“There is a phrase in Psalm 77: “I remember my music in the night.” if I may offer an unauthorized and subjective paraphrase, I would write it this way: “In the darkest place, my music recalls itself to me.” Gradually the psalmist recollects what his life is for, long after entreaty and petition apparently have fallen away in a comfortless night…Nearly three thousand years later, in the 1930’s in Stalin’s Soviet Union, in circumstances comparable in hardship to the biblical anguish recorded that night in ancient Israel, the Russian poet Mandelstam put it this way: “poetry is an autonomous force in the universe.” — Gjertrud Schnackenberg, in an interview with John Galassi, excerpted in Christian Anton Gerard’s essay Making’s Progress; Or, A Defense Of Poetry. (via therumpus)
(via therumpus)
The toiled resentment within the overturned
dirt of the kitchen table, stained by memory
of time I can’t remember to forget, prayers
spoken to a Sunday School God in a pamphlet
which lies under a stack of bills and ads.
Everyone can feel the unspoken words
threaten in the nighttime air and are
cautious to appear to dance around them
naturally, so as not to give them life.
I pretend too that I’m not thinking
of the polished steel cylinder of the gun
hidden beneath a sweater on the counter.
Lying there, holding its breath, in wait
with one empty chamber – a token of
its demonstrated bark – sharp, cracking
like the whip of a God we don’t acknowledge
in the heavy night air, promising death
or deliverance from things unspoken.
So I sit at the table now, the gun
facing an empty seat, prayer after prayer
waiting for the drugs to take hold
and settle my reeling mind of what ifs,
planning contingency after contingency
while you lie empty in our bed
staring at the empty pillow, wondering,
against the moon washed sheets, wondering
if you might’ve done things different.
[Image: Amanda as a girl on a porch greeting callers]
Not without hesitation, nor reluctance
The acceptance of a beautiful poise, charm defined
Confident. The callers at the beckon of grace
Approaching the Pastor of the Chapel with reverence.
[Image: Swarm of Typewriters]
The click-clack of sans syncopated music
Of sans sincere work, tapping to pursuit
Of a sans serif clock, the rhythm of a day
The imagination of night, relief,sans sycophany.
[Image: Winter Scene at Park]
A cold wind slips through the seams and button holes
The snow white as an unloved heart yearning for color
The stillness of it, the settled mind, acceptance of cold
The image of a candle, the yearning for greater heat.
[Image: The High School Hero Bearing a Silver Cup]
The quest of exceptionalism, of greatness
Lost in the acceptance of placing second
A hero disfigured, a legend’s writing stopped
Interrupted by the necessity of survival.
[Image: Blue Roses]
The intimacy of a nickname
The caress of a recognition
The fondness of familiarity
In even the blessing of a name.
[Blank Screen]
[Image: Young man at Door with Flowers]
The breakthrough of knuckles against wood
In front of a bouquet of jonquils, steadiness
Sober to the point of regret
The necessity of aspiration
[Image: Glamour Magazine Cover]
The boat’s aft sliding it’s breast against wood
Cutting through the naïve preconceptions
Of illegitimate notions of beauty
And doesn’t the sea foam, doesn’t it break?
[Image: Caller with a bouquet of flowers]
They’ll be a good choice, capture sincerity
The regrouping of the heart at the doorknobs turn.
Above the vessel, as a warning
The Jolly Roger smiles on the dreamer.
[Image: High School Hero]
His wide chest, the deep shoulders
A smile that overcomes weakness
Where dreams are overwhelmed
By the imagination of perception.
[Image: High School Hero / Clerk]
How touchdowns in the green smell
Of amusement parks and stale water
Against mahogany and bitter black ink
The incessant typing, a drum roll memorial
[Image: Executive at Desk]
The simplicity of numbers, paper
How the ink obeys and lays overture
To a life of automation and ritual
Against the backdrop of adventure.
[Image on Screen: Sailing Vessel With Jolly Roger]
The merchant ship, it’s grinning guidon
The water sliding up the bow, curling
At the apex, the Pirates of Penzance
And gliding downward the slave of duty.
[Image: Amanda as a Girl]
The virtue of a quick tongue
Sweetened in the syrup of southern
Hospitality, fragranced and deepened
By the incessant need for Jonquils.
[Image: Blue Roses]
The intimacy of a nickname
The caress of a recognition
The fondness of familiarity
In even the blessing of a name.
[Legend on Screen: “Things Have a Way of Turning Out So Badly”]
Or Image: The Gentleman Caller
The strong hands waving entitlement
The pretentious teeth a disappointment
By the broken possibilities of a horn
Deep, deep into the Glass Magerie
Count Five: Horrors Count Five
[The Scene Dissolves.]
