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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781491821374 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 10/25/2013 |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.55(d) |
Read an Excerpt
A Pocket of Resistance: Selected Poems
By Jim Jewell
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2013 Jim JewellAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4918-2137-4
CHAPTER 1
I—Thoughts
All Is Calm
the sun is shining outside, but it is cold;
the sky is blue outside, but the trees are bare;
the wind whispers softly, but its coldness bites into the skin;
the windows reflect the sparkling sunshine, but the glare hurts the eyes.
i walked to the top of the hill and looked down on the lights of the city,
hoping to remember something beautiful and warm,
but the memories brought sadness
because they were of the past instead of the present;
a tear came to my eye, and the wind made the tear cold.
i was alone; the fact burned my heart as it chilled my soul;
i watched with sad amusement as two squirrels
in the lone tree on the hill chattered to one another;
i walked down the hill back to my lonely room,
four walls, bare lights, blaring radio, books, un-emptied ashtrays.
the sun is shining outside but it is cold;
the sky is blue outside, but the trees are bare;
the wind whispers softly but its coldness bites into the skin;
the windows reflect the sparkling sunshine;
but the glare hurts the eyes,
and all is calm
but yet ...
Do You Know
the whole world is dark,
but there is light in the sky.
i feel something inside which
cannot be described;
there is peace but no calm;
can't you feel the world around you?
it is an appalling
to know you are alone;
there is no one in the world
who feels the same feelings you feel,
but
all in the world feel something similar
to what you feel.
see the red barn, and the barn is red;
the sun sparkles off the tin roof
broadcasting "See Rock City;"
let's go to Rock City and
live in the world of wonderment.
of little consequence
a quiet stagnated pool adrift in the sea,
is transfixed by a great white light,
to rise and fall with the tides of the sea,
entwined in a struggle of slight
a particle bursts forth from the quiescent water;
wanders in the freedom of pure air:
then reunites with the turbulent ocean water;
there produces an entirely new heir.
the adventurer passes and new heir maturing,
returns to the site of the ancient one's birth;
white light sears its eyes to stunt the maturing;
drowned by stagnated waters,
what was its worth?
Noticings
Have you ever noticed
cobblestone streets
always run beside
auto dealers and
dirty brick buildings
with the name of the warehouse
painted on the side?
The Rain
i walked slowly in the soft rain;
as it settled on my slicker,
instead of bouncing off
like a pellet in a harsher rain;
the droplets gathered
on my hatless head,
to wander down my face
as I opened my mouth
as if to drink;
after a few moments of walk,
i broke into a run,
like a colt showing his heels to the world.
the spirit inside burst
into a primeval yell
to go with the greenness of wet:
not damp, not murky:
free, wide, open.
a fleeting moment
one only captures
every once in a while.
the sun broke through the clouds.
the rain was over.
Too Long
The world is a beautiful thing;
if not in it,
i could sit,
and
watch it
go by for hours.
but
the seat is hard;
it's a pain in the ass
to sit on the cold concrete
too long.
git
Git!
Git out.
Git up.
Git going.
Git a job.
Get real.
Guitar.
Feelings
Snow is falling.
A quiet has fallen on the world.
Everyone wants to sit by the fire,
Feel its warmth.
But what it's like to stand out in the cold,
feel the wind biting,
biting into the cheeks?
It hurts.
But the hurt is satisfying.
The room is big and empty;
There is nothing here
but
me and my emptiness;
There are people dancing to the loud music.
There are people laughing at the jokes that are not funny;
but
I can't laugh because I know something.
Something?
The something is
I don't know;
No one knows.
I can appreciate
A warm person,
The beauty of a snowfall,
The warmth of a fire,
A sky full of stars after a snow fall,
A good cigarette.
Let's cry.
A Plea
periodic rumblings
disturb my equanimity;
inner calm
is disrupted
too frequently;
go away
murky thoughts;
human frailties,
dispense harassing
my peace.
wicked web
ah, the wicked web:
the old man still tried
to make sense of it:
it would not come to sense;
connections did not;
assumptions weren't;
desire was couched in innuendo;
listen did not hear;
perhaps saddest of all,
passion was subjugated
to illusions.
the old man leaned on the cane
rising from the rocking chair,
prodding the old dog with his foot.
love may not be enough,
but
it wins
even though
the lover may lose.
