Nothing says taxes like long lines and drinking. With tax day in mind, it’s my pleasure to feature two poems from Carlos Reyes, “In the Line at the Post Office,” and “Shot Glass.” Both poems appear The Book of Shadows (© 2009, Lost Horse Press), his recent collection of new and selected poems.

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEMS

The poems exemplify what Carlos does best — drill down to revelation through clean, thoughtful, and well-crafted language, while letting images carry and drive them forward. They remind me of Whitman’s adage that sometimes the power of a work has as much to do with what’s not being said as it does with what rests on the page.

In the Line at the Post Office


The man near
the head of the line

turns to face us
licks stamps

his tongue out
like someone

taking communion.
Up on the wall

Christ on the clock
arms outstretched

says quarter to three.
That his right hand tries

to raise itself, that
his left hand slumps

is an illusion.
The waterclock

has stopped, the
last seconds dry

on his pale wrists.

**

Shot Glass

With the bottom
of the thick glass

he works chancres
into the mahogany

the heel of his hand
rests on what

germs reside there
though the bar

is wiped clean
and shines in the

light of the afternoon
sun stabbing through

the smoky glass
The bar is filthy

half the lives
who come here

are lost in the
dirty wiping rag

the other half
in the porous wood

plank where they
have left

—scratched there
with coins’ serrated edges—

their scars

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

**

Day 14 brings us Oregon poet Mary Hope, and her poem, “Equinox.”

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEM

This poem feels like an abstract still-life — a series of tactile images covered in an extra layer of color and drip. Do we linger with the snow, follow the finch, or stay with the blind cat as he gazes into a world “which is now shadow”?

Equinox

And it is done. Snow this morning, Doak Mountain a promise.
A yellow finch topping the cup of snow on the monk pine
and the blind cat Kiki, making his way across the lawn
as slow as a diver. The great bell of his head lifted,
he guides by sound and temperature, his body forever
taking him east, he crosses into the aspen grove, pauses to pat
a rock, walks across three more and then finds the large volcanic
slab, snowless, out of the wind. There he sits, gazing
at the world which is now shadow; how much depth or light
I can only guess. Face into the sun, eyes slits, birds
slowly forgetting he is not statue.

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

**

Day 13 brings us two poems from Oregon poet, John Morrison. The first, “Black Bead,” comes from his first full-length collection, Heaven of the Moment (© 2007, Fairweather Books); the second, “Your Dark,” is a new piece he graciously shared with us.

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEMS

“Black Bead,” like Bruce Weigl’s poem, “Eddy,” takes us through the unspoken tenderness that exists between men. Here the narrator recaps an instance where his father relies on the tools he knows in order to relieve his son’s pain. “Your Dark,” meanwhile, harkens back to Peter Sears’ poem from Day 1, “We Can Help Each Other.” John addresses the questions posed in the other poem, and pushes readers forward into new considerations.

Black Bead


Hunched like a grey bear over
my ten-year-old hand, my father spun
in his knobby fingers a drill bit
thin as a toothpick on my bruised thumbnail.

In the solitary game where I slammed
grey rock against grey rock, the rock
all our dry acre had in abundance,
I missed on my way to open the color

inside: sunrise, ochre, rust, willow green.
Under my thumb’s clear, fine shell
a thundercloud appeared in the pink sky,
a cloud that brooded, brooded but wouldn’t

rain, only throbbed darker. He never
offered what he knew, not the science
of winds, not constellations, not the curve
of the earth, but he would go quiet, lean in,

and try to fix anything. Clumsy about gentleness,
silver flashed in his hand. He whispered,
How brave you are, as he churned, then coaxed
out the pinhole a first bead of black blood.

**

Your Dark

     with a nod to Peter Sears

Is your dark never silky

like old port or soft as the underside

of a calendula petal with your eyes

closed, but is your dark more like a knobby

patch of summer tar mounded in

a pothole, the same tar the dumb

kid would twist off in a wad

to chew like Black Jack gum? I mean,

without any of the warm light

in that memory, just the oily,

shiny, black and sticky, a syrup

down your throat and nose, in ears

and eyes until you’re full

or swallowed or is your dark

more like mine, a black gravel

with a few, flickering grey

pebbles sifted in, all in

motion like a slow storm, a fine

emery cloth on your skin, a grim

spa, rejuvenating, yes, but no doubt

grinding me down.

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

**

Day 12 brings us Pamela Steele, and her poem, “To the Woman Single Again,” from the collection Paper Bird.

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEM

Pamela leads us into the poem with a touch of dry, “Why me?” humor that punctuates a seemingly exhausting period of inquiry, bewilderment and self-doubt. From there, the poem takes us through a moment of reprieve and nighttime contemplation, then guides us into a morning filled with images, colors, and a sense of moving on.

