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Bye, Bye, Bee Bee, Baby, Good Bye.
by Scott Utley
Watershed moments are a dime a dozen if youre delusional.
I don't recall a watershed moment in my life, ever, at all.
I suppose I've experienced illumination, however, my friends would argue that.
But this evening
friends be damned! I have had a watershed moment.
I'll never see life the same as it ever was again.
I know this much to be true, you see
I suffer. Like you, I've suffered plenty!
My high school year book voted me most like to suffer and die young.
When I was born I was allotted an overexposed allotment of suffering.
There were precious jewels like the ones Marie Antoinette gave me
but the day she handed them to me I lost my head. What was I thinking?
Most days I didn't receive jewels at all, just kicks in my head. I mostly crawled around in excrement.
I thought black men were made of chocolate. I was always hungry.
To this day, black men make my mouth water. Not sexually, you freak! What it all comes down to is,
I think God wanted a laugh. Well, ha, ha, very funny!
Because the jokes on him, or her, or it, or whatever, because I figured it out.
All this time I thought I was fucked up because most my friends died of AIDS,
and three brothers were all dead by 9/11
but wait
there's more of them
even if ... it's not really them. It's him. Bee Bee, a parrot, a small conure
actually. He owned me when I was a boy. The family parrot, Bobo, hated me
so my brother bought me Bee Bee. My best friend. He flew away one day.
And I just realized this evening; I have never gotten over it.
I was not ever abandoned or abused more than anybody else, but I had Bee Bee,
And Bee Bee left me. Pain? Ya wanna talk pain? Wow! There is still such grief.
The rest of them, my beloved immortals are flying high on heavenly skies.
But Bee Bee conure may not be so safe in the slums of N.Y.C.
Well, at least I have closure and I am still alive. That's a miracle!.
I no longer wonder why I felt so disenchanted; so horrified to just be,
so useless and dumb. All I was good at was existing. As long I didn't say
a word and hid most the time. I found a way to be present but invisible under
radar. I was never noticed except by Bee Bee. I will honor Bee Bee.
I will beome the man Bee Bee wanted me, indeed, expected me to be. I consider
this cunnundrum of psycho-terror finalized. I bless Bee Bee. I forgive myself
for being a bad father.I forgive Bee Bee for just wanting to fly!
A bird's gotta do what a bird's gotta do. I let him go ... now.
Thank you God for Bee Bee and every Bee Bee that'll ever be.
10/16/2006 Author's Note: Strange man I am.
Edited: January 27, 2010
Encino, CA USA
A sunny day.
Posted on 10/17/2006
Copyright © 2024 Scott Utley
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Karl Waldbauer on 10/17/06 at 05:39 AM So you flipped through your mental files and reviewed the deaths of so many friends and relatives and found Bee Bee at the nexus of your abandonment and loss issues. Quite an unusual watershed moment, but then the unusual is what I've grown to expect from you, Scott. BTW, the narrative style of this piece is so natural, so intimate. Nice writing, very nice. |
| Posted by Leslie Ann Eisenberg on 10/17/06 at 06:45 AM whoa! this reads like a poet's "running with scissor!," i've never read such a wild, searing memoir piece, it's like acid OJ concentrate, straight from the cardboard canister. a very unique voice, and boy, does the story of Bee Bee resonate -- I bless Bee Bee. I forgive myself
for being a bad father and forgive Bee Bee for just waning to fly! ...excellent opening and closing lines, good, consistent flow and line, and brilliant lush, unapologetic language throughout. powerful! PK |
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