Secrets
i am a time traveler in my mind.
Crystal illusions on the waterfront,
Sail and red-checkered table cloths.
The problem is i do not know
who i am at what time i am whomever i am.
Spackle of grey clouds allows the sun
to dart between and glare at the sea gulls flapping.
i keep these secrets with me,
not knowing who i am, when, and mostly why.
I cannot tell anyone,
especially those who have come to know me:
no political correctness here,
just concern for all of those,
just not me.
Old world harbor town gasping hard against
the new world of glitzy commercialism up and coming.
Responsible resistance to secret revelation,
a yearning emptiness of sweetness.
it is a secret
with which i wrestle like a bear
with no resolve as to how much, when or how
i should tell to whom;
... and the world goes round
while people do foolish things,
i among them.
old man nodding,
smiling at the beauty,
the symmetry of it all
while the city structures loom,
silhouettes of the times:
those which are,
those which never will be.
Smile Mr. Fitzgerald,
Another day for Gatsby has arrived.
Brief Thoughts On New Year's Eve
Frozen rain splatters against the black asphalt.
Laughing boys sneer delightfully
As their firecrackers burst;
The night is dark and cold;
Everyone's out celebrating the new year.
How can time pass so fast
With so little effect on the mind?
Coke does taste better out of the little bottle.
Late in Summer
palsied pink fingers:
looming autumn clouds
gently tap the horizon awake;
an infinite gray ribbon of highway
slashes through
green phosphorescent hills
non-think
embraces the drive;
his mind wanders
to pines and someone
far away.
cool solitude,
impervious to the immediate objective
excites brute loneliness:
thoughts of someone
gather as a gray storm
tumbles like a cascading stream
in his mind.
palsied pink fingers
curl to a fist;
enlightening rain
spits on the windshield
while far away
sweltering rays silhouette the pines.
tired
tired.
shot all to hell
like a riddled card
against the tree
attacked
by Wild Bill's six-shooter;
weather abates:
sultry heat,
hazy skies
demand rain.
but when will it fall
down
in pellets
which riddle
the lawn like that gunshot
penetrated
pasteboard?
i dreamed last night
i dreamed last night.
my wife and daughters
looked down on me,
talking to each other.
i could not hear them;
i asked them to speak up.
they could not hear me:
i wondered why
while marveling at
how beautiful, grown women
my daughters had become.
it dawned on me:
i was dead.
the three women
were not distressed;
my death apparently was
a matter-of-fact thing:
done.
i contemplated
all it meant:
i wondered while
watching my daughters and wife
talk standing above me
with the blue sky behind them,
if i would see
the dirt clods
start to fall.
futile
i do not know why
i try
to talk to them and
make sense
because
they do not listen
because
they have many things to do and move through them just like that mr cummings so
they
have something else to face:
fear.
they love it and
do not listen:
i have given up on form and substance;
even logic does not penetrate
the gelatin mass of hyper-life we claim as real
but
i know
sure as the spume of the pacific will flay the sand
and
the dog who frolics there will die
it is much simpler than all of that.
the answer is really quite simple;
if only i knew it.
Smoked Dreams
Another dream went up in smoke tonight;
It may have been my last;
i've been a dreamer most of my life;
It may now all be in the past.
My dreams were quite magnificent;
i never dreamed too small;
My life has never been as well spent
As the dreams i still recall.
Now, there are no dreams to chase;
i've watched them fade away;
i have my duties for others' sake;
Dreams are luxuries anyway.
i sit in my chair, not dreaming,
Beside my unlit reading light;
My world is empty seeming;
In the pitch dark of summer night.
believing
1947
we sang,
"red, and yellow, black and white,
"they are precious in his sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world."
and
i believed.
1950
we sang,
"come to the church in the wildwood,
"come to the church in the dell,"
and
"rock of ages, cleft for me,
"let me hide myself in thee,"
and
"he walks with me;
"he talks with me;
"he tells me i am his own."
and
i believed.
