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07-19-2010, 12:02 AM
Animal Poem
There was a poem once, of high grass condensed
with wing-hums, of blackbirds between
yellow stems, singing.
There are paintings with this grass;
the painter’s hand rises up and down, threshing
the canvas with cuts of color, darkness becomes
the first strokes overwhelmed by the last. He waits
for the translucent bird to enter the grass, nearly there,
perhaps not there at all. His work is incomplete until
the peasant women are leaning into the wheat.
I hear no hums but my own strokes slashing.
My motor rips seed from husk.
I am as a miner and rub my eyes when my poem ends
because the world outside is blinding, golden,
but unsalvageable.
Inspired by shards of my mother’s
birthing song -- shrilly threatening :
Make something of this.
Later,
my redblueyellow Legos that, in the
box, bright and wonderful as cut flowers,
overwhelmed. I put them in my mouth, drooled,
made shrill music, peed, and slept. Grew out
of my mother’s gaze.
Grew to a boy who saw in
wood only wood, in money, money,
not fire or design. Then a man who,
when making love, sweating, burning,
preferred the pleasure of his mother’s
cool petal-soft hand, placed across
his feverish forehead, and her voice
patting down heat.
The whole town shut down when
the factory closed. My father came home,
began speaking with a hammer, beating down
floorboards and fences with nails, oiling, sanding,
carving, till the house was worn out with his rub,
held together by tiny adjustments.
For my mother,
he planted flowers in rows of grieving white,
church-goers in obligatory attendance,
bowing out of fear or weakness
to their creator.
He hung bird seed from branches,
hoping fluttering sweetness
would make mother love him.
The birds did not come.
She grew bitter for waiting, wanted
him to return to his natural work.
She took me and left him, humming,
A man is not a man without his work.
Build, mother said, build.
I became a poet, thought a house
could be made of words, each
exclamation a blade of grass.
There will be white lilies on a blue wall.
There will be a rust-colored walk
and a coil of a hose, and a window reflecting
a spotlight of sun.
But the animals don’t come.
And I hum, and wait,
with my strokes coming down
fast now, adding tiny adjustments.
The woman and the child
carrying one another as one
bundle of fabric and arms stay
hidden within the white lining of the
page and comfort each other with
voiceless kisses.
I could not put an animal in my poem;
all I wrote was coin-toned and clicking,
wobbly, sharp, electric, for I had
flicked it, cranked it, and plugged it,
shook it till the agitated snow churned,
and the house fires burned smokeless
in the night as I neglected to add chimneys,
till the long white lilies leaned on the blue
house I made, waiting for a watering can
and a man.
There was a poem once, of high grass condensed
with wing-hums, of blackbirds between
yellow stems, singing.
There are paintings with this grass;
the painter’s hand rises up and down, threshing
the canvas with cuts of color, darkness becomes
the first strokes overwhelmed by the last. He waits
for the translucent bird to enter the grass, nearly there,
perhaps not there at all. His work is incomplete until
the peasant women are leaning into the wheat.
I hear no hums but my own strokes slashing.
My motor rips seed from husk.
I am as a miner and rub my eyes when my poem ends
because the world outside is blinding, golden,
but unsalvageable.
Inspired by shards of my mother’s
birthing song -- shrilly threatening :
Make something of this.
Later,
my redblueyellow Legos that, in the
box, bright and wonderful as cut flowers,
overwhelmed. I put them in my mouth, drooled,
made shrill music, peed, and slept. Grew out
of my mother’s gaze.
Grew to a boy who saw in
wood only wood, in money, money,
not fire or design. Then a man who,
when making love, sweating, burning,
preferred the pleasure of his mother’s
cool petal-soft hand, placed across
his feverish forehead, and her voice
patting down heat.
The whole town shut down when
the factory closed. My father came home,
began speaking with a hammer, beating down
floorboards and fences with nails, oiling, sanding,
carving, till the house was worn out with his rub,
held together by tiny adjustments.
For my mother,
he planted flowers in rows of grieving white,
church-goers in obligatory attendance,
bowing out of fear or weakness
to their creator.
He hung bird seed from branches,
hoping fluttering sweetness
would make mother love him.
The birds did not come.
She grew bitter for waiting, wanted
him to return to his natural work.
She took me and left him, humming,
A man is not a man without his work.
Build, mother said, build.
I became a poet, thought a house
could be made of words, each
exclamation a blade of grass.
There will be white lilies on a blue wall.
There will be a rust-colored walk
and a coil of a hose, and a window reflecting
a spotlight of sun.
But the animals don’t come.
And I hum, and wait,
with my strokes coming down
fast now, adding tiny adjustments.
The woman and the child
carrying one another as one
bundle of fabric and arms stay
hidden within the white lining of the
page and comfort each other with
voiceless kisses.
I could not put an animal in my poem;
all I wrote was coin-toned and clicking,
wobbly, sharp, electric, for I had
flicked it, cranked it, and plugged it,
shook it till the agitated snow churned,
and the house fires burned smokeless
in the night as I neglected to add chimneys,
till the long white lilies leaned on the blue
house I made, waiting for a watering can
and a man.