Poetry

[Sergeant Rock]

JEAN TWENTY-NINE/SONNET SIXTEEN
      (Grateful Dead, Ohio University, November 23rd 1968)

Saint Stephen boogie blues psychedelic
eleven in the morning dew and the other
one turn on the love light of the hippie chick
dancing her roommate: fluid they flower,
blonde on blonde, stoned, zoned-together, tumble.
I watch--feel their heat--jam! twist in a trance,
tonight sexual barriers crumble:
we, the grateful living, sweat, fuck, and dance!

Death don't have no mercy: we groove light, loose,
in the zone ... Jerry's silvery guitar
notes cascade down new potato caboose
and fly toward cosmic consequence: dark star.
". . .little schoolgirl," wails Pigpen, "without a warnin'
you broke my heart...you know I need you darlin'. . ."

[Spotted Horses]

Too bad Schoenberg isn't around anymore, he could set them to music.

[Sergeant Rock]

CAT ONE      

I am the color of striped flame
My eyes glow of setting sun
      
and devil and seductress
share My silent stare
penetrating your very thoughts
      
and far beyond
      
I dance an inward dance
waltz with the moon
      
and stars remember My hunts



CAT TWO

the Cat was Calico

She did a

slow
      
s l o w...
      
motion

yawn
and stretch
      
yawn and stretch
      
and after a doubt
or two
      
accepted my hand
like an empress her crown

[Sergeant Rock]

THE D MINOR, THIRD VERSION, NOWAK

for David "Pete" Petersen

Conducting the Cleveland, Aldo Ceccato, baton
like a sword, was charging his way through the finale
of Bruckner's symphonic cathedral to Wagner
like it was the gallop from Rossini's Tell

(Latin temperament irrepressible, allowing
no monumental peasant piety nor Ländler lope)
when I noticed the Afro among the three thousand
palefaces in attendance at Severance:

as the coda approached, that majestic moment
when trumpet theme returns for a major recycling,
the white woman beside him tapped his shoulder,
alerting. He tensed forward, straining to hear,

fanfares rallentando and...wholly Hallelujah!!!
Cleveland explodes!
braying horns, tuba and trombones erupting,
trumpets machine-gunning triplets.

I was showered in brass shrapnel, fifths,
goose bumps; a silly grin spreading. And
black and white
beamed enormously at each other

as he shook his head yes! O yes! up and down,
up and down, yes! and yes! And yes,
I thought amazed, this ain't Miles or Marvin,
stereotypes burning away in Brucknerian blaze.

Yes. . .make color and culture irrelevant,
build your Gothic structure of sound,
hurl your themes toward heaven like spires
and stride, augmented, through the macrocosm, Anton: sainted!

And let your majors and minors linger in my mind...

[Sergeant Rock]

This is a poem about a guy I knew while stationed on the DMZ in Korea, Nov 1969-Oct 1970.

CHUCK
   
Chuck looks like a caricature of Paul Newman:
amazing resemblance but everything (lips eyes nose length)
just way too much. Still,
he claims to get all the chicks in Nebraska
and I can see why.
I'm a bit envious of his commanding height and looks
(I'd murder for those eyes).
But he's celibate here, never goes crackin'
never jumps the back of the deuce'n'half to ride horny
into the vill' with the rest of us: he claims it's the smell,
open sewers, water buffalos sharing village space
the low-tide stench of the Imjin,
and the kim chee breath of the lithesome dolls
who dance the clubs with slender limbs
all elbows and knees, jet hair and eyes:
ravishing raven girls not yet eighteen--most;
their painted lips and pouty mouths
reeking of rotting cabbage, onion, garlic; clover gum.
The smell makes me hungry now that I'm addicted to
the local cuisine--the local toys.

Korea is real, not shrink-wrapped clean and odor free
like "The World" Chuck wants to return to so desperately.
He has (statistically) half a century left
but I wouldn't bet he'll be around
to witness tomorrow's flaming sunrise:
He's the Colonel's driver
and sits daily exposed in an open jeep,
cruising the Zone within easy sniper range.
Concerned, I enlist Robert Herrick's help
and together we try to inject some reality
into Chuck's situation with a poetic truth:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may...

It doesn't work (in this century poetry never does).

Every day he drives towards his mortality
vainly vest'd and hopelessly helmet'd
against smooth or jagged metal penetration while:
north across the barrier Korean gunners aim and track
awaiting an inscrutable political decision to squeeze.

Every night he goes to bed alone
in our cold tin hooch, perversely dreaming of Kinney Shoes
and his future as assistant manager while:
south across the river Korean china dolls fully awake
dream of Hollywood stars--and settle for me.

[Sergeant Rock]

JEAN SIX
(state track meet, Columbus Ohio, May 1967)
      
Birkbeck blew the mile.
Our school's one chance for glory gone,
we decided to explore the far side of the stadium
      
and (thank you God) the upper decks were deserted:
We clung and curved and kissed cathartic
through catacombs tunneled beneath ten thousand seats.
      
