The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me. Section One.

 

The back porch where I was born.

"The little piece you have just sent is good and very interesting. The last two lines are especially engaging. I almost said they cracked me up—but in reality that’s not what their effect was. What I felt was more a sense of admiration and pleasure at the artistry and cleverness, along with delight in the small puff of somewhat elusive insight into your way of thinking.

 

Having said that, the overall “sense” of this poem is VERY unclear because it goes all over the place, and some lines (unless their plain sense is deceptive) contradict others. I would have to talk to you to find out what your point really is, apart from “I do what I want to do and if you don’t like it, you can go to another trough.”

 

In any case, it saddens me that, if I’m catching your vibes, you don’t really want feedback, feedback that I believe would be helpful, if you were willing to consider it."

I start this story

which may or may not

belong to me

with an email from

a friend.

Tomorrow, I think,

he may just be a ride

to the Provo Rec Center.

So many helpful critics in my life.

So few close enough to warm

yet distant enough not to chafe.

Maybe it's because my parents

never let me have a dog.

If I was born, I don't remember it.

If it's all just a dream,

I will row away with a girl

on each oar.

I don't know if my father

Donald Sylvester Torkildson

was at my birth.

I doubt it.

Sometimes, as a child,

I doubted if my mother

Evelyn Marie Gagne Torkildson

was there either.

My very first memory

is of writing this prose poem.

Before that, all is supposition

and myth.

I was poisoned from the beginning.

Winston. Salem. Alpine. Tareyton. 

So many cigarette brands used by

the adults in my life;

in closed quarters during long winters --

it was like being incarcerated in the

proverbial 'smoke-filled room'

of political lore.

It was thought that if a candle 

were lit all the tobacco smoke

would be eaten up by the flame

and become harmless.

I cough myself awake most mornings.

Why was I born?

Ah, the first big question!

Requiring a flippant and

deceiving reply?

I was born to make people laugh.

And to make them cry.

And to get them riled up.

And so so often to bore them.

and puzzle them.

And finally I was born because

a fantastic plan is in place --

a cosmic conspiracy involving 

the whole human race.

And I am a crucial part.

As are you.

My mother had two boys before me.

Leonard and Billy.

She had two girls after me.

Sue Ellen and Linda.

So I was the pivot.

The hinge of fate.

The toad in the hole.

The world revolved around me

until my mother slapped me

when I was six.

For sticking my tongue

out at her and not eating 

my Maypo, which I had

begged her to buy for me

because it looked so delicious

on the TV commercials.

But it was just oatmeal.

Nothing special.

Why didn't my mother

recognize how cheated I felt

at that moment?

I need to hijack 

the Way Back Machine

to tell her I was frustrated

and disappointed, but not at

her -- at the Maypo, mom!

The Maypo!

So much of my life has been Maypo . . .