1953
Oral Roberts in television black and white:
at nine, i had a cold so bad
i held my hand against the CPU
as Oral instructed me to do
to heal what ails me
as he was wont to do
to make the blind man walk,
the lame man see,
and
all to hear
his call for alms;
but
Oral did nothing for me
and
i still believed,
just not quite completely.
1958
the visiting preacher man
wove a story while
drawing a chalk portrait
of Jesus,
and
asked us to walk down
the aisle to recommitment,
and
i did
and
i believed stronger than ever.
1961
the day was warm for a spring Sunday
when the pastor talked to the youth
meeting concurrently with
the men's choir supper,
but
those good ole boys were in fellowship hall
while we waxed luxuriously
in the sitting room,
doubling as the morning choir's dressing room,
and
the preacher read Luke 3:17:
"I am the gate,"
and
i asked what that meant,
and
the preacher said,
"You've got to believe in Jesus
to get to heaven,"
or something like that
and
i asked,
"What about little babies
who haven't had time to believe?"
and
he said,
"God is merciful, and
the little babies will go to heaven,"
or something like that,
and
i asked,
"What about a Muslim,
who lives a good life by Christian standards
but doesn't believe in Jesus?"
and
he said,
"He ain't gonna make it,"
or something like that;
and
i quit believing the preacher's way
and
believed in my way ever since.
buffalo bob and jeezus
Where do we live, in heaven or hell; why not either? ho jeezus.
is it restlessness, human nature, or abject and terribly humane stupidity
driving us toward
life in a fast lane leading to no exit from the super highway down the
road.
oh
yes.
my problem is i was/am an innocent,
well unarmed to seek
a feasible, feastable answer
while the world runs amok,
looking for the next best thing to change,
which really bears no difference to the last change where
we reel, rockin' n' a rollin' way 'til the break of dawn, shoobey doo wah.
Christ,
mohammed,
errol flynn,
joe dimaggio,
mickey mantle,
gone to
other things of which we know not
but
are unwilling to admit
other than our own interpretation.
mister aspiration: smoke a lucky and tell the truth.
tomorrow, someone may ask us where we've been:
homer: long game-winning ball or the iliad.
christ.
live well among the cedars of the limestone-pocked hills
where the cherokees
did not cherish nobility
anymore than the white invaders who
bought, sold and still try to own the negras
who changed their name several times
to avoid their own perception of embarrassment
or
the other coast where high desert promotes the same silly-ass idea of
superlativeness
which invades places, our spaces
having no climate but drinkable water. Ho, santa ride, ride, ride
Rudolph,
have you heard of
mr phinneas t bluster
and,
god bless her, princess summerfallwinterspring?
maybe buffalo bob and howdy doody had it right all along
after all.
a synopsis
god is dead;
not dead but not living-existing
alive and well in Argentina.
silent night has passed and gone;
the white stallion is splashed with mud,
lying bloated in the ditch
stinking.
palsied pink fingers of a New England dawn
grasps the earth in its hazy clasp.
don't depart this room of military figures,
leaving me alone
sitting at this dining table
sometimes doubling as an operating room.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Pocket of Resistance: Selected Poems by Jim Jewell. Copyright © 2013 Jim Jewell. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Dedication.................... xi
Prefatory.................... xiii
A Pocket of Resistance.................... xv
I—Thoughts....................
All Is Calm.................... 3
Do You Know.................... 4
of little consequence.................... 5
Noticings.................... 5
The Rain.................... 6
Too Long.................... 7
git.................... 7
Feelings.................... 8
A Plea.................... 9
wicked web.................... 9
Secrets.................... 10
Brief Thoughts On New Year's Eve.................... 12
Late in Summer.................... 13
tired.................... 14
i dreamed last night.................... 15
futile.................... 16
Smoked Dreams.................... 17
believing.................... 18
buffalo bob and jeezus.................... 21
a synopsis.................... 23
II—Love....................
