Hobo Jungle
BUT
There is a compulsion to drive north:
The belief that if you could only go far enough,
Past the Maritimes, past the Gaspe Peninsula,
Across the St. Lawrence River, over
The last tenable roads, that there
You would find an outpost tavern
Held over from the days of the lost North,
With spar-varnished snowshoes stacked
And a monstrous fire of arm-spread-wide birch
And iron cauldrons of bubbling stew
And pewter tankards of rare ale,
Laughter and thick wool shirts
In dark and gaudy plaids.
And the jokes would be funny
And the stories long and true,
And the women would embrace you
With firm and bountiful chests,
And the ale would be cheap and fresh,
So when you fell drunk before the hearth
A grinning voyageur would cover you
Gently with a massive wool shirt
While you dreamt dreams as clear
As a vision in the arctic dark.
Jon, let's drink up, okay? You never know when it's your last dram. (number 17 and climbing.)
There is a compulsion to drive north:
The belief that if you could only go far enough,
Past the Maritimes, past the Gaspe Peninsula,
Across the St. Lawrence River, over
The last tenable roads, that there
You would find an outpost tavern
Held over from the days of the lost North,
With spar-varnished snowshoes stacked
And a monstrous fire of arm-spread-wide birch
And iron cauldrons of bubbling stew
And pewter tankards of rare ale,
Laughter and thick wool shirts
In dark and gaudy plaids.
And the jokes would be funny
And the stories long and true,
And the women would embrace you
With firm and bountiful chests,
And the ale would be cheap and fresh,
So when you fell drunk before the hearth
A grinning voyageur would cover you
Gently with a massive wool shirt
While you dreamt dreams as clear
As a vision in the arctic dark.
Jon, let's drink up, okay? You never know when it's your last dram. (number 17 and climbing.)
Jon, I've written a few about my dad. Do you remember anything that might cue me in? Delightly to put it up if I knew the one. (Number 21.)
Is it this one?
MAYBE
There is an object somewhere,
A part of you since birth,
You always know where it is
Like a compass to north;
Your father held it fondly for years
In his since dead hands as you fondle it
Now, your palms across the patina of
Wood or metal or hide. For
You have enshrined it with the sense
That somehow within, is the wisdom of
All that you long for and
All you have let pass by.
Allow me a bar as a sanctum,
Where the neon torments quietly
With its lazy bent beauty and
The beer sign turns so slowly
It almost stills the beating heart;
The bar back lies so calm in darkness
Like all twice-fucked lovers,
The barman so coolly cordial,
The barmaid so coolly sensual,
And the forever jukebox thumps out
Those same moist, drying songs as
We order again and again:
"Oh, so hard to leave,
So easy to stay . . ."
The booth wood firm against the back,
The body seeps languid with the clock,
For here the door might open to eternity
An angel gliding in from the mist,
Or be closed again with certainty
As the finished leave for home.
But maybe against all odds,
My lost father will walk
Through this barroom door,
And I'll nod to the barman
Who will know my father's drink,
And I'll place into my father's hand
The object—carefully preserved
And tenderly polished—
And my dad will smile.
Is it this one?
MAYBE
There is an object somewhere,
A part of you since birth,
You always know where it is
Like a compass to north;
Your father held it fondly for years
In his since dead hands as you fondle it
Now, your palms across the patina of
Wood or metal or hide. For
You have enshrined it with the sense
That somehow within, is the wisdom of
All that you long for and
All you have let pass by.
Allow me a bar as a sanctum,
Where the neon torments quietly
With its lazy bent beauty and
The beer sign turns so slowly
It almost stills the beating heart;
The bar back lies so calm in darkness
Like all twice-fucked lovers,
The barman so coolly cordial,
The barmaid so coolly sensual,
And the forever jukebox thumps out
Those same moist, drying songs as
We order again and again:
"Oh, so hard to leave,
So easy to stay . . ."
The booth wood firm against the back,
The body seeps languid with the clock,
For here the door might open to eternity
An angel gliding in from the mist,
Or be closed again with certainty
As the finished leave for home.
But maybe against all odds,
My lost father will walk
Through this barroom door,
And I'll nod to the barman
Who will know my father's drink,
And I'll place into my father's hand
The object—carefully preserved
And tenderly polished—
And my dad will smile.
I know the one. Hang on, coming up.
SOME EVENINGS
Poet found unconscious on Main Street.
"He looked like a shooting star in front of my headlights."
Forgive this wicked world for being so beautiful,
Forgive the madness coursing within my blood,
Forestall my inexorable return to dull normalcy, but
Fade the recollection of these few perfect moments,
So I may live with at least a half-stilled heart.
All that I have suffered,
The pain of that—now—
Drawn like a splinter from a hand,
Against this summer evening.
To walk down the hill to the harbor at dusk,
This century or older Main Street,
This New England brick and glass,
As the pale green stroke
of harbor heralds like a call.
I pass my local and Friday night pulses within;
The owner launches a bar rag at the door,
At my grinning face through the screen,
And the bartender comes to ask,
"Hey, are you coming back?"
(He'll burrow a few bottles of ale
into the ice as a gesture.)
And I walk out on the docks at high tide,
I walk to the furthest dock to the setting sun,
And I use a cold metal cleat as an opium pillow,
And I hear a bagpipe angling across the bay.
(This sky over the water can not be written.)
I give you this poem because my father died young,
I give you this poem because my father has not seen,
What I wish to show him. I give you this poem because
My father and I have never sat in my local together,
Because when I sit alone drinking I pour a beer
Into the ground so my father won't be thirsty.
I give you this poem because
Nothing will ever be the same again.
I walk back up the hill.
And turn in at the bar door.
I hand the bartender a ten
And ask him to ring the bell twice.
It rings like a poured out beer for the dead.
Jon, that the one? (number 21 1/2) . . .
SOME EVENINGS
Poet found unconscious on Main Street.
"He looked like a shooting star in front of my headlights."
Forgive this wicked world for being so beautiful,
Forgive the madness coursing within my blood,
Forestall my inexorable return to dull normalcy, but
Fade the recollection of these few perfect moments,
So I may live with at least a half-stilled heart.
All that I have suffered,
The pain of that—now—
Drawn like a splinter from a hand,
Against this summer evening.
To walk down the hill to the harbor at dusk,
This century or older Main Street,
This New England brick and glass,
As the pale green stroke
of harbor heralds like a call.
I pass my local and Friday night pulses within;
The owner launches a bar rag at the door,
At my grinning face through the screen,
And the bartender comes to ask,
"Hey, are you coming back?"
(He'll burrow a few bottles of ale
into the ice as a gesture.)
And I walk out on the docks at high tide,
I walk to the furthest dock to the setting sun,
And I use a cold metal cleat as an opium pillow,
And I hear a bagpipe angling across the bay.
(This sky over the water can not be written.)
I give you this poem because my father died young,
I give you this poem because my father has not seen,
What I wish to show him. I give you this poem because
My father and I have never sat in my local together,
Because when I sit alone drinking I pour a beer
Into the ground so my father won't be thirsty.
I give you this poem because
Nothing will ever be the same again.
I walk back up the hill.
And turn in at the bar door.
I hand the bartender a ten
And ask him to ring the bell twice.
It rings like a poured out beer for the dead.
Jon, that the one? (number 21 1/2) . . .
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