Brian Gilmore's billy bathgate (for Chico)

I have just recently gotten familiar with Brian Gilmore's poetry. Brian's poetry abandons nothing, brings everything with him as he goes. Brian's DC childhood is a big part of where he came from, and, as he moves on with his life, a big part of who he still is. This poem is a new favorite of mine. And it reminds me of Marge Piercy's "Joy Road and Livernois." In that poem, Piercy also brings everyone with her.

It is the first poem in his new book, We Didn't Know Any Gangsters

billy bathgate (for chico)

            all I’ve got is this picture.

it could have been van der zee

gordon parks,

oggi ogburn fresh from

a chancellor Williams

shoot.

we are capable boys;

innocent,

up some small mountain

in summertime

from that swamp of a city.

we couldn’t juggle balls

didn’t know any gangsters,

all we had was ice cold michelob

and red juicy melon

holy like water.

we didn’t know about rattlesnakes

that i’ve now been told are

all over that mountain.

all i’ve got is this picture.

i could call up the crew,

though some of them are

gone away now

like wisps of smoke.

others are here,

just floating on skyline

like kite

without string.

we were capable boys,

looking into the future as if we

would live like frederick douglass

or c.l.r. james.

did I mention the michelob?

red juicy melon

holy like water?

and how about those rattlesnakes?

all around us, now that we know

they are there.

all I’ve got is this picture.

unbreakable smiles.

lean frames.

polo shirts gripping young boys,

soon to be walking tightropes

without poles.

            it’s there, all of it.

            ice cold michelob

.

            melon holy like water.

            rattlesnakes.

            we couldn’t juggle balls.

didn’t know any gangsters.

            we were capable boys,

            all i’ve got is this picture.

The Courage All Around

When Marrianne and Brendan and I first got to Washington, I'd go a couple of times a year to Bus Boys and Poets open-mic night. It was always very exciting. Most of the poets who made it to the mic were rappers. They were driven by rhymes and rhythms and an apparent need to get up on the stage and say who they were and what they cared about.

And every once in a while I'd get up and try to rumble a few lines, injecting a little blank verse, substituting assonance or alliteration for rhyme and, quite obviously, an occasional longer word when a shorter one might have done. The audience was always patient, but usually hungry for the next rapper. 

In the upshot, I learned far more from them than they learned from me. And, watching the risks they took, I learned that I needed to take more risks, too, and put more heart into speaking my poems. I wrote "The Courage All Around" for them:

Late-night honest

with myself

My boy shames me

The courage he shows

drumming at the Metro

Spare change pours in

Folded bills drifting like

snow covering his lap

Ten years old, first

sharing a buck

with a woman who asks,

then shooing her away

when she won’t stop

asking for more

He goes about his business,

a lionheart tending his

pride of intentions,

while I flinch at the work

before me, at stepping up

before you, at speaking my piece

But where he’s heading,

where heart and skill

and the company of others,

the company of you,

colleagues with an instinct

to be movement and reach

we can believe in,

that place, that thought, swells

my heart The world you will build

beckons and beguiles

and because the heart is

a complicated thing

I feel no shame here

I feel the courage all around 

I Am Your Journeyman

I am no poet of the

   interior voyage.

But I am a journeyman,

   giving good effort

for wages or food.

I know the paths

    through caves and forests.

I know the edible fruit

    along the way.

I’ll show you the shallow fords

   across the river of tears.

Follow me

    picking the way through the woods

on black days. Heed this moonlight

    exalting the heart even through

this night of fear.

Caution now,

    there may be need for stealth.

Keep pace.

Keep close.

Keep faith.

Savor this good bread,

    considering without regret

the choices you have made.

We’ll arrive safely soon enough,

    resting on Thursday,

moving on, refreshed, on Friday.

    Along the way,

we’ll learn more trust,

   celebrating dews and frosts and thunder.