Confessions: a Love Story.................... 27
a poem once.................... 30
napping.................... 33
a furtive glance at what might have been.................... 35
Fourth.................... 37
A Rose.................... 39
To Suzy: A Fantasy Revisited.................... 40
To Susannah:.................... 42
To Judy.................... 43
To Judy, II.................... 44
several thoughts on a break up a long time ago.................... 45
The Kiss, II.................... 47
To Maureen: little things.................... 52
Two Dreams.................... 53
lunch with a young woman.................... 55
Muse.................... 56
Darkness In the White Snow.................... 58
Womanchild.................... 61
wicked web.................... 62
My Woman.................... 63
To Sarah: On Mom.................... 65
III—Stories....................
oblivious.................... 69
William Strange.................... 70
Rhonda Sue Baker.................... 71
Cordell Blue.................... 73
A winging.................... 73
graffiti.................... 74
Thoughts about the discovery of the well-preserved....................
and very old remains of an Incan boy and young woman....................
high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, circa 1995.................... 75
Tennessee Steam Engine.................... 78
Flight.................... 80
Wilson's Ride.................... 82
Billy Was a Bad Boy.................... 82
A Funeral in Wichita Falls After a Wreck on the Highway.................... 83
Nonsense.................... 85
A Small Fire.................... 86
Dancing Fairy Tales.................... 87
IV—Aging....................
Going Quick.................... 91
eyes of age.................... 92
awakening.................... 94
Fossil.................... 95
thoughts about an old age male and others like me while walking a very old
dog on an Indian summer evening.................... 96
Music.................... 98
past tense?.................... 99
Waiting Grace.................... 100
V—Navy and the Sea....................
i was a sailor.................... 103
Magnificent Men Marching.................... 107
halloween at navy ocs several years ago.................... 108
Ode To OCS.................... 110
Of Memories and Dreams.................... 111
Thoughts One Night at Sea.................... 112
Shaft of Light.................... 113
Morning at sea.................... 114
On Mount Miguel's High School's Class of '69 26th (sic) Reunion............ 115
Full Moon.................... 118
woman gone and sappers.................... 119
eternity.................... 121
Sea Dream.................... 123
Transition.................... 126
A Flight To War.................... 128
See.................... 130
Written After Everyone Else Had Hit the Rack.................... 131
A Pier and Its Vicinity.................... 133
Morning Drive to a Pier.................... 135
VI—Family....................
On the Foxhunter's Dying.................... 139
Hands.................... 140
Ode to Three Sisters and Their Mother.................... 142
Ode to the Last Sister.................... 147
To a Daughter, Long After One Of Us Has Come Of Age.................... 150
To Sarah.................... 151
two daughters.................... 152
Thoughts to My Daughters on the Younger's Eighteenth Birthday.............. 153
Whispers from the Dead.................... 154
Cass Done Gone.................... 156
VII—Places....................
Too Long.................... 161
Way up in the Wasatch Mountains.................... 162
Mount Miguel February Sunrise.................... 164
Down on Third.................... 165
Grand Canyon.................... 167
southwestern spain.................... 169
September in Korea.................... 171
Morning Beauty.................... 174
Summer Day.................... 175
To Maureen: The Beginning of an Epic Poem.................... 176
Rides.................... 178
A Lonely Thing.................... 179
Grissom Street.................... 180
The Silly Fat World.................... 182
i want to go to the zoo today.................... 183
To Maureen, 1990.................... 185
Porn.................... 186
Cedar Grove.................... 187
Several Deaths Over Two Years A Long Time Ago.................... 195
Santa Ana.................... 199
Off the coast of Masirah, Oman, 1984.................... 201
sea cat.................... 202
the dark side of the hill.................... 204
hawk, on the fourth.................... 206
crying jag.................... 208
VIII—Writing....................
Dreams and Innisfree.................... 211
Land of Yeats.................... 212
Needles.................... 214
lament.................... 215
Fiddlersburg and Billie Potts Resurrected: A Note to My Brother............ 217
To My Two Daughters, After a Rejection Notice.................... 219
frustration: the root of all my problems.................... 222
the fix.................... 222