Three guns gobbling took turns talking
about rates of fire and trigger squeeze
sing: peanut butter peanut butter jam
their rattling farts syncopate in hot dark-
ness, grunting anger at the burning oil
A gunner’s face jiggles and shakes
muted in a cacophony of slamming metals
When faced with the evidence of another she said
Trust your gut, it has been good to you dead
The three count three stroke snare drum roll
the gunner’s faces shuffle in time lapse strobe
methodical and patient they wait for a time
to speak into smoke at their hatred’s delight
The brass belt quivers, the brass belt slithers
inching towards the incessant fingers
When faced with her own mistakes she said
Trust not your gut when the lights are all red
The ringing dingling of tiny brass bells
while sand crunches in the gunner’s teeth
stars descend in the bass drum’s boom
a red flare climbs towards them, slows
and hovers, sucking in the lightless drove
And the sergeant screams shift, shift
to a choreography of shrugging shoulders
The heat presses in even at cold night
and what does your heart say she said
The rattling tattling pigs all scream
to the most likely places they’ll be
chased by friends in another sing-song
or wouldn’t their faith just carry on?
faith that the order must keep us unharmed
And the symphony settles in the bark of a spider
Good kill, good kill, you’ll definitely decide her
And at this disorder nothing is gained
out of belief when only to ease the pain.
For an instant we are both blinded
By the sun’s reflection on the steel
She slides along my shaking hand.
There is an instant of uncertainty
Like the recollection of a dream
Between the sudden coldness
Of opened flesh and the drawing heat
Of exposure, so I know where I am.
Blood fills the opening before
I kiss it, and smears my lips with
The trade of faith for honesty
Like the push of a ballast tank
Against a ship towards the surface
Where Shiners slip West and North
So I know precisely where I am.
We watch the blood gather
Itself at the heel before squeezing
Into a single orb, holding, releasing
And suspend timeless as an objection
To gravity between the clouds
And rotten wood before surrendering
To the crevices and splinters of grain
So I might know where I am.
I look at her as she looks away
Pretending to study the water
I look to the water and she turns
To study my hand in the periphery
Of awareness and points at a hawk
Falsely inquiring if it’s her
As if I’ve forgotten where I am.
No I say with the uncertainty
That holds sand against the bottom
Of the lake beneath the surface
Of my age, where shiners quietly
Slip east and south on impulse
As a reminder of where I am.
She slides the blade farther
Up my arm and pretends to admire
The twinkling water then closes
Her eyes and smiles in quiet pride
And I embrace the wound
Like an aging woman clings to youth
Refusing the wisdom of aged skin
Not knowing where I am.
Then without the pretension of faith
It screams in announcement of intention
And burst from between the pines
Aplomb above our inadequate awe
In my drunkenness of its turns and dives
Her hand slides south and east
To hold mine absent of the stinging wound
And I pretend not to notice it burns
For fear she might fly away
And we both know where I am.
I shared a beautiful hypnosis with my love
My love so lovely and so lovely was my love
So you know that earlier, I listened to the
Haunted voice of Stein creep through
The crevices and splits of a snapping fire
Groaning the exasperation of a ripe ego
Popping and breaking at the truth of exp-
osure forced from flame, the stars project
illusions on the cold silent campfire.
The polished brown oversized statue of a bear
its massive paw, the size of a hat, reaches at an
unsuspecting elephant, docile, its trunk raised
in total joy, as if to spray the bear in comedy.
Statues lined in rows of paradoxical situations
ending in a formation of saints, unified in prayer,
interceding for the odds against their pattern,
the predator-prey situations unfair to their order.
Their extinction, a mantle for birds to bathe.
Here was the heart, the evening primrose,
green fibers frayed as if disappointed
by the suddenness of everything.
Two petals laid with their spines splayed
the boot who crushed them hours away,
years, unsure how it carried such intent-
tion in it’s tread for so many lifetimes.
Now the cadence of rain showers.
Aluminum gutters tap a busy staccato
for the evening’s slow exploding march
shutters clapping their senile applause
and the wood moans at hearing a bad
joke about the empty spaces at comm-
union, where hymns were never sung.
Beside the still creek a tree felled of it’s
ambition where it lies prostrate, arms
outstretched, fingers piercing the earth
in a clutch to the nobility of white lies
arising from the dark holes of rodents
scurrying in ceremonies, parades, and
the homecoming kiss of pine needles.
Beneath the soggy dam of deadwood
where chain saw protozoa and erupting
aspergillum trickle into the foam of consc-
iousness, her hair shines the promises
of auburn determination climbing the banks
of youth and the innocence of vines
their thorns snagging an impatient spirit.
There has to be something here
Perhaps the way the water bends
And slides over the rocks as an image
Of your hair cascading the crevices
And angles of your shoulders, the collar-
Bones as branches wedged into the
Draws formed by gently winding
Trapezoids. Or maybe they’re just
Rocks, and water, simply, beautifully
And without the responsibility
Of living up to your winding river