GOING HOME
Down the road, lying with my face
Pressed into my father’s lap, the wheel
He held claiming most of the space.
But I squeezed in, bending up
My knees, with the rest of my form
On the seat and in my mother’s
Lap, not comfortable, but warm.
And they would sing together
Old songs. And I still can feel
Their soft strong hands on me again
And the cold hard turning of the wheel.
GOING HOME
Down the road, lying with my face
Pressed into my father’s lap, the wheel
He held claiming most of the space.
But I squeezed in, bending up
My knees, with the rest of my form
On the seat and in my mother’s
Lap, not comfortable, but warm.
And they would sing together
Old songs. And I still can feel
Their soft strong hands on me again
And the cold hard turning of the wheel.
Why He Doesn't Sleep: The Selected Poems of Stephen Gardner
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Why He Doesn't Sleep: The Selected Poems of Stephen Gardner
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Overview
GOING HOME
Down the road, lying with my face
Pressed into my father’s lap, the wheel
He held claiming most of the space.
But I squeezed in, bending up
My knees, with the rest of my form
On the seat and in my mother’s
Lap, not comfortable, but warm.
And they would sing together
Old songs. And I still can feel
Their soft strong hands on me again
And the cold hard turning of the wheel.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781937875640 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Texas Review Press |
| Publication date: | 05/15/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 120 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Why He Doesn't Sleep
The Selected Poems of Stephen Gardner
By William Wright
Texas Review Press
Copyright © 2014 Stephen GardnerAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-937875-64-0
CHAPTER 1
From Taking the Switchback
Texas Review Press, 2009
GOING HOME
Down the road, lying with my face
Pressed into my father's lap, the wheel
He held claiming most of the space.
But I squeezed in, bending up
My knees, with the rest of my form
On the seat and in my mother's
Lap, not comfortable, but warm.
And they would sing together
Old songs. And I still can feel
Their soft strong hands on me again
And the cold hard turning of the wheel.
2 A.M., INCENSE, A QUART OF GIN,
MY DOG WITH A BONE
for Jim Peterson
Outside, the rain has finally begun to end.
The quiet here among these books
Has all the elements, I know,
Of murders in the dark:
Of blood, and gagging on that blood.
I stroke his fur, I feel his breath
Move the hair on my hand.
I light a candle against the dark.
But he hears things I cannot hear.
So I invent. I invent madmen
Walking just beyond our sight,
Leaning, listening outside the door,
Scentless so he cannot know they move
Within the circle of our life.
The ice rattles against my glass.
The flame dances. He stops to hear.
And when he does
All breathing in this room
Jerks to an end. I take a drink.
The candle steadies.
The bone snaps between his teeth.
NOT ABOUT TREES
1. The source.
The elm gives shade, but not enough,
And eyes closed I hear
The songs of absent wrens, still air,
Heat. The dream is waterfalls,
The soft gray hiss of narrow streams,
A dog's cool nose against my hand.
I see myself on fire, turning back,
Reborn in the eye of a horse.
A yellow fly at rest, wings flat, drinks
Calmly from my wrist.
Burning for meat, I will run,
When my legs are strong again,
To overtake the deer, to roll
Doglike, marking the kill as my own.
2. Obelisk.
Snags, they are called. Of the three in this cove
I choose the left one for my rest.
What hangs there when my back is turned?
Without leaves, how can it move with the wind?
The water blows with small waves
From across the lake.
I had another dream here once. The largest bird
Took roost over my head, his shadow
Becoming the sky; catfish rose
Like slow, blue corpses,
Their fins and whiskers carving the surface;
The thunder was kind, as the rain
Rinsed away the smell and stain of bream and bait.
And when I rocked back my head and spoke
Small drops soothed my tongue like ice
On a burn that will not heal.
WHY HE DOESN'T SLEEP
Because when the night goes still
He hears the staggered singing of his blood.
Because he knows the stranger comes,
Pick and spade catching glances of moonlight,
Seeking treasures in his garden,
Overturning the finely-spaced, new-planted turnips.
Because he hears the night-things sigh,
The moths relentless at every curtained window,
Spiders hanging vast and deadly homes.