(This poem was included in Wild Once and Captured)

The Propaganda of Everything

In sunbeam home
life comes greets rests goes
transient eternal undiminished

to the stars to the stars

He is who he is

He is who he is

with a buzz on

He is who he is

cicada vibrato

singing blood singing bones

He is who he is

slipped by in the dark

rushing to mark the sliding away

One last son striding by

speaking slang of the streets,
scratching and shouting survival

He is who he is

and so are we all

chanting and drumming,

twisting and reaching,
We are who we are

the nightfall on us,

on our deep dreaming breaths,

driving ourselves as if we could climb

from the depths of our well

to the stars to the stars

Begins and Ends with Amina

What does the world

look like?

Like baby Amina,

who holds the phone

in one hand and slaps a place

between her forehead and ear with the other

and listens to me talk and talk

and makes a sense of it

that actively escapes me,

and she includes me anyway.

What does the world

look like?

The way you paint a picture

of the Van Gogh-smeared women

at the beach, your husband dying comfortably,

head in your lap to remind you of the love

that includes you anyway.

What does the world

look like?

Like the boy who is so much a man

that you know now he will leave

exactly as he should, and long before

you have forgotten his weight in your arms.

Leaves sooner than you wish,

but he takes your measure anyway.

What does the world

look like?

The way it did the day we built the fence

around the home of the woman

wishing to stay safe,

around the woman who we together

briefly loved and laid to an extra day

without despair and a longer moment

that includes us anyway.

Whatever does the world look like?

Like the green street that is my home

and the tall trees shading neighbors

and helping them to cross the shifting line

that separates them from me

until the moment of my need,

when they include me anyway.

Whatever does the world look like?

The way our heroes give what they have got,

and call on us for more

to make the point that heroes

come in groups of us

whenever we are willing,

including all the unincluded.

Whatever does the world look like?

Like the winding path you go,

bare and beautiful legs propelling,

your work ahead, the inhuman size

and shape of it, and all the coaxing and caressing

 to include the unincluded.

Whatever does the world look like?

The rest stop on the peaceful stretch of moral arc,

where we can dip our brushes

in the deepening hues of struggle and of conflict,

the message to include all of the excluded.

What does the world

look like to the baby

who has flung a kiss

so hard and far that we will spend

a lifetime happily trying to catch up?

And So I Say

I

Suspicion pulses from those gathered here for trial

My companion believes I’m fair, she thinks I will be good

She has been wrong before—she will be so, again

These others know all that for truth

I say make your judgment, if you will

I freely offer all my sins and pleasures

I do not know what you will do, yet I think that I can bear it

But if the verdict should somehow be that I am not so cruel as charged,

Let the record show you did your best and I did mine

II

What I have to say will have to do

for now,

for this,

for you.

This place is rich

and full of evening dark, and vast

and makes a cozy home

for transient souls,

which is to say

it is a nameless place

for nameless things

from where I wrote to you

before I became the bit that prowled your skin

and kissed so light and tender

you felt no sudden thrill or lasting heat;

just the little boost that comes with the sweet ripening of fruit.

III

What the children endure

is unendurable

They transcend

what cannot be survived.

And we know from knowing them

that were they not tough as turtles,

nor fleet as flying things,

nor comfortable as Friday fish,

nor relentless as wind,

nor guileless as tomorrow’s dreams

of tomorrow,

we could not have gone to there and back,

nor made so much of time.

IV

The earth around us warms.

Our trembling cells

echo in waves

and wrinkle the land.

Soon we will slip our way

to the hot and wet and sweet place of reimagining

and emerge again to repopulate the evening dark.

Rubber side down

This morning, the voices were killing me. But they’ve always been there and often no problem, at all. I’m grateful.

But this morning, the voices were cutting me up. That doesn’t show on the map of my face, but the wounds are wet and throbbing, and who it is speaking is often not clear.

But this morning, the voices were massing with pitchforks, like for some Transylvanian hoedown. What were you thinking, asks one, and then they’re coming so fast,

so hostile the questions—

Did you mean to be so cruel?

To whom did you think you were speaking?

What is the statement that lurks in your question?

What did you think would happen?

How dirty will you get if you do it that way?

Who did this, was it you?

How did you get what you do not deserve?

Will you confess?

When will that happen?