The bus ride home was yellow long and languid;
the warm western sun through the window
baked her bare flesh.
      
She issued an ambiguous challenge:
Feel my leg, she said,
it's really hot.
      
Chatter ceased and sixty silent students
waited, then watched
as I touched modestly at the knee

(years later I understood perfectly
the single erotic moment
in Eric Rohmer's Claire's Knee).
      
No. . .higher, she said with a Mona Lisa smile,
a direct blue stare
as unambiguous as a Balthus child.

With the driver's large eyes
in the rear view mirror,
watching our minor-aged moves,

I placed my hand high on her thigh
and the flame leapt,
my palm seared like a steak thrown on a grill.
      
Her power tested, and intact,      
talk in the bus resumed with subdued snickers
while my hand sizzled until it was well done.

[BasilValentine]

I'm not a poet but I once embarked on a set of poems in alphabetical order based on impressions from  back country hikes in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. Maybe I'll finish one day(?) Probably not.

Ash

On the nether cusp
Powdered smoke
Plighted to the wind


Bone

Capillary scrimshaw
Etched in moss
Worms cored its marrow
Wind smoothed its scars

It cools my palm

With a last caress
It's laid to rest
On a bed of needles
By a hunters' path
Beneath the scattered stars


Crag

Dislocated fracture
Weathered, pocked with age
Collage of autumn far below
Crosshatched by birch and their shadows
A quick silver brook tears the page

[foxandpeng]

I'm not a poet but I once embarked on a set of poems in alphabetical order based on impressions from  back country hikes in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. Maybe I'll finish one day(?) Probably not.

Ash

On the nether cusp
Powdered smoke
Plighted to the wind


Bone

Capillary scrimshaw
Etched in moss
Worms cored its marrow
Wind smoothed its scars

It cools my palm

With a last caress
It's laid to rest
On a bed of needles
By a hunters' path
Beneath the scattered stars


Crag

Dislocated fracture
Weathered, pocked with age
Collage of autumn far below
Crosshatched by birch and their shadows
A quick silver brook tears the page

Nice

[Sergeant Rock]

A few words of explanation: a group of very young children caught us making out. We didn't even notice them at first

JEAN TWELVE

And there I dream'd
   —John Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci

It was exactly three, after the cacophony
of the band practice had finally faded
into the afternoon's hot summer silence,
when we met in the mead behind my house
      
and she was beautiful and magical, a faery's child
in blue short-shorts and tight knit top;
she seemed closer to naked than clothed
but not close enough:

I had to imagine parts of her body,
think the things I wanted to see
and aroused then, watched her reach a high
on one of Hazel's elementary swings.

We spoke tentatively, constrained by mysteries,
constrained by desire, and when I took her hand
as we entered the enchanted woods,
we became as silent as that August afternoon,

whose silence was like the fourth day of creation
before God's golden hand fashioned the animals:
the silence of rock and soil, of grass,
mold and mushroom, moss and ivy;

the silence of trees and bushes tall
who with their green and liberal leaves
conspired well to hide our love.
The world of other humans vanished.

Like children of the first garden,
innocent under the knowledge tree,
we touched in utter simplicity:
the beginning of my long dream.

But what we call the beginning is often the end
and the leaves were suddenly full of laughter,
excited, amused--bemused--by the adult invasion
of a children's faery land.

Shocked and surrounded, we stared them down
and lost our innocence when they scampered away.
I shut my eyes and held her tighter,
afraid of beauty I could barely endure.

In a language strange of moans and kisses
I thought I heard I love thee true;
she looked at me so dark and wild,
no longer a faery's child.

And in that elfin grove she wept
and held me fiercely to her body
and no birds sang the dream that was
both beginning, and an end.

[foxandpeng]

A few words of explanation: a group of very young children caught us making out. We didn't even notice them at first

JEAN TWELVE

And there I dream'd
   —John Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci

It was exactly three, after the cacophony
of the band practice had finally faded
into the afternoon's hot summer silence,
when we met in the mead behind my house
      
and she was beautiful and magical, a faery's child
in blue short-shorts and tight knit top;
she seemed closer to naked than clothed
but not close enough:

I had to imagine parts of her body,
think the things I wanted to see
and aroused then, watched her reach a high
on one of Hazel's elementary swings.

We spoke tentatively, constrained by mysteries,
constrained by desire, and when I took her hand
as we entered the enchanted woods,
we became as silent as that August afternoon,

whose silence was like the fourth day of creation
before God's golden hand fashioned the animals:
the silence of rock and soil, of grass,
mold and mushroom, moss and ivy;

the silence of trees and bushes tall
who with their green and liberal leaves
conspired well to hide our love.
The world of other humans vanished.

Like children of the first garden,
innocent under the knowledge tree,
we touched in utter simplicity:
the beginning of my long dream.

But what we call the beginning is often the end
and the leaves were suddenly full of laughter,
excited, amused--bemused--by the adult invasion
of a children's faery land.