Because the quiet of stopped machines
Reveals the slow breathing of his wife,
Makes him fear that each long whisper is her last.
Because without darkness there is no sleep.
Because the focus of his eyes holds back
The grinning shadows and the angry dreams.
Because the world he sees is all
The world he knows, hands for his rings,
Pathways clean and neat through the furniture
TAKING PICTURES
The lens has lost its focus. The eye
Cannot find the point to hold,
The proper range.
Someone has stripped the Chagall
From the sun-bleached wall, leaving
Its shadow behind.
The wallet space cries out
For a face.
The memory has no image to hang
Its frame around; too long used
To its center, it freezes forever
On the air.
THE CARPENTER'S REAL ANGUISH
He calls: no answer from his folks.
Cutworms hit his plants.
He laughs: everyone knows his jokes.
The doors he carves won't shut.
His setter snaps. His cat
Won't kill. Nails bend with rust.
His lover leaves no address.
The kitchen marches with ants.
He hits his apprentice, who says
It's for the best. Both eyes
Go blind. Legs, lame. Skin,
Numb. The motion of his thighs
Jerks still. His level's off.
Yesterday he bought a hat
Too big today. The wood is rough
Where he has planed. The shelves he builds
Fall in thunder. And in the end
It is the universe he kills.
WALPURGIS
New York Times: "Pasadena, Tex., Nov. 5, 1974. The police filed murder charges today against the father of an 8-year-old boy who was poisoned on halloween by a candy straw filled with cyanide."
Rain holds the goblins close to home.
The town's afire with porchlights.
Businessmen militia watch the streets
To keep the ghosts unharmed.
But CPA's and slow police alike
Can't deny my mood. The taste
Of candy's all I need. And now
I'm older in the night. Clowns
And bedsheets scream; I hand out
Tribute into orange bags; I close
The door. The faintest smile I know
Comes to my face. What witches
Coldly wait to fly you off tonight
To darker candy moons, my son, my son.
MOVING: ALONG THE EDGES
What the stereo pushes out I understand
At other levels. I dim the lights.
We hear, between the chords,
The neighbor's white cat stalk
Along the rim of my roof. My dog
Feels the quiet feet and snaps
Awake. Where the moon should hang
The jagged outline of her teeth
Closes full and hard on the space
That swallows my breath. Easy rest
Comes slow tonight; and with the rug
Now gone, this heavy sleeping bag
Cannot comfort us against the concrete
Floor as I feel this sanctuary
Near its end. So I hold my hands
Tight across my arms, feeling muscles
Flex and slack at their own will
For a change. Cathy kills the lights. The cat
Hits the top of the wall. My lungs
Go empty. The winter sky bares
Constellations we have never seen,
As my dog sleeps again, in spite of
Her hard brick bed, cold air,
Vague light, and piercing human sounds,
This last vacant night in my house.
WAITING TO LEAVE
Even when the owls retreat to their nests
You cannot sleep. And like the hunting eyes
Of foxes, you stare too long into the dark
So that in time you know you are alone.
What can be felt is of another world:
The burn of feline eyes into your back,
Silent feet on straw, the wind at peace
With the trees. It is a world resting tonight,
Except for you. Dreaming awake, you feel
Your hand on the suitcase grip, the crush and pull
Of strangers running to distant gates,
The voices, hard and polished in the air,
Announcing the arrivals. Then you tilt
Your head back, bracing underneath your neck
With sweaty wrists, and stare: the ceiling rolls
In nightmare visions. Smoke rings from distant fires
Curl and twist together. Trouble is brewing
On the prairie. The deer watch motionless as trees.
The lynx stands sudden guard beside her kill.
And then your woman shifts her back to you.
Her breathing holds the silence on its edge.
And there the foxes sit. Their eyes stare back,
Then wink, then fade away, running at the sound
Of twigs that snap to footsteps not your own.
You know you can't return before you've gone.
ON THE EDGE IN ST. LOUIS
The airport motel rattles like rain. Hot
Missouri eases through the hole
The air conditioner ought to fill. Whiskey flows.
