STEVEN HENDRIX

Questions Posed to the Ghost of Ellison S Onizuka

Why are you staring at me like that? Is there
Something I should have done differently?
Some other path I should have traveled?
Science? Is that it? Would that have made
You happier? Would the world be any
Different? I would never have made it
As an astronaut. I would have slept
Too much in space. Failed my missions.
What do you care, though? Why do you
Haunt me now when it’s too late? Where
Were you in 1986 when there was still
Time? Or were you too busy figuring out
How to be a ghost? Is death any easier
Than life? Will you at least light the way for me?

Conversation late at night, alone, in the dark with Shelley

the storm was brewing long before you stepped on that boat
the taunts from Eton children on the school grounds of “mad Shelley”
the fistfights in retaliation only reinforcing the truth of the nickname
fire in the eyes, hair wild

madness, you say, breeds such reactions, as the scientist
mixes chemical compounds to see which may cause an explosion
Mary understood, the people with their fear of the stranger,
of the unknown, of the incomprehensible, create the monster,
he is not born such

the expulsion from Oxford for distributing atheist pamphlets
whose anonymous authors fooled no one, because it’s madness
to go around telling people at a christian college that god doesn’t exist
and expect to blend in

and the believers aren’t mad? you ask, though there’s no question there,
with their fabricated god who sits upon a tyrant’s throne meting out punishment
who more mad than he who rules by fear but he
who blindly follows?

the tossing aside of a future seat in parliament already etched
with your name, as though it was a chair of nails
already giving up on changing things from the inside, through the law,
madly thinking poetry which no one reads could change the world
more effectively than legislators

how effective the imperialists with their democratic government? you ask,
again in that telling manner. the aristocrats passing laws to favor
themselves, to protect their wealth, to quiet talk of emancipation
among the poor who suffer the other side of commerce
where labor relinquishes its spoils.

seeing the devil outside your window and taking a shot at him
in the middle of the night, saying he shot first,
neither wife nor servant seeing the ghostly visitor
Harriet drowning herself with child in the river
after you ran off with seventeen year old Mary
leaving behind two now parentless children
the syphilis (you know as well as I there was no scorpion sting
that caused it, but the unrelenting pull of desire
toward woman after woman)
eating away at you from the inside
perhaps the cause of your hallucinations

the love poems to Jane and the visits
while faithful Mary waited at home
already carrying the heavy burden of loss
her children somehow cursed to live
but moments on this earth
as though some karmic substance
enshrouded them

enough! you say, sit not in judgment
like the tyrants, nor join the obedient automatons
whose chains are forged by ignorance
become as the poets
piercing illusion with reason and imagination
creating metaphors that pull back the veil
and new ones when those begin to fail

Poseidon attacked you near Viareggio,
the mad lashing out at him with fists flailing
the poems of Adonais in your pocket
the refusal of ad. . .

there were no flailing fists,
you interrupt,
I stood calmly
while the tempest raged
I feared no false gods
weaving their superstitions
through the world
I watched with awe
and admiration
the salt-water flames
tossing us about
looked with wonder
on the panic-stricken rain
and startled wind
I grasped the mast
and stepped upon the side
a counterpoise
to injustice, tyranny, propriety. . .
I pause now just as I did
that fateful night
wondering what meaning
those words hold
have ever held
what difference, if any,
my actions have made
but that is it, isn’t it?
action is the force
that creates change
and so with force
I dove into the sea
this treacherous world’s madness
no longer affecting me.

I am not mad, I say

look around you,
you say, as your image fades,
we are all mad here.

Steven Hendrix received his M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from California State University, Long Beach. He co-hosted the pop-up bookstore and reading series Read On Till Morning in San Pedro, CA and is the co-author of the poetry collection Leave With More Than You Came With (Arroyo Seco, 2019). His work has appeared in Chiron Review, Redshift, Silver Birch Press, Hobo Camp Review, and Drunk Monkeys, among others. His website is readontillmorning.org. He currently lives in San Francisco.