Ad nauseum, ad nauseum, ad nauseum, ad mortem—

jumping in the car a better idea. Traffic’s Empty Pages the theme, but I do got something to show, and I’m carefully keeping the first commandment of motoring—

rubber side down. And the voices grow still.

The Revolution Is Coming: Opening Remarks

Welcome, friends and comradely types.

Here is the list of organizations sending delegations.

As you listen to the names,

as your hearts swell with pride

in the difference we have made,

please imagine the faces of the people

who make these groups synonymous

with justice and sustainability peacefully earned.

Welcome to the delegations from

DC’s GazaBera Shirt Conspiracy,

and from Dayton,

the Obituary for Capitalism Writers’ Workshop;

from Chicago, the Sweet Voices of Reason

and Radical Change;

from just outside of Pittsburgh,

the Beating Heart of Committees

In and Out of Correspondence.

Welcome to the representatives

from North Carolina’s

Action Today, Action Tomorrow, Action Forever,

and welcome to our sisters and brothers from California,

the Rudder and Compass

of the Roundtable of Growers and Smokers.

Welcome to the delegation

from the Bi-coastal Dreamers of Salmon

and Clams and Eating Them, Too.

From damn near everywhere,

Catholics for Real Life

and Joyful Love Along the Way.

We welcome the representatives

from the Moveable Seder

of Jews Who Remember When We Were Slaves in Egypt

and, without irony, Palestinians in Solidarity

with the People of New Jerusalem.

Welcome, also, to the delegation from Michigan,

constantly morphing and growing like Topsy,

the Association of Women and Girls and Men and Boys

and All the Genders Between and Around

and the Workers Against Itty-Bitty Wages

and the Prisoners Solidarity Committee.

Give yourselves a hand.

Thank you.

Please take a moment now

to remember comrades who have passed,

the spiritual delegation of Presente!

aka, All the Friends We’ve Ever Known Who,

with Grace and Courage, Spoke the Truth

and Set Our Hearts and Minds on Fire.

Moving on, now,

we note a proposal

from Laity Naturally Concerned with Everything,

advocating outreach to the Granfalloon

of Drudgery, Cynicism and Bitter Despair,

an organization whose members include

immigrant bashers and homophobes

and a good number of redeemable haters.

This has been moved to the front of our agenda

by the acting convention chair

from We Want Less, We Got This.

To begin, we await only

the delegations from

This Millennium We Are Going To Get It Right

and from the Moral Arc of the Universe Bending.

While we wait, let’s turn to the person beside us

and give them a big, sloppy kiss,

or a whispered message about good times ahead.

Remember our lives together

depend on solidarity and action and, also and inevitably,

shameless exchanges of bodily fluids.

And now, I turn the gavel over to our chair

who will lead us in our efforts during the week ahead.

Thank you, friend.

I’m going to declare a brief recess

while we wait for straggling comrades.

We do have some hard work ahead,

so please take advantage of the moment

for a caffeine refueling or, perhaps, to share a doobie.

Spell

Overhead,

the tree’s the thing of things—

All around are more,

but this has greener leaves,

somehow filters darker sky.

A humid promise hanging there,

brewed by a full and super moon.

A golden sap, gushing sweet,

pumped to ground inversely

beneath the tree on which I snatch a seat

for long enough to bathe my feet,

to sip the air that rises redolent;

a vapor in, a vapor out,

a lingering caress,

like a plea to sit, to stay,

to drift away.

Stores of sweet, a sip of rich desire

In the middle dark

the passages stand open,

and the choice of when to go

and where

is unencumbered.

The slumbering horde

in groans and sighs lays whispering,

breath erupts in sudden gasps and nods,

and the sleepless few

move with silent, careful steps.

This is when I think of you

and all you’ve meant to me.

For now we do our separate dance,

face risks alone, advancing as we do,

wrestling beasts and wresting joy.

You, small warrior,

with the silk-draped hip and breast,

turn to me and wrap yourself

around my nakedness,

as though to wish me on my way

with stores of sweet, a sip of rich desire,

to carry on to where I dream of next.

