Ryk McIntyre
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"Ryk McIntyre is a is a three-time National Poetry Slam Team member, as well as Co-host at The Cantab Poetry Reading. He has toured nationally and in Canada, opening for acts as varied as Leon Redbone and Jim Carroll, as well as appearing as part of Lollapalooza 1994. He is a member of Doc Brown's Traveling Poetry Show and performed at NPS2006 at "The Legends Of Slam" showcase. He has been published in Short-Fuse- An Anthology Of New Fusion Poets, 100 Poets Against The New World order Nth Magazine and The Worcester Review."
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Crazy Leap Of Faith
You know the sound
a straight-jacket makes
when the safety-straps slip?
That was our first kiss.
We knew it’d be crazy,
knew the risk
To get involved like this,
we’d have to disagree to agree
with the voices in our heads
that sentence us to solitary,
and do something really crazy,
like...not listen to them!
Set ourselves loose enough
to measure the space
it takes to live happy,
with one last leap of faith.
Fortunately, you’ve got good, strong legs for jumping,
and I’m pretty sure my brain is a helicopter.
We can do this!
Too many people restrain themselves,
standing alone for their own protection.
Building lives
according to blueprints for misery,
becoming monuments to alone,
when they don’t have to be.
There is always somewhere beyond
our tenuously held borders,
where the rooftops reach out, like
the same promise the sky gives to fledglings:
“You can go anywhere you want,
all you have to do is trust
in something you can’t see or touch,
and jump. It only sounds difficult
if you get weighed down
in whether it’s possible.
We’ve both had some bad falls;
there’s no shame there.
So even after I take the leap, you’re scared.
Still stuck back there,
on your rooftop, saying,
“I love you, but I don’t dare.
I can’t get hurt again.
You better go on without me...”
For once in my life, the voices in my head
say the right thing. “Baby!
I’d be crazy to leave you. God knows
I’m crazy now. If I should go,
two crazies will cancel each other out,
I would be sane, and
If I end up sane, just watch:
I’ll. Go. Fucking. Crazy.
I’ve got a better idea --
I’ve got a flashlight in my pocket,
and a joke I stole from a Batman comic,
I studied physics by watching Bugs Bunny cartoons-
I think this will work.
I’m going to turn the flashlight on,
and place it at the roof’s edge,
don’t you see?
...you can just walk across on the light beam!
And you say,
“Whoa!!! I may be crazy,
but I’m not stupid!
...you’ll just turn the flashlight off
when I’m halfway there...”
No. Baby,
I may be crazy,
but it’s not bad-crazy.
The healthiest diagnosis I ever got
was I have you.
Love isn’t a cure in itself,
but it’s a recovery room.
Love is our invisible friend --
it’s got soft walls to bounce off,
it’s our best medicine.
Love can jump buildings.
Today, standing here,
we may not be “all there,”
but that’s neither here nor there. And who cares
if we’re both twenty-five cents short of a dime,
we are fully invested in this
crazy leap of faith
called “us.”
Haven’t our dreams fallen short
long enough?
I can understand
you need to hear the word “promise.”
I promise.
If the jump scares you,
because the distance wears you down,
like the meds,
borrow my whirly-bird brain and fly across,
that way you’ll know that I’m committed too.
“Crazy
Pg 2/3”
Give up if you have to,
I won’t give up on you.
I won’t let you fall,
not when a whole new city is possible for us.
I hear the bad-crazy train is leaving town;
let’s get on the bus.
Trust me.
Jump.
I’ll be here to catch you --why do you think
my straight-jacket has such long sleeves?
You won’t believe the view,
once you get over your fear.
I swear...
you can see our house from here...
Carol’s Kid
Father, I’m saying goodbye today
because you never said goodbye to me.
The day you left, you were on the phone.
I was underfoot, overhearing you
and filling in the conversation
as you described visitation
with my brothers Randy and Dana.
I knew your friend asked, “What about Richard?”
because you said, “I wasn’t counting him-
he’s Carol’s Kid.”
I was eleven when I took that hit.