Shocked and surrounded, we stared them down
and lost our innocence when they scampered away.
I shut my eyes and held her tighter,
afraid of beauty I could barely endure.

In a language strange of moans and kisses
I thought I heard I love thee true;
she looked at me so dark and wild,
no longer a faery's child.

And in that elfin grove she wept
and held me fiercely to her body
and no birds sang the dream that was
both beginning, and an end.

I really like your poetic voice, Sarge. I think you have something. Do you ever workshop your poems? There is a maturing voice in there...

[Sergeant Rock]

I really like your poetic voice, Sarge. I think you have something. Do you ever workshop your poems? There is a maturing voice in there...

Thank you. I really appreciate your kind words. No, I've never workshop'd my poems.

Sarge

[foxandpeng]

Thank you. I really appreciate your kind words. No, I've never workshop'd my poems.

Sarge

Some of your writing puts me in mind of Ian Hamilton in works like The Garden or Returning. There is a matter-of-factness and immediacy that I see in his work that I see in yours. It isn't bare or dispassionate, but there is a realism and understatedness that is really interesting, while in no way detracting from the tenderness that you describe.

[Sergeant Rock]

Some of your writing puts me in mind of Ian Hamilton in works like The Garden or Returning. There is a matter-of-factness and immediacy that I see in his work that I see in yours. It isn't bare or dispassionate, but there is a realism and understatedness that is really interesting, while in no way detracting from the tenderness that you describe.

I"m not familiar with his poetry. I've ordered a copy of Selections.

Sarge

[foxandpeng]

I"m not familiar with his poetry. I've ordered a copy of Selections.

Sarge

I hope you enjoy 😀

[Sergeant Rock]

SPARTA WISCONSIN, SUMMER OF 71

It was outrageously ideal
our honeymoon home
on the edge of town:

a farmhouse of radiant new yellow
like an earthbound sun in the middle of a garden.
The tomatoes grew fat and juicy in its warm reflection.

Our discrete landlady said help yourselves please
and green salads took on a whole new meaning, a richer
palette with picked fresh from the vine red decoration.

And within that warmth love too rainbowed with new meaning:
finally free of family, free of stress, the luxury of lazy days
and endless nights, you came with me for the first time

and life seemed perfect
until that evening the '66 Graves went sour
and spoiled what should have been a great dinner.

There were other premonitions
we didn't discern at the time,
forebodings: like Fauré's Sicilienne,

the theme of NPR's classical program
broadcast daily from LaCrosse.
That melancholy dance and presentiment

of Pelléas and Mélisande's fate
was a musical mirror
reflecting two other tragic characters.
      

[Sergeant Rock]

A CONVERSATION WITH HUGO WILLIAMS

In the blindfold hours,
in the memory wars,
don't fool yourself it never happened,
that you never loved her...But Hugo,
   
if you don't, the pain confronts:
the realization that you weren't really the one,
the sensitive one to ride her amative moods,
soothing her fears, forcing her nature gently,
and accepting, accepting, her resistance with patience
while awaiting the inevitable leap,
the bloom beyond childhood legacy
into the woman you always wanted,
the woman you craved...the woman you lost.

In the fading light, through the dank late autumn leaves,
to enter the comfort of her room
a cluttered room, where the ashes
still glow warm with memory, five roses persist,
gold droplets of Piesporter mature in crystal
and a collage, echoic, of Mahler, Marieke,
Bluebird Wine and Le Meteque is heard;
where the waft of Charlie still lingers
sensuously in the cobwebbed rafters
and The Education of Don Juan lies
on the mantle in the dust
bookmarked at that certain page--is to come
face to face with loss,
the horror of regret...if I did love her.

Better to browse with feigned disinterest,
seeking no lost treasures: no easy
laughter nor cat eyes crinkled, seducing; no summer
body, all blonde and bronzed; no unique
and feminine source, welling the sea; no chansons.
Ignore the heat, the musky scent.
Then congratulate yourself on how little you find,
how little you feel.
After all, you only need chilled air to breathe.

Open a window:
listen to the leaves tumbling in the wind,
feel the hint of frost, inhale the musty scent.

[Sergeant Rock]

I hope you enjoy 😀

The book arrived this afternoon. I've read about a third of the poems plus the story Money. Unfortunately The Garden and Returning aren't included. But other than that disappointment I am enjoying Hamilton's work.

Sarge

[foxandpeng]

The book arrived this afternoon. I've read about a third of the poems plus the story Money. Unfortunately The Garden and Returning aren't included. But other than that disappointment I am enjoying Hamilton's work.

Sarge

I may be able to help you. PM incoming 🙂

[foxandpeng]

The book arrived this afternoon. I've read about a third of the poems plus the story Money. Unfortunately The Garden and Returning aren't included. But other than that disappointment I am enjoying Hamilton's work.

Sarge

Although your inbox is full, atm... 😁

[Sergeant Rock]

Although your inbox is full, atm... 😁

You can send it to the addy posted in my profile

Sarge