I wait for you to rise for me

I am your silk and satin offering,

but you must win me with your sword.

I will not come this night to you—

I wait for you to rise for me.

The Spooking Call and the Plunging Dark

I have never been

alone in the North

at night and so far

from everything and everyone

that I could not hear the hum

of voices in my head

or the clang and whistle

of the iron way.

But I have been at the spot

where the sound of the whistling beast,

the steel and the weight of it,

was the spooking call,

the sound of the plunging dark;

where the honey-scented mortal thing

weaving through the sweet thorns,

beneath the clouded light of stars,

waved along by the wet-grass fairies,

is certain to arrive in the spying dawn

that whispers hints and rumors

and promises to fill

the heart’s desire

to be forever lost.

I have been there.

I have been there.

And I will go again.

What Evolution Has Wrought

or

Narcissism and Poetry:

Two Peas in a Human Pod

Whenever I find that I have forgotten

something I wanted to remember,

forgotten something I wanted to do,

I must first decide—

without knowing in the present moment

exactly what it is I have forgotten—

how important it might be to remember

whatever it is that has gotten away from me,

and if I decide that the thing I can’t remember

merits remembering, then I must think back

to the moment I became aware

that I had forgotten whatever it is I wished

to remember or do, and continue to explore

each moment preceding that moment

until I arrive at the point and the place

when I was last aware of whatever

it was that I do not remember now.

I hope that having arrived there

the recovered memory

will turn out to be worth the effort.

A Different Place to Stand

Like an oracle

draped in fine cloth,

she spoke.

Always and only

find the small way through.

Always and only

seek the hidden path.

Always and only

stand when standing will count.

In that moment

she walked away.

Remembering the good times,

he shook himself.

He watched her go.

Then, just as she had done,

he walked away himself,

seeking the small way,

seeking the surprises he might find

waiting on the hidden path,

and a different place to stand.

Between paradise and fear

...and further on.

I posted this a while ago on In and Out, but it's about poetry--other people's poetry, by and large--and ought to be here on Outdoor Poetry Season.

I noticed it got a fair number of views recently and in trying unsuccessfully to puzzle out why, I found out that Kim-An Lieberman, who wrote one of the poems featured in this piece, died last year. She was only 37.

Kim-An was a mother of three, a wife and an already accomplished poet. My heart sinks at the thought of her death, but I know she will continue to live in the vivid memory of others. I believe that is no small thing and recently wrote about how life and memory sometimes seem to be nearly the same thing.


I don't love all of "The Creation Story" by Joy Harjo, but I really do love these three stanzas:

"It's not easy to say this
or anything when my entrails
dangle between paradise
and fear.

"I am ashamed
I never had the words
to carry a friend from her death
to the stars
correctly.

"Or the words to keep
my people safe
from drought
or gunshot."

Like Harjo, I've discovered I didn't (and don't and won't) "have the words" countless times, including the words to carry a friend to the stars, but here Harjo finds the words to name the shortfall. And when she rues her inability to keep her "people safe from drought or gunshot," she has named both herself and her people. Good words.

In his poem "Three Women," Donald Hall has come into possession of a few words that do get the job done. They will not carry him or anyone else to the stars, but they work for capturing the richness of some experiences and the loss that sometimes follows. In fact, they work so well that Hall uses the same words exactly in three consecutive stanzas, making up the whole of his poem:

"When you like a woman,
you talk and talk.
One night you kiss.
Another night you fuck.
You're both content,
maybe more than content.
Then she goes away."

The poem is included in Hall's last book of poetry, The Back Chamber, described on the book jacket as "full of the life-affirming energy" of the poet. But I see it full of a rich, inescapable melancholy.

Kim-An Lieberman won a poetry prize from the Dayton Voice in 1995 or '96 (I suppose I could look it up, sort through the bound copies of the paper we have in our possession, but one thing at a time here). A decade later, her book, Breaking the Map, was published and she sent an autographed copy to Marrianne and I. Her book ended up being part of the motivation for publishing Wild, Once and Captured, a book of my own poetry. Sampling Kim-An's poetry I come to "Grandmother Song," and am struck by the fact that she has found a way to lift her grandmother to the stars.

