’s theory
that America’s founders were in league
with the devil. I know you don’t believe it.
I also wish you’d been granted
the dignity of an idol’s early death,
but instead there’s new evidence after each commercial.
Fuck you, Henry. Do you know how many rest areas
are between Palm Beach and Rockland?
Of course you don’t. I don’t either.
* * * * *
Artist Statement
This work is founded on the performative identity
of the kid smoking a blunt on the El-train, yelling to his friend,
and to everyone else, about Ben Franklin throwing
his first wife down some stairs, but still making it to the back
of the hundred-dollar bill. The friend’s response: That motherfucker was
presidential as fuck. This interrogation of cultural memory
challenges listeners to ask themselves, who’s buying all the Nickelback records?
And who among us, wishing form on the zeitgeist,
denies that the tension between profit and hatred can succeed
in unmasking the ghost as the greedy land developer?
Other manifesto-ready responses might cite dualism (America vs. evil).
But we embrace the black-light lure,
the dorm room philosopher, posturing that appears
to buck the system, or, more simply, we are interested
in asking: who doesn’t want to be a rock star?
Attempts to answer these questions are made in daily practice,
by keeping a screwdriver, by using it
to loosen door handles, table legs, and bed frames
until even the slightest touch might topple the structure.
We encourage participation: throw rocks
until the performer is forced to leave the stage. It takes years
to fabricate a mold stable enough for the molten pour
of the assembly line. To be clear, our thesis rejects categorization.
We planned this with our audience in mind.
Fantastic poems! Thank you, Keith and Ron !