seven poems
DESCRIPTION
Stafford Studies project by By Jesse Vella. 2015.TRANSCRIPT
I knew nothing of William Stafford two days ago. A famous poet from Oregon, maybe. I hadn’t read a thing and felt a small pang of guilt about it. Two days ago I was going to spend four long days at Lewis and Clark College hunkered down in the archive room. A dusty dungeon of white men and white words, I thought to myself. More of the wrong stories, I thought the second time. The weight of the word archive digs into my shoulders and pulls me to the floor of the basement now, even though the room is on the second floor. Kim Stafford, William’s son was there to greet the six of us. Six people here to look at dusty old words. But Kim honors his father the way I wish my sons might honor me, or the way I wish I could honor my father. That helped me to pry myself from a silly position. And then I got some more help from Linda, Jani, Alvin, Ben, and Carolina. They were all so gracious to remind me that I am a passionate person, a writer that deserves to honor my own words. We were all gathered here to hear William Stafford’s voice and I was damn lucky enough to find my own again. They let me have that to myself. At lunch today I wrote this for them to say thanks: The Good Clean Flow
Would you remind my soul What I was thinking? And you did And we cried a little We felt it good That’s what these words with intentions do They make me cry a little And somehow the water Is the river Moving through time And then coming back again Just like us Just like all of it But I needed that, I really did Because that clean flow Gets directed to stagnant eddies And dark things begin to grow
So, at the bare minimum I was going to make a poetry unit to use next school year with my sophomores. When Carolina said she was going to write about her mother, I pried myself some more from the silliness. Even now I feel that I have somehow cheated the class, or the system that orders the class. I sat in the sun for two days and thought and wrote poetry, scratching away at some things deep. I think I know that William Stafford would have approved. After all I used his words to find my own. I didn’t know William, but I have been speaking with him. For three days now. He told me about the river and I remembered the river. He spoke of hate and I found it in my heart again, staking claim to the fibers of trust and kindness. He told me about the thread and I looked down and it was in my hand. I found a friend to talk to and it is a cliché to say so. But when I looked around for somebody to do something, (just like when his dog was hit by a car and crawling home bloody from the street) it was me. So I went outside and I wrote. First I wrote seven poems, just like William did at lunch one day. When Kim told me that, I knew why I was here. Seven Poems Bad Ass Citizen What does this mean? First, you have to erase lines Think of them differently Lines must come together A circle scribbled around And around in that Magic pattern that we all know Balls to bones And then you have to stand Next to each other for a little while Put your hand on his shoulder To let him know you are there Let him feel the life that Flows through you Let him know love Wonder with him freely As you both walk to one Free from the knots in my neck Lightness of together Then you can really talk With shackles at your feet Look beyond retinas
And know what you mean This is what it means to me For you it might be a little Different, or a lot But it is one in many or From many and timeless Slow motion Time to think and be Together with a friend You did not have Just a moment ago I Looked Around and it Was Me We heard the crunch on The road It was a steep hill and Beatle Was a small dog Tom could only say “no” It was a complete limpness That took him by the hand Beatle lie there bleeding in The street The blood ran with the wind and the heat He was trying to make a Friend Tom and I cried when Beatle died No more painting today I buried Beatle in the back yard Tom leaned on the long shovel Digging his own hole The shade from the big tree Made it a little less hot And we cried again See, a little love is what died And friendship And sharing snacks with the dog— He was grateful
He looked at my son He said: Your dad is a good man I need to hear that I needed to hear that I needed my son to hear that All that digging was for me too Beatle’s love moved to me And his love moved from me And the love that came To me, moves and moves When I decided it was me Don’t Fight and Don’t Run Away I see the sadness in The lunch lady’s eyes Opening the cans for the kids Not allowed to share what She knows about turmeric and tongues I wonder what would happen If we let them make their best dish The administrators would have To pack their things in boxes Nothing left to administrate Just people eating and Talking about flavors A joys worth of this And I can taste a Sprinkle of that What if class happened At lunch or here on This bench Lunch lady love in our Hands We are ready to stand for this