"...Underneath is a ruby of blood.
The needles and tubes are webbed like milliner's lace.
Last the jade necklace, leaking the milk of her heart."

Perhaps, the words come to Lieberman because she so clearly hears and sees and feels her grandmother at the end of her life.

"...She gestures
faintly upward from the bed; I bring my ear
to the rasp of her laboring breath. I watch her draw
pin by pin from the loose chignon
...I roll the soiled gown..."

Hunting more details, I found an interview with Kim-An where she observes that "journalism and poetry, in particular, both share a language of ear-catching 'sound bites' as well as an urge to make a permanent record of fleeting events and observations." This seems an apt description of how Ernesto Cardenal goes about writing a poetry that finds the words to make permanent a record of "fleeting events." His book, Zero Hour, is a collection of what Cardenal calls "documentary poems."

"In Mr. Spencer's gold mines they X-ray
each miner twice a year
to see if he shows symptoms of TB.
If there's a shadow, he's paid off
at once. In due course he spits blood, and tries
to claim: ...
... and so he dies on a Managua sidewalk."

Cardenal, is a poet and a Catholic priest and the Nicaraguan Minister of Culture after the overthrow of Somoza. His poetry is the work of a man who hears music in his head, but feels the urgent need to change the acoustics of the world around him so that others may hear their own music. Cardenal makes poetry relevant as Lawrence Ferlinghetti insisted it should be when he wrote:

“I am signaling you through the flames.
The North Pole is not where it used to be.
Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest.
Civilization self-destructs. Nemesis is knocking at the door.
What are poets for in such an age?
What is the use of poetry?”

And Cardenal is one of the poets I was thinking about when I wrote "Wild Dogs of Poets:" 

The wild dogs of poets

speak sharps and blunts,

wish the streets

to the back alleys

of emerald cities;

some singing separately

and, alive for now,

glow in the dusky, dreaming sky.

Some scratch for pennies

wherever there are no such

generosities. Some kill time

as though they are flush,

And some few,

the chosen,

die on the barricades,

hopeful and ready.

What we would do, if we could

Stranger gone by,

alone in his head,

lone wolf set dreaming,

dreaming dark places,

and vast, teeming praries,

a leaping of blood

overflowing old channels,

snarling and snapping

and making the sky.

Stranger gone stalking

and sniffing

and the air sniffing back,

ruffling and dancing and drinking

the dream

of the wolf on the land,

the wolf of the forest,

wolf of the prarie.

The air becomes wind

flowing with news

of the stranger behind,

whispering places

and planning the way

to stay ahead of the sun,

keeping the secrets

of strangers and wolves

and where the blood races,

forever leaps forward

and makes its new way.

Boys and Men

Sinewy dreams,

blinding lights,

boys flexing, pulsing,

bragging, ambitious with life.

Men seeking shares of day,

shares of night.

Dreams of boys and men

carry me through dip and lift

to lands where

boys like men like me

bound and soar on good days,

and on bad days struggle

to stand straight

and still.

Zeroes, eights and the lively wet

I've revised this poem substantially. I think the new version is much better. It can be found here.

Gazing out from the porch,

wind and leaves making low sounds,

scents and sights spilling down slope and up,

mountain spruce casually swaying,

he sits, chisel in his right hand,

a beer ready to his left,

a sharpening stone sits flat

on his blue-jeaned thigh.

The round stone lies,

lightly oiled, awaits the chisel’s beveled edge.

In a big hour,

or a short two,

the sun will set,

if it stays true,

maybe while he’s still lightly

tracing eights and zeroes

on the oiled stone, the

chisel edge angled just so.

He presses a thumb to the tip,

could be sharper, sips his beer,

back to the stone,

zeroes and eights,

circling slow,

a rolling wave of oil and grit

pushed here, there by the big hand

ruling this tiny universe.

