Poetry from a dozen years ago

I mentioned in passing recently that it's been a while since I've written poetry. Most of it has not been confessional but it often is based in my experiences, sometimes on work or relationships. These are, I think, the last I had worked on. In 2009 I was teaching creative writing and produced these as examples for the classes. I wanted to present them before I publish the new work, maybe to show the changes I'm making, the focus I'm recalibrating. 

ON THE APPEARANCE OF KURT VONNEGUT
IN A RODNEY DANGERFIELD MOVIE 

This face that looks like it has covered a lot of ground

Or ground much under it.  This face looks
Like it has ground much and covered much.
This face is a dog’s lapping unconcernedly at water.
This face considered granfalloons and I hear the sirens, I hear
The call to my karass.  It would fit so beautifully next to
Dangerfield’s, with whom he never shares a
Scene, GE PR beside aluminum siding.  Nixon, Hitler, Pol Pot,
They would not fear this face, this sleepy, disheveled
Face with a crazy son and coughing while he’s dying.  I see
Frustration and laughter, anger and resignation, this face
Cracking under the strain of living too long, asking for not much, a glass
Of water, some of my time. 

Of Your Rope
You’ve reached it not
when everything
stops, but
when nothing
is anymore,
when it wraps
around you
like your grandmother
’s afghan but
warmthlessly, no
cold there
either, the eyelets
she embroidered
staring like
her own dead eyes. 
How will you know? 
The end will
be a taunt, a bolt
that stares
up from
the floor
uselessly
beside the engine. 

 

SUZI QUATRO IN SAN REMO
I can’t get her out of my head.  Like an
            ice pick jabbed over and over
                        into my hippocampus, she’s
burrowed into my consciousness.  Those lips,
            that mullet framing a face already running to fat.
                        Years later latex pants make
sausages of her legs.  She’s
            the girl of my dreams, circa 1974, now
                        in early 1980 singing her biggest hit, her worst song,
duetting on Italian television with a guy whose muttonchops
            are probably more familiar with English
                        than he is.  But
there she is, little girl face, this voice that can
            burnish steel, can melt the paint off a car,
                        siren song of so many coke dreams, hash reveries.
Drummers are the “Q” keys of rock music. 
I would be her drummer, fold her cellulite
in, zip up that latex.

 

The Dead Girls Club 

It’d be nice if ghosts filed in,

like the future kings in MacBeth,

stately, decorous, in order.  But they don’t.

They enter like students, noisily, banging desks, dropping bags,

full of outside life.  And they don’t take their places

either, whether you’ve set them up in assigned places

or all in chairs facing one way but arrange

the room to fit around them, a corner here

to accentuate The Cutter’s curls.  A window there

so The Junkie can stare out when she gets bored.

The Crazy One makes the walls, the furniture, the others ricochet around her, mouth

open for an occasional comment or a shriek.  But that’s the thing.

They never utter a word, or none you hear.  Except for their entrances, ghosts are silent.

Except The Silent One on the floor, now spread eagled, now fetal,

mewling like a hungry kitten.  They’ve come

with the others—The Successful One,

The Trust Fund Punk, The Cold-Handed Sculptor, The Big Mother

(Big Grandmother now!), The Really

Crazy One you never fully see, the Others you don’t have names for—to do what?  Serenade you? 

You’ll never know.  They come, they shuffle around

the room, themselves.  One by one, softly,

one by one they leave you.

Ghosts always eventually leave you.

pennsylvania has a state smell

I've already come to the conclusion that my best strategy to make it through my time here is to treat it like jack kerouac did his stint on desolation mountain: simply to be here and take each day as it comes without noticing it much. as with every state, pennsylvania has a state bird and state flower and so on, but it also has a state smell, and on this edge of the thick it's burning garbage. fire regulations are laxer here--when we took my mother's leftover medications, several bags of prescriptions and vitamins and over-the-counter meds, to the pharmacy to have them disposed of they simply said, "burn 'em"--and it seems everyone takes a shift to burn something nettling. the smell too is thick here.

I'd forgotten my father's syntax which has also gotten thicker as he's aged: nearly every sentence has some variation of the king james phrase "took and went." "I took and went to the store." "I'll take and bring this over." "we'll take and send this in the mail." also, his use of the word "thing" as a synonym for any noun. "your sister and ken went to the thing." "jayne is in the bathroom cleaning the things." "I'll take and walk this thing over to my sister's for the thing." these may be symptoms of alzheimer's or they may simply be an extension of the way he's always talked.

my mother collected cherub paraphenalia and it's hard to turn around without bumping into a plaster statue or wall hanging or photo holder. her theology was simple--one acted in accordance with the wishes of god, although telling what those wishes are might be hard to decipher, and then one went to heaven where one spent eternity doing pleasurable things--and it was understood there was a heaven and a hell (although like universalists she didn't think god was much of one to actually damn anyone for eternity, just until he or she shaped up) and there was a god who could be known through christ and who operated supernaturally. she was a big one for the supernatural, both religious and secular. cherubs, angels, ghosts, poltergeists, spirits, premonitions, dreams, messages, visitations--all were on equal footing to her. she was an early and enthusiastic subscriber to fate magazine and read everything about edgar cayce as well as being a believer in whatever the weekly world news printed. what she was in addition to gullible was a beleiver in believing, and to the extent that belivers are also people who hope, we have that in common.