Less Than What Falls

Painting by Janice Nelson


Less Than What Falls


i

as if Fitzgerald were to Faulkner
as McCartney to Lennon
as if to say X is better
than Y that to be
reckless leaves
caution a sad
orphan as if
to walk to
the edge
& say
you have
the safe word
a rope wrapped
around your waist
to know that to come
back is what matters more
than going over but that you
must cut the rope hold
your tongue go over
& wait for grace
there is no
safe word where
you go no there there
& yet there is no place
else for you to go to get
what you cannot
have here in
this place
of their
words

ii

or how the boy says better
to be less & fail
than put it all
on the line
less
lets you
say well i
wasn’t really
trying you know
it defers death defers
the failure your old man
so blatantly displayed with his
anger & arrogance his Laertean advice
& sometimes being naked reveals nothing
facts are not the truth
the truth is not the truth
the boy must become the man
kill the man
save the man
bury the man
resurrect the man
curse the man
praise the man
let the man who is not the man
you thought you were or would become
let him go & hold to his sorrow to his joy
to what he must forget &
remember & find comfort in your own skin
& let it go as you bow to the kindness
in every heart as you hold against
the cruelty that haunts those same hearts &
o you must laugh & laugh & hold to it
hold to the refusal to be less &
watch how the rain will
catch you wanting
more of him
more &
less than
what falls


Richard Lance Williams

Posted over on More Poetry