Zero here, eight there, sip here,

another thumb test for sharp,

sharp, could be sharper,

soon to bite the door jamb easy,

watches a cloud scud across blue sky,

flatters singing birds with compliments,

sips, watches, heeds the sentinel pines,

tests for sharp, sun on his face,

zeroes and eights,

fallen into a rhythm

that will not break,

until the tip of his chisel,

covered with his peaceful blood,

calls him back with its lively wet.

He examines the thumb,

with its parallel grooves,

leaking blood,

carved by his fine chisel.

Sharp enough, he thinks,

sips his beer, shuts his eyes,

listens, catching up on what

he may have missed.

Braver dreams, stronger songs, gifts that others give

It’s a soft horn

wails no comfort,

no comfort.

It’s a slow beat

moving slow feet,

slow feet.

It’s a big string bass

plucked in a dark,

dark place.

Drumming comes,

an unroused rhythm

stirring no blood,

and the voice cries next,

a sound like searching,

as if words might ignite,

burning the dead soul underbrush,

torching the tangled discontents,

opening the tender heart’s way

to braver dreams, maybe,

and stronger songs

and gifts that others give.

A Single Star Will Show Itself

Rumored or written somewhere,

the way, the path,

to touching uncoerced,

to flowing swiftly,

channels twinned,

to babbling on and silky,

involves the growling, guttural talk

of tigers,

or a passionate taste

of dark and chocolate,

or the silver leap of fish

or, yes,

to hope or, yes,

to lifting us

on swaying limbs of flowering trees,

full pink and showering

the bay below,

you wrapped in my arms,

me snuggled up in yours.

Rumored or written somewhere,

or handmade

to suit myself,

and sung to you

that were we to wait that way

for the new moon’s rising sliver,

a single star will show itself

and light our dreaming way.

Do What We Do, Do What We Must

In all of the stories,

heroism, struggle,

and buried beneath,

the code words, the secrets;

we all are to die,

the tired old lesson;
the passionate words

sometimes read to a drone,
but words to read over
and over and over

again;

hear, children, the whispers,

you and you, one and two,

many and now,

and now that you’re here,

the meaning, the hope

buried, yet rising

again

and again,

the message,

a life lived in struggle,

oftentimes muddled,

occasionally clear,
always the goal,

listen at first

to the sounding of blows,

the bugles retreating,

the loss and defeat,

so many heroes,

lamentable deaths,

so many prisoners

and exile hordes,

eloquent obits,

men dreaming disturbed,

women bowed by their burdens;

stories sounding like heritage,

sounding like fate--

a blend of our courage,

seasoned by loss,

as though wounds and dashed dreams
are all of our story--

but here it is you
come to hear it all clear,

no defeat is forever;

yes, Espada’s jailhouse suffocation for barbed wire jumpers,

yes, Lorde’s children of war are aging and quiet,

yes, Lorca’s gypsies flee cities of musk and of sorrow,

yes, Hughes' poor boy weary, wishin’ to never be born,

yes, Ginsberg’s factories croaking in fog;

yes, yes, Forche’s Anna exhorting our silence,

our young ears to hear

the fight in the heart

of Crazy Horse felled,

the dream on the lips of Allende--

a leader may fall, but never the people;

harmonies of convicts chained in the sun,

safe houses for women,

healing and moving,

and the singing of blood,

of men dragged behind trucks,

hanging from trees,

the blood singing

catch!

here is the seed,

plant a new forest

that children to come

will find and explore

over and over and over

again.

There Will Be A Chorus

Refugees crying songs off-key,

spent birds in unhinged swarms;

some can hear,

few can grasp,

one or two or three, maybe,
repeat;

amplified sound
a show of faith

that soon there will be a chorus

and a tune to which we might dance.

Bent, brooding and begging

In a shrouded long ago,

I asked a preacher, a Methodist,

if he really believed

in god. The question meant no outrage

and met none.

I did not say

fervently though you believe,

I do not understand your fervor.

Feverishly though you pray,

I do not understand your fever.

I do not understand this god of yours,

neither the shape of the thing,

nor its gender.

Neither do I understand its aspiration

for you or for us all.

I have no grip or grasp

on the universe in which it dwells,

nor why it lives there,

nor why it lives, at all.