To the Woman Single Again

Yesterday in the public library, a man stopped by the table
where you were reading Carolyn Forche, leaned down
and mumbled something with rubber band lips that you
asked him to repeat. A ribbon of drool fell from his mouth
as he said, Are you a boy or a girl? In your best library voice,
you whispered Girl, and he sidled away, leaving you distracted
and remembering how you complained to a friend about lesbians
in Kroger who stare at you and your butch hair
until she finally said, For God’s sake, put on some makeup
and earrings! Later, when you took off your coat in the diner,
a car salesman at the counter stared at your wild
breasts and you thought, I just can’t win.

Likely, there are nights when you fear you will always be alone,
wondering how you will manage the back stairs when you are old.
Tonight, put on some Dylan, maybe “Blood on the Tracks,” and pace
from the couch to the window and back again. Feel rough wood
beneath your feet. Forget about your hair and your father
who joked he’d need a whole wall in the family room
just for pictures of your husbands. Resist applying the Buddhist
principle of only so many breaths in a lifetime
to say, orgasms or the number of photos in which you are smiling.

In the morning, put on your coat, walk through the back door
and down the stairs. Follow the alley to the street where
a row of Victorians stand in scoured yards.
See past the littered hedges and ruined Christmas wreaths.
Find the purple crocuses floating on the dry grass.
Breathe. Wait. Breathe.

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

**

Day 11 brings us “Knowledge,” a poem by David Horowitz, poet and publisher of Rose Alley Press.

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEM

One of David’s gifts as a poet is shedding light on the subtleties and unspoken dramas that pepper and punctuate our lives. His tact and ear are on display in “Knowledge,” a poem that brings us in for a close-up examination, but, instead of making assumptions, allows us to paint the picture of the face and life into which we’re peering.

Knowledge

On elevators he won’t chat. Who knows
Who’s listening. In restaurants, at dinner,
It’s golf and basketball, films, who’s a winner
And why. It’s never business, though. Who knows

Who’s listening. His cowl of courtesy
And cross-armed grin hint caution, for who knows
Who’s listening. And e-mail, too: who knows
Who watches, reads. He guards each word he’ll say

And fences off his trust. That’s years away
For best friends. Wife alone he’ll kiss, embrace,
But never tell. Who knows? Her trusting face
Could mask. Talk sports, lawns, food? He’s social grace,

But business locks his mouth. For wife, a rose
And kiss tonight. And talk of her job, clothes.

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

**

Day 10 brings us a poem from Shaindel Beers, “After a Photo of a Chechen Girl on a Train,” from a collection entitled The Children’s War: Poems on Children’s Artwork of War. The poem appears in the most recent issue of Corium Magazine. The photo to which the poem relates is included below.

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEM

Working with images as prompts is a wonderful way to access poetry. Shaindel takes it a few steps further, working specifically with images of children’s art, as they describe their relationship and view of war through drawings, paintings and pictures. In the following poem, the child herself is the image, and the poem communicates the narrative that’s going on behind the girl’s pensive, wondering stare, and the outcomes for which she is being prepared.

After a Photo of a Chechen Girl on a Train

I am four, almost five, and I am beautiful.

I have my red hat, my red coat; I ride

on my mother’s lap. People smile at me.

I make them happy. When my mother looks

at them, they look away. My mother has

brown eyes. I have blue. I have only seen

my father in pictures. We have to practice

my mother says. Where are we going?

To visit Grandma in the country.

What will you do there?

Help Grandma gather eggs and be brave

even if the hens peck me.

Ride Doishka, the pony. I look out the window

at the wildflowers speeding by.

And you mustn’t cry says mother if we get there

and there is no Grandma, no pony.

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

**

Day nine brings us two poems from David Biespiel, “The Ex Lovers Close Down the Hawthorne Boulevard Bars on the 1000th Night of the War,” and “Mississippi God Damn,” both from his latest collection, The Book of Men and Women (© 2009, University of Washington Press). “Mississippi God Damn” previously appeared in Poetry.

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEMS

The Book of Men and Women hinges on the power, frailties, musings and failings of relationships, whether man’s relationship with himself, the comings and goings of a couple, or how we relate with the infinite. The fight-or-flight mentality of a given situation — the tug and push between people and energies — is on display in “The Ex-Lovers,” and the poem’s cadence and music balances against the actors’ wanderings. Meanwhile, “Mississippi God Damn” reads like the quick whip of heartbreak and lost chance as told by a drifter who takes off through a series of back pages.

The Ex Lovers Close Down the Hawthorne Boulevard Bars on the 1000th Night of the War

In this city of puddles they smirk and roam, boast and weep. Their

    gobbledy-gook is as good as code,

Their names retrofitted with fear, their condition all headache.

There are parables for this behavior, a proper blab, and none more

      rapacious, none more true

Than the teary king, his picture hanging from the billboards and

      bridges. The teary king,

Divine, jacked-off, peevish, unharmed, like a hideous garden heavy

      with lavender.