Over Kansas hangs a twisted slice of moon.
There, here, and in Iowa, it is easy now
To understand why a man kills for no good
Reason. How much corn, how many acres
Of plowed and unplowed fields can any living
Thing abide? And for how long?
Belly up, the road turns and bends back
On itself. Through the black Midwestern
Night the lights of a distant truck bounce
Across a sea of wheat. I squint myself
Into another time; on the ridges of squared
Windcut bluffs stand, poised, miles of Indians.
Being here, I know why they died
For Montana, Dakota, Wyoming.
The plane turns to me; the truck of dreams
Freezes on the slope. Jet-roar burns the air
Like dry ice. I doze, wake, doze, tossing
In the heat that nightfall cannot soothe.
DIRECTIONS FOR FINDING THE BEST WAY OUT
Look to the brightest star, the butterfly,
Then make a quarter-turn and keep it
To your left. Take as many paces as you need
Until you reach the semi-circle of trees
Closest to the voice that calls your mother's name.
Select the tree across from you,
The fullest one, and tell the final leaf
The name that you, too, go by; point out
The branch you used to hang upon,
Your feet swinging just above the lawn,
Your mother's voice wondering where you are,
Some other voice calling some other name
Back down the alleys between the endless
Suburban houses. Turn your back,
Stepping slowly like the shadows, low
Behind the hedges they clutch against their houses,
And stalk the yard's circumference back soft
Into the wide and yawning neighborhood
That feeds to their garages and holds the birds
Of evening safely in its ever-present wings.
FORE AND AFT
In the beginning the sails caught good wind,
Pushing from behind and yielding a wake
Like a cruiser. At the bow he leaned his head
And imagined dolphins racing as his eyes
Followed the quick fall and drift of the lunch
He coughed to the wind. By mid-afternoon
The sun had burned the deck to molten gold.
He turned onto his back and poured more lotion
Until his chest and thighs, red from morning,
Were shining like dawn on the water. Then he slept,
His rum and Coke turning thin with melted ice.
When evening finally came his skin was taut
And dry. His eyes saw spots of sunlight
Even in the dark. The Milky Way stretched
A broad white sheet over the east. He missed
It all. He angled his glass, feeling the beads
Of sweat run onto his wrist. The lobster
Sat well in his belly. He propped his feet
On the rolled sails. Behind him small dots
Of land rose and fell on the horizon's edge.
THE PRIVATE MINER SPEAKS AT LAST
On this long Thursday he fills his bin
With pile on pile of coal, fat-lighter,
Summer-dried oak and pine. "These hills,"
He says, "these hills provide the fuel
For all my fires." And he takes his pick,
Axe, and shovel, stalking the deepening path
Across the hogback, down to the valley
Where he has overturned the lode
That burns each time, for him, at night:
And, still, this night he unrolls his bag
Before the fire, atop the dust-brown
Bearskin that shows a stitch-line
Hiding his knife's signature. Glass-eyed,
It stares like he does. He hears
The snow drift against his door, filling in
The v's of his roof-joints. He rolls
Himself into the bag. He blows the lamp
To dark. "Amen," he breathes; "such winters
Come too scarce for random lifetimes,
And stay too long to turn us warm again."
GOOD WOMAN
Fast-fire cuts through the grassland
And surrounds the last silo in Chatauqua.
Cattle will starve now, the egrets
Will leave them for better pasture,
And farms and farmers will fold
Together.
Even before the heat dies
She knows the cold is coming;
She opens the cedar chest and shakes
The wrinkles from the three quilts
She made the year before and the afghan
Her mother knitted before her. The cord
Wood is ceiling high and the larder
Boasts tomatoes, beans, and pickles, red
And green in Mason jars on full shelves.
Outside, across the south pasture,
Curls of white smoke dance like the ghosts
Of antique lovers, the shaking photographs
Of their lives unrolling like the easy hooks
And patches of covers stacked and folded
Among neat white sheets and pillowcases.
She pulls the corners tight to the mattress
And smells the burning brush and wheatstraw
Through mud-cracks in the cabin joints.
The heartland crackles with summer heat.