I understand your faith has power

and stretches backward

a millennium, or more.

But I fear this is the weight

you drag behind and the cause that has you looking

to the day on which you finally will be weightless.

And he made no response to what

I did not say, but looked

the question do-you-know

of what or to whom you speak.

Ministers aside, consider,

the history of the rulers

and the ruled and why it matters now.

There are also the poems written

to draw nearer to you

and the ones rooted

in an inability to bridge

our mutual gap.

There is also the biography

of my solar-powered self

in every meaning of the term,

warm and heating up,

flaring and flaming,

sunning and indolent,

abiding the gloom,

outlasting the dark.

I am the rustle of the wind

and the sound of revolution,

the silence of defeat

and the rot at the heart of empire.

I am invention

and the means of installation.

I am the sun-dried husk,

the ruined dream,

the broken rampart,

the collapsing core,

the melancholy song,

the calloused, wracked and shackled,

the wicked wish,

the vengeful hand,

the dying.

I miss what I miss and whom.
Soon enough, I will be death

in every savage flake and pore.

Love to Babies

Nathan Night Rain,

you were an infant with

apple cheeks and patience.

Julie Anna,

you were a witch baby,

wise with foreknowledge.

And Brendan Isaac,

you were king baby

with windmill arms and bicycle legs,

wailing your loud strong music.

As Isaac brought joy

to Abraham and Sarah,

with a handful of weight,

with the heat of new beginning,

with the scent of everything to come,

so have you brought

gift after gift after gift

of Nate asleep on my heart,

warm weight waxing,

innocent of his fierce protector;

of Julie at midnight recalled,

fresh weight needing nothing

but that which was freely given;

of yourself,

urgent and new;

all of you, gift after gift after gift

to a father stirred and grateful

that the elements combined as you.

Walloped lifeside

In which the previously unimaginable 25-syllable (26?) Son-Ku is introduced:

Stupid with desire to be better,
desire to be higher.
Walloped lifeside.
This is good.


WARNING: Do not drive while using this rare poetic form. It may cause drowsiness.

By This Pencil

Homage to W.S. Merwin

Even if it’s junk,

the pencil and the paper

make more of it than writing.

The fingertip feel, inside and out,

the face emerging, sketched and contoured,

the smiles and the guarded thoughts,

all the shaded expression, 

all the passion coming soon,

the forest canopy sprouted,

sudden and slightly scented,

wet as rain, warm as summer’s wind,

dark as night and here, by this pencil.

On Gillian Conoley

Some Gangster Pain


So, I’ve owned this book, or a copy, anyway, Some Gangster Pain, for some time. Gillian Conoley, the poet, has introduced the entire collection with a quote from Pablo Neruda:

“Where bullets fly on the wind,
I am left in envy of the cowboys,
left admiring even the horses.”

and a line from the bible:

“…the glory of his nostrils is terrible.”

Job 39:20

This makes me wish that I could introduce my poem, Ecstasy, with the very same lines.

But it also makes me want to understand the poetry of Gillian Conoley better than I do. Conoley is a tough poet to crack. She uses words for every known purpose and, maybe, has invented a few new uses. She uses words for whispering. For intimating. For caressing. For hammering. For launching projectiles. Conoley uses words to excavate and to bury. Trying to stay on top of one of Conoley’s poems is like putting in a day riding broncs at a rodeo in Texas, the poet’s home state.

Some Gangster Pain starts off manageable, even for those new to rodeo. I can stay on “The Invention of Texas,” easy. It’s good poetry, clear as a bell, with a moral perspective that makes sense to me. But, compared to the rest of Conoley’s poetry, it’s like riding a pony. I don’t get bucked off, and I end the ride feeling like I just met a poem I can’t help liking and don’t mind liking.

But one poem later, I’m getting up on “Patsy Cline," and it’s suddenly obvious how much I have to learn about Conoley’s poetry and how hard I’m going to have to work to learn it.

The first three lines, I’m all there, all present; I’m up on this ride.

“When I’m alone, I like how my nylons
mesh, the rustle I get
just walking.”