My heart wasn’t broken, but it
was beat-up pretty bad, and left to live
in the gray area of your resentment, where
I became another front in your war.
Hurting me, you could always let Carol know
you’d never forgive what she had to do
to live a life that wasn’t weighed down with you
I was three when I was fostered.
I couldn’t have known
I was supposed to save a marriage.
But in the orphanage, it was Carol who said,
“I want...him, the boy the sad eyes.”
I was so surprised,
I broke down and cried.
It was the first time someone wanted me.
Age six, the Social Worker
tried to place me with my birth parents.
Until Carol got all David up in Goliath’s face.
Hired a lawyer, sued the State
for the right to be my mother.
The only thing you gave freely Father
was your rejection. So
I spent years seeking substitutes
from a succession of bitter alcoholic old men:.
...I guess I missed you.
Growing up, you made me wonder
what my real name was worth.
I tried spelling it a dozen different ways.
On the day I chose “R-Y-K”,
I caused a crisis in my high school
that changed my life for the better. I was surprised:
I had always heard
names had power,
but I never believed
my name could have power.
Father, I did everything I could to reconcile us. I
know I failed.
I wasn’t surprised I cried at your funeral,
but the tears must’ve done something to my
perspective-
you looked so small in that casket.
I beat my head against a wall
trying to decode you. A father now myself,
you’re just a cautionary story I tell my children
about the ways I’ll never treat them..
I know I need to make peace with this,
but the real struggle here is to forgive
the boy who grew to write this poem.
Father, I will try to love him the best I can,
but understand:
I learned that from my Mother.
I’m saying goodbye to you today, hoping
you won’t mean anything tomorrow.
You never said goodbye to me,
because it was no more possible
for you to speak my name than for me
to tear down the walls you built between us.
But on your way out of my life
I think we should know who we are,
so let me introduce myself:
My friends call me “Ryk”;
You can call me
“Richard Scott McIntyre”,
and if anyone asks,
I’m Carol’s kid.
A Song About A Stranger
We have only known him for hours now,
we are not sure why we do not like him.
We are not unfriendly to strangers,
we just don’t like him.
Still, we give him wine and oranges
the best place next to the fire,
He is free to choose a sleeping companion,
everyone hopes it isn’t them.
We do not like him now
any more than we liked him when
he followed his poor sandals
to the oasis where we live.
We raised our hands in greeting,
suddenly regretted it.
We sighed relief when he said
he could only stay overnight,
and he would not have a companion.
Could he have some wine and oranges?
The desert had taken its toll on him.
But he will not let us wash him.
He says he will pay for our kindness
with a story by the fireside.
He is silhouetted by wavering light
he speaks in a voice we do not trust.
And though our women smell of sandalwood,
and our young men are strong,
he sits alone by the fireplace,
The night breezes disappear.
He begins to speak, and though we do not like him,
perhaps we can still learn something. We listen,
but we do not like his story
when it is still young upon his lips.
His hair keeps his eyes hidden,
but we each feel he is staring
deep into us. He is rude, but we are hosts:
we suffer silently, we not speak.
He barely drinks his wine,
it’s as if he cannot smell the oranges.
We cannot hear the wind for his words
he begins to tell his story...
It is hours later that he pauses,
rips the skin off of oranges;
swallows wine he does not enjoy;
will not meet our eyes.
A woman holds a sleeping child.
He looks at them as if he knows something.
The stranger’s face saddens, softens.
He tells us he has forgotten
what it is to feel safe. As if that,
alone, would explain.
He sips wine he does not enjoy.
He never looks comfortable.
We are a village kind to strangers
but we do not like this man.
He picks up the threads of his narrative,
it is a story about killing.
We are a peaceful village. Does he think
we would forget ourselves?
His story ends. He has told us
plainly, how he killed his brother..
We hate this man,
we would strike him if we could.
But there is already blood upon him.
We are compelled to stop...then he leaves.
Suddenly we smell oranges,
become aware of sleeping children.
The fire is high, warming us.
We did not know that we had wept.
We cannot look one another in the eyes
we will never be as kind as we were before.
Our village seems smaller against
an uncertain sky. The sky seems emptier of God.
