“Freewill” was first published in Volume 11 of The American Journal of Poetry (July 1st, 2021). It was subsequently nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the editor, Robert Nazarene.
Freewill
The oceanographer who hated seafood
couldn’t fall in love
with a woman from Switzerland,
Serbia, or even Ethiopia,
which did have access to the Red Sea,
but lost it in a war to Eritrea.
Moses has no place
in the minds of scientists
standing on opposite shores
of their happiness—
always out of reach.
They can choose their destiny
better than midnight refusing
to marry the color black,
or painters expecting warmth
from the neutral feelings they mix.
An estrangement is the distance
between two points
on which you can’t construct a bridge.
And like lovers who build
a boat together yet pray
for winds in opposite directions,
the world is splitting
like a religion where all
compose their own hymns,
where everyone
writes their own prayers.
Why? To save themselves?
The word Pangea has been forgotten
like an unwanted child
whose birth certificate
historians look for alone,
whose story merely geologists tell,
whose shape just the dead behold.
What else is there to live for?
Borders, divorce, restrictions,
marriage, boundaries, and freedom,
all with their own lines—
visible and invisible.
And yet, who’s really studied
the ocean long enough
to know Africa
once belonged to the New World?
And which woman
tells you the truth
when she says
falling in love
never interested her—
the nun or the prostitute?
There’s not enough science
in all the world’s depths
to baptize sincerity.
There’s not enough clarity
in the logic of vodka
to make people
believe hell exists.
Set the course for derangement.
It’s not sinful to sink
if you’re also praying
to rise from the ocean’s other side.
Life has become
a religion
that has drawn maps
for a planet covered
wholly by water,
while science has built
the ships to navigate it.
No God can convince
gravity to let down
a suicidal man—
the one hellbent on jumping
from heights he can’t survive.
Freewill—oceanographers
who must love seafood
when their bodies
don’t allow
them to like it.
You find all this funny?
Don’t laugh.
There are men (and women)
who’ve quit drinking
ten years ago and still trip
on flat streets while walking
with their heads down—
looking at nothing but their feet.
Is it destiny or carelessness?
You’re free. You’re free.
Now go and experience
a pain other than your own;
study poverty like sociologists
who’ve never been hungry,
study pathology like doctors
who’ve never been sick,
study madness like psychologists
who’ve never needed one.
All this is just a movie—
you’re welcome to follow the script
exactly as it’s written,
and you’re also free
to turn the show off any time—
there’s always someone else
willing to endure the rest.
About David Garyan
David Garyan has published three chapbooks with Main Street Rag, along with (DISS)INFORMATION, a full collection with the same publisher. He holds an MA and MFA from Cal State Long Beach, where he associated himself with the Stand Up Poets. He received a master’s degree in International Cooperation on Human Rights and Intercultural Heritage from the University of Bologna. He lives in Trento.