For a ‘50s fetishist like me, this is an open invitation. But just a few lines later:

“…Not like she did
in that yellow skirt,
strolling in
so everyone saw.”

Wait. Just wait. If “I” am Patsy Cline, then who is “she?” But if “I” am Gillian Conoley and “she” is Patsy Cline, then do I want you to know so much about me, Gillian.

I like the image: that yellow skirt swinging so that everyone could see (see what?). And it’s not like I have that many unanswered questions…but then you walk in and I know I don’t have any idea who you are or why there’s money falling out of your pants. Yes, there seems to be more than one voice here. I am barely holding on to this bronc, to this sexy, feisty poem

“But I still see
that bar, the lights
strung bare above every man’s back,
the sticky perfume,
her skirt a breeze you could carry.”

and I just plain forget to hold on. I’m flying skirts up, ass over elbows and I hear the next line (and I can hear it still):

“Once I got home…”

So, even though I have no idea who “I” is, I am so enjoying being “I” that I just may go back to the beginning and start reading the poem all over, again.

(And this, I did. Imagine, if you will, an interlude.
Be mindful that I am half way through the second poem in a book with about 40 poems.)

Ah. That was refreshing. Where were we?

There’s a lot more from the time “I” got home and the end of the poem, but let me jump here to that end. What comes next will in no way spoil the poem for you (I might already have done that). I’m betting, instead, that once you know how it ends, you’ll want to do the hard work of reading the poem yourself. It ends:

“I may be walking backwards onto this plane,
but you’re looking
like some rat-eyed pimp,
some hillside jack on a slide.”

Of course, it ends that way. I always knew there was a guy like you involved. I just didn’t know where in the poem the heel was going to show up, or that the heel would be you. Or, if you prefer, that you would be the heel.

So, without believing for a moment that I actually understand “Patsy Cline,” that’s what I’ve gotten so far out of reading it. If you could have that kind of experience, just for taking a harder look at 33 lines, why would you bother to read anything longer?

On the theory that other doors will open if I read Some Gangster Pain through to the end that’s what I’m going to do.

Remember All the Why

I know that when I go

I’m gone.

I know

all my twisting,

all my writhing,

all these undulations,

are no challenge to that truth.

I’ve reaped a whirlwind of rewards

and broken things

to which I am entitled,

but nothing here has changed.

I stay busy

making plans,

crafting signs,

wrapping little packages,

for you, for all of you behind.

They are explosively designed,

though some, for certain, will be duds.

But some will burst and shower down,

here or where you might have gone,

water to bathe with or to sip,

a bit, perhaps, of fairy dust,

a fleeting clarity or joy.

Remember that we loved

and remember all the why.

Write Whatever

When I sit to write whatever,

I am writing anywhere

but here.

Why not stand, instead,

and walk and run and jump

and get to anywhere that way?

Why not answer yes

when asked or pushed or pulled

or answer no, regardless?

Why not pray for peace and love

and a full-shelved

corner store?

Why not rip off all my clothes,

and softly wait

for anywhere

but here

to come?

Tell Each Other Verse by Verse

When I thought of you standing there,

posed in the doorway, watching the sunrise,

your tank top a window to the long, rolling muscles

of your back, your legs lean,

so astonishingly long

and brown,

I recalled then other places

and other times

that exercised great power over me.

But before I lost myself in memory,

I lingered one more moment,

wondering who would run her hand,

by your leave,

along your hip,

and how you would

tell each other

verse by verse.

Somewhere in the Night

Somewhere in the night

she died, he said.

They would look there

for her, but she wouldn’t want

to be found.

I remember hanging with her

and with others who loved

what she loved.

All the dancing and the doing,

all the more and all together.

But I wouldn’t be one

who went looking.

She wouldn’t want to be found,

having died somewhere

in the night.

She would share

what she saw

and all the others

would bend and whirl

to see what she heard.

When we saw

what she could hear,

we could feel the peace

she felt and the thrills

that ran through her.

I could take you there,

to the place where she died,

but she would wish

not to be found

somewhere in the night.