Read an Excerpt
The Nerve
Poems
By Glyn Maxwell Houghton Mifflin
Copyright © 2002 Glyn Maxwell
All right reserved. ISBN: 0618155465
THE SEA COMES IN LIKE NOTHING BUT THE SEA
The sea comes in like nothing but the sea, but still a mind, knowing how seldom words
augment, reorders them before the breaker and plays them as it comes. All that should sound
is water reaching into the rough space the mind has cleared. The clearing of that mind
is nothing to the sea. The means whereby the goats were chosen nothing to the god,
who asked only a breathing life of us, to prove we were still there when it was doubted.
THE MAN WHO HELD HIS FUNERAL
Rugged and silken, like a country singer both those things, fastidious and scary, yet fitted by the terms of his employment in a sober suit and driving gloves, he seemed defeated in a civil war still going.
He said hed lived his life. What was he, sixty? with children and grandchildren, his car business solid, sold. He laid his leather hands on the steering wheel and said hed lived his life. And so one day had held his funeral.
Although he looked in his blue single-breasted right for one, we caught each others eyes and tried to find this funny or him funny. It depended. All his pals had been invited, had come from far and wide and there he lay,
face-up in a hired coffin, taking breaks for Pepsi while he listened to their speeches. Which, by the grin I saw in thedrivers mirror, must have delighted him on his bed of satin, staring with eyes closed. Oh they made cracks,
he told us, they hit home, they didnt spare me! We didnt really know how to receive this, in the back, on the winning side, except politely, then without words to stretch back and imagine his friends were probably mourning him, youd have to,
because he hadnt died, because hed held his funeral, to hear the case against him, but had heard nothing and was satisfied, and reassured that all the things he loved and strolled among had had their hour of judgment.
THE WEATHER GUY
Hurricane This is scaring us, Hurricane Thats not far behind, and were not turning our backs one second. We look at the screen all day. We find
Hurricane This still flapping away at the shirt of Tom the Weather Guy. Canada throws an arm around him. Hurricane That just bats an eye.
Hurricane This is whipping off the Carolinas tablecloth; Hurricane That, amused by this, is beating ocean into froth.
Hurricane This is playing wolf to New York Citys clever pig; Noahs nailing down his roof so when it comes its nothing big.
Hurricane This is burning out off Providence; Hurricane That is disappointing Tom, whod dreamt of half Virginia pounded flat.
And Hurricane This was called Renee. And Hurricane That was Stan. And Canada pats Toms shoulder now as he hands us back to Jenni-Ann,
who asks about his weekend plans, which are much the same as ours, so maybe well see him nosing out of a local brawl of cars,
and maybe hell give us the wave he gets when the heat kicks in and how, and it hits the heights he said it would this far upstate by now.
More likely hell just speed away. And Id be shy of the love of those who have to live by what I have to warn them of.
Excerpted from The Nerve by Glyn Maxwell Copyright © 2002 by Glyn Maxwell
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
