I wrote this for a performance at place in Chicago called Links Hall. My close friend Ron Gillette and I had been working together as a duet. Ron, a manipulator of costumes and dialects, came on as a Jamaican Banana poet ... an Irish Cop poet ... a hoodlum poet ... and a bag lady poet mumbling incoherent verse. During his changes, I filled in the gaps with my poems.

We were always experimenting with new gags and gimmicks to perk up the presentation of our poetry. We wanted to test the untested possibilities, and on this night our plan was to insert a little real life action into the jazz -- my ten year old daughter. She would be playing with blocks on the floor in front of us. I would
do "I Wanted To Be" after which Ron would enter as an Irish Cop bemoaning his fucked up family. The audience, we figured, would make some convoluted connection to it all ... and be moved.

A dismal failure. Fortunately, my daughter was smart enough to duck out of it -- and it was only Ron and I and the blocks that got humiliated.

The poem, however, fared better. After a few rewrites, it lost its sap and, at times, smacks a certain truth ... right on the butt.

I wanted to be so many things

Bigger than I was.

A tall tower of building blocks.

A shoelace tied so fast.

Jelly spread smoothly

to the corners of the bread.

I wanted to be so good.

A smile on everyone's face.

Folded hands. A clean desk.

All the numbers added up

digit under digit

perfectly clear.

I wanted to stand between the bully

and the frail kid.

Ready to take it. Ready to give it back.

I wanted to do the right things.

Pull the spit back into my mouth.

Scrape the gum-chewed secrets

off the bottoms of the chairs.

Drag the dumb, go-along laughs

out of the air.

I wanted to stand on an asteroid

whirling a mighty chain above my head,

Flinging an outer space hook probe

into the heart of the Universe.

And by loving ...

Whatever I wanted to love,

When I wanted to love,

How I wanted to love ...

I wanted to grapple the Ultimate Connection.

So what happened?

What happened during that great revolution?

After we pinned our daddies to the floor?

After we made our mothers eat shame?

After we rolled all antiquity and tradition

into cigar size joints,

Sucking in whole rooms of humanity,

Hoping to assimilate all the differences

and heat the world

with our spontaneous combustion?

What happened

When the chain on the asteroid

slipped out of our hands?

When the ones we loved

loved others?

When our laugh became the dumb laugh?

When the spit shot quick and hard

from our teeth?

When we gave the kids the beatings?

What happened to our dreams?

What happened to me?

I wanted to read all the books

of unerring truth.

I wanted to tie my shoelace fast.

Spread jelly smoothly to the corners of the bread.

Build a tower, a tall tower.

Spell everybody's name

top to bottom,

bottom to top

all four sides,

in and out.

I wanted so bad, so bad

to be so many things,

Without the whole thing

falling in.