She rocks and dreams of busy hands
And of plates piled high with buttered corn,
Hot and salty, and peas sweet on the tongue.
SAVING LIVES
1.
If you can put out the fire
Soon enough, enough will remain
To build from again: the stone front
Steps will stand as good as new,
And from the ash, between the char
And smoking timbers, small shoots
Of green will rise and stretch.
2.
When you see the arms go under
Dive in without thought or pause.
Grab what you can reach, rock the body
Back, crook your arm about the neck,
Tilting the head, and swim a one-
Hand stroke up for the sun.
3.
When the breathing jerks hard
And stops mid-swallow, snap him
Up erect, and turn his back
To you. Wrap your arms
Around him, stretching yourself
As far as you can, and squeeze
Sharply several times. Hug him,
Madly. Love him alive.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Why He Doesn't Sleep by William Wright. Copyright © 2014 Stephen Gardner. Excerpted by permission of Texas Review Press.
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
Wake Him,Darkness into Light,
Poems of a Second Father,
From Taking the Switchback,
GOING HOME,
2 A.M., INCENSE, A QUART OF GIN, MY DOG WITH A BONE,
NOT ABOUT TREES,
WHY HE DOESN'T SLEEP,
TAKING PICTURES,
THE CARPENTER'S REAL ANGUISH,
WALPURGIS,
MOVING: ALONG THE EDGES,
WAITING TO LEAVE,
ON THE EDGE IN ST. LOUIS,
DIRECTIONS FOR FINDING THE BEST WAY OUT,
FORE AND AFT,
THE PRIVATE MINER SPEAKS AT LAST,
GOOD WOMAN,
SAVING LIVES,
HAPPY,
A DAY AT THE BEACH ON,
THE OUTSKIRTS OF TOPEKA,
FOURTEEN DOLPHINS,
PORTAGE,
HOME VOYAGER,
PASTORAL IN THE SHADOW OF A CITY,
RELATIVITY,
JONES,
BLIZZARD,
LIGHT RAIN, EARLY FALL,
ANY DAY NOW,
WHAT WILL HAPPEN,
SEASONING,
THIS NIGHT,
HERE IT IS,
TAKING THE SWITCHBACK,
From the "About the Neighborhood" Manuscript,
MAKING AN ICE STORM,
GIVING AWAY THE CAT,
NOISE,
THREE PHOTOGRAPHS,
From the "Alexander, Hero" Manuscript,
ON THE CUSP OF A GRAND DISCOVERY,,
ALEXANDER DREAMS OF NAPOLEON,
ALEXANDER STUMBLES OVER MERCY,
ALEXANDER CLEANS UP AT THE,
NEW JERUSALEM CAR WASH,
ALEXANDER REMEMBERS A STALKER,
ALEXANDER ENCOUNTERS THE DEMONIC,
ALEXANDER UNDERSTANDS PLENTY,
A POSTCARD FROM ALEXANDER,
IN AUTUMN, WITH LATE AZALEAS,
From the "Small Things" Manuscript,
CASCADE,
DOG,
OLD SONGS,
REDBIRD,
From the This Book Belongs to Eva (The Eva McCann Diary Revisions from the "Three Pilgrims" Manscript),
1/2/80: KNOXVILLE,
4/14/80: FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS,
7/14/80: NORMAN, OKLAHOMA,
8/29/80: NORMAN,
11/22/80: HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS,
12/26/80: NOGALES,
1/27/81: HOUSTON,
2/11/81: HOUSTON,
4/1/81: HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS,
4/6/81: NEW ORLEANS,
4/8/81: MOBILE, ALABAMA,
4/9/81: MOBILE, ALABAMA,
4/15/81: ATLANTA,
4/17/81: ATLANTA,
4/28/81: ATLANTA,
The Town Creek Poetry Interview,
About the Author,
About the Editor,
What People are Saying About This
“From Stephen Gardner I inherited the most important gift I can imagine: the deep yearning to write poetry, to help others write in general, to edit, and to understand that great literature, if approached with open-mindedness, sympathy, and curiosity, can enrich our lived incalculably and make us better people.”
—William Wright