Most nights they’re livid. They’re lifters. They pilfer and dance with

      stern faces, cagey

With their suckled scat, unshaken by the drill, until the cask goes

      bottoms-up.

That’s when they go starkly through the streets and play their dark

      bodies like cards

And frighten themselves — he with his mopey joy, she with her long

      braids,

Their lappets dragging in the gutters, as they dart in the alleys like

      botched and dreamy punks.

–


Mississippi God Damn

Here in this strumming light which the generations can’t downshift

      out of,

And with the land gushing its courtesies of iron, and the shallow

      mercies

Caustic or strangely gussied up like dogs with dark collars, I lose

      my rest.

And what druthers I had are just trouble now, unconditional, all

      in the air.

What’s got me upset are the dead. They go too slow. They’re

Just plain rotten — even a beating heart hardly tingles.

The crimes, the land, the lost second sight, the prayers—

None of these are picking the cotton out of the lies.

And no banter between the roots and the tombs.

And no thoughts boycotting the feelings. The old rooms,

The shadow towns, the rebel yelling, the Confederate daughters,

And the themes of homesteads get hushed in the months-long heat.

I’ve gotten too damn lazy to pluck a duplicate heart,

Unearth a body, a song, an I-just-don’t-know-what kind of fly.

That’s just the trouble — the genie’s not gentle, the stomach

Can’t stomach the risk of being right, good, unknown, me.

And if I race to the dry river where the bodies are pushing through,

The bones peering like children from behind a curtain of dirt, then

      who

Shall judge the living? And if that’s a test what frown is needed,

What game face does everybody know to put on? What hoof? What

      blood?

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

Day eight brings us Bruce Weigl, with a poem entitled “Eddy,” from Declension in the Village of Chung Luong (© 2005, Ausable Press). The poem previously appeared in Irish Pages (Belfast).

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEM

Bruce is a master of layering his poems with tension and release, and drilling down through finite details until we reach a moment of grace. What strikes me most about the following poem, beyond the setting of the family’s home and the strange inhabitants therein, is the tenderness and the love that exists between brothers, both those of blood and of spirit.

Eddy


My friend Eddy had a younger brother who
definitely had something fucked up in his brain. Eddy’s mother
prayed out loud all day in her bedroom, lit with candles.
I never heard his solemn, steel mill father
utter one single syllable. Not ever.

Because no one else would, I loved Eddy. I went to his house
where other children feared to go. I heard his mother
pray and weep so loud, I almost ran away
until Eddy held my wrist and said to take it slow.
I didn’t know then what immaculate beauties I was among.

We tried to teach his brother how to use a fork and spoon;
how to zip his fly and pee like a man;
how to swing the bat, but he never learned,
and I didn’t know then
that love could be about two boys like that,

or that what Eddy held fast before the waves of prayer,
and the stony father’s silence,
and the world’s infinite
indignities, is called brother,
and what he gave up, is called everything.

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

**

Day five brings us Henry Hughes, with a poem entitled “Dark Spring” from his first full-length collection, Men Holding Eggs (© 2004, Mammoth Books), winner of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry in 2004.

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEM

Here we fall into the lull of a dark sea while a mix of images and sounds — two midnight crows, rats, starting cars, sharks — hurl away at us. Henry leads us in with an easy, rhyming gait, then tears the moment away in a sudden primal act that leaves us stranded helpless with a mournful, unattainable wish.

Dark Spring

The moon blind over spring tide,
Two midnight crows warm a budding ash
As rats cling and glove to hide
From cars started by a watchman’s flash.
In the Island Sound bladed sharks
Clasp and copulate with rolling rounds—
Twenty minutes joining in the dark.
Few would believe in this, though some must
Have imagined truth beneath the ark.
Only I saw the boy rip the female’s center
And four shark pups uncoil
In mixed blood. If I could just dive
these lights beneath the pier,
I’d drown reason, the last moon of my year.

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

**

Day three brings us Joe Millar, with a poem entitled “Doorway” from his most recent full-length collection, Fortune (© 2007, Eastern Washington University Press).

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEM

This poem reminds me very much of yesterday’s selection from Penelope Schott. Here again we encounter ghostlike figures that pop up in our periphery, visitations that dredge strange memories in their wake. Joe’s work always begins with the earth and moves out from there, carrying silt and mud with it. In “Doorway,” he stop us on a trail and refocuses our eyes just off the path.

Doorway

      for my parents

They do not come back for long
from that far country,
appearing in momentary changing light
or walking in the forest after rain.
I follow deer tracks etched in the path
where the stream runs down
and shadows and the green ribs
of grassblades move.
My mother stops to rest
exactly here, leaning on his arm
still corded with muscle.
The war ended six months ago
and they think nobody else will die,
watching cattails brush the shore
talking in low tones by the water.

**

A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

**