“Somewhere sometime we must have passed one another like going and coming trains, with both of us looking the other way.”
—Lisel Mueller, from “Palindrome”
"Dammit I’m Mad" (a palindrome poem) by Demetri Martin
Dammit I’m mad.
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
Man, it is hot. I’m in it. I tell.
I am not a devil. I level “Mad Dog”.
Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,
In my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider… eh?
We sleep. Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one… my names are in it.
Murder? I’m a fool.
A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash.
A Goddam level I lived at.
On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.N
ame not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.
A trust put to hold on purpose.
Trust
upon
paused choices
made fate jealous
as uncertainty
hailed stars unto ashes
burning fathomed—darker depths.
Promises buried with secrets
left silence and honesty scarred like
riddles and metaphors losing purpose.
From there:
Purpose losing metaphors and riddles
like scarred honesty and silence left
secrets buried with promises.
Depths darker— fathomed burning
ashes unto stars hailed
uncertainty as
jealous fate made
choices paused
upon
trust.
