Can I Put My Praise On Hold?

By: Judson Stacy Vereen

Judson Vereen in Los Angeles. Photo by Sharkey Smalls.

Can I put my praise on hold?
(For a moment or two or three)
and laugh out loud at God
or pretend it was me?

May I take your hand for a moment,
And shake your arm like a willow tree?
I'd do the trot with you
And dance till one or two or three

Will you keep me in on the secret,
I'm dying to be told,
Where do the young come from?
Where do we keep our old?

Tell me as quick as you can,
How has it been all those years?
It has been at least a quarter million now,
that's what I so often hear

Can I spill my guts?
I think they have it all locked up
I think they blocked it all back off
I think they think I'm nuts

But can I put my praise on hold?
(For a moment or two or three)
I've been holding in it now
It's taking hold of me

Can I make a specific
One time admission?
I'll try to keep it short
I'll even try not to mention

How good it even is:
When we sing and eat
Dance and play
To the tune of defeat
All hours of the day

I can be the target, too
I will even smile
I heard the bombs a’ ring,
(They missed us by a mile)

Tell me something worth ridiculing
Tell me something I don't already know
I've tried speaking out
But mostly it’s for show

Show me the graveyard texture
Percolating in your mind
Show me how things just seem true
Humor me one more time

Planet earth is ringing out,
you recognize the sound?
I hear a D minor chord,
Such a lonely soulful sound

Across the dirty cosmos,
Our dirty secrets sing,
And amplified and played upon,
Saturn’s record rings,

Can I put my praise on hold
for a million years or two or three?
And laugh out loud to the songs
And pretend they were sung by me

I walk after lunch:

Strolling with a toothpick
And from the beer, I am burping
The planets call out to me
(a bird is often chirping)

I think it's quite hopeful,
To position yourself as a god
Some think it rather evil,
Some think it rather odd

I've never second guessed,
To the fraud we often sway
Everybody tells the truth to you
Just in their own way
(Everybody is somebodies' problem,
Everybody in somebodies' way)

Can I put my praise on hold
and finally set it free
The secret I've been telling you
The one you've been telling me

We’re in the billions now
Adding up all the disgraces
You wouldn't think like that
Or tell them to their faces
That you can predict it all,
or sum up the casualties,
We must be in the trillions now,
or one or two or three

---

Judson Stacy Vereen is an American artist, writer, and poet. He is the author of the novel American Pleasure, and has two collections of poetry, 62 Poems and Like A Bird Knows To Sing.

The content of Vereen’s poetry is often turbulent and reflects the chaos of the modern times in which they were written. However, this is often executed through traditional rhyming structure, accessible and simple vocabulary, contrasting the dark subject matter with a child-like, whimsical tonality.

Vereen considers his art, whatever form it takes, to be synonymous with diary keeping. His work can be viewed as a confessional portrait that covers topics as varied as early heartbreak, personal vice, the erotic, and the drab minutiae of the modern day work schedule. While his poetry and work often covers melancholic subject matter, he has said that his work is “ultimately a love letter to life, is liberating and just wants to shake the audience up a bit”. His poems can often be abstract, and open to various interpretations.

Judson Stacy Vereen is on Substack and is the author of Dispatches From Bohemian Splendor. He has contributed two essays to Poetic Outlaws, Nero’s Violin, and The Candle In The Rib Cage.

Can I Put My Praise On Hold? is a poem found in his second collection, Like A Bird Knows To Sing, a book of poems written in Minas Gerais, Brasil, where the artist met and married his wife, Yasmin, who is on its cover and to whom the collection is dedicated. For more information on the artist, you can view his website HERE.

Like A Bird Knows To Sing, second edition cover.