A Soldier and a Cup of Coffee If I kill you Then I kill Your imagination and your hope And your dreams and your genius And then the world can never know What you would be And I don’t want to do that. I would rather make you A cup of coffee I’ve been brewing single Cups and I think they are better You will have to tell me Because I can’t shoot you I don’t want to feel your warm blood Leave you As I press my hand against your wound And I don’t want to die yet I want the morning again Because then we have a new Chance to begin I know that I love you And if we could just Share some coffee I think We will both see that It is we Together Trying to find our way And I don’t want to take the path Because I can see Through the trees And I want to break dead wood With my weight Rockwood and Dunthorpe Together Forever I’m thinking of thoughts That have been somewhat Buried
The sun and the birds and This place makes me laugh Peaceful people walking around In Dunthorpe And it really is an alternate reality I think of the city, of Rockwood The poor civilization my students Walk through, attempt to navigate I can’t believe I’m here Writing poetry and thinking It has been a while Since I have practiced What I preach Always a rush It is the flaw gnawing at me There is an excitement A twisting of joy To the rush as we Hurry to go nowhere And where do we go? When we move such short distances Is it all in the mind? A massive scary recollection But if I stop thinking My it stops, my the and we ceases to be Real for me Just thinking I’m glad it hasn’t left It is more free, and still Some peace in it Pontificating Student Walking to the Cafeteria Intelligence isn’t a position of authority That’s all wrong
It is not I’m right And I know this It is something gentler It has a kindness and freedom It isn’t force and bull Intelligence is a gentle caress With love laced in each touch It is a lifting not a Separating When in its presence you Feel fresh and curiosity is Rekindled You never feel Like you just don’t Know enough You feel whole My Plan Is, To Be Scared I haven’t been scared Like that in a while Mostly, these days I limp toward accepting But I still know that I will be scared tomorrow I don’t know what will Happen and if I did I would still be scared That day it wasn’t A fear of death It was a fear of not loving He shook the stall with Forces of hate and disappointment I shivered and hoped He would go
He went away And that scared me too I found some father’s love And then I became father’s love But still afraid And that’s okay I can’t know Safety and security Like when I put them to bed I can be afraid My plan is, to be scared Eleven Poems Champions and Lions I’ve seen too many live lions So I’ve never been a champion In the face of lions we Are goats to have our throats slit And my scars reveal it Whiter skin with deep Lines where I tried To put things back together As they were Reminds of teeth and Bone, struggle Why They Engage in Unfriendly Acts Toward Us I will answer the question As to why they engage In unfriendly acts toward Us:
We have done things that Are hard to forgive We live to destroy The wind, the sky, to Scorch the earth To pound our chest and Say: see I am it Look what I can do And then what? Wait For the others They will come to say the Same things Repeat cycle Repeat cycle And there you have the Entire story of the human Civilization Golden rules that don’t Profit form gold Yet all we can see is The gold I found Somewhere in the grass A version of me that I Could stomach One that does not crave The sorrows of others One that hears the joys And responds accordingly I made a choice To be better And that meant I would not engage in unfriendly acts
Two Dragons Where we hear the heavy Noise of the dragon’s tail Is where we come to Reckoning We need not go there for Reconciliation We simply need an adjustment Of purpose and mind Or maybe even the purposes Of the mind A cleaning of the spectacles An ocular adjustment of The minds eye In the east some have Reconciled with the dragon And friends do embrace But we sharpen our knives And solder our Buzzing, shining, implements To undo that which can be Isn’t it the business of killing Ants with Smaug’s breath? But a river of ants is Life-‐blood to some artery We cannot see Breathing nature’s equation Into back of the mind thoughts We dumbly calculate Angles of attack And teach babies to love blood To hurt for sport And not sleep through the night
Mistakes Are I’d rather do it all wrong Twice Than wait For the day when I’m Not to scared to write a poem That you don’t like For your judgments of my experience Your measure of my moments Where my heart merges With time and forgets These things we claim to see They are mine And when I write them here my flag goes up But I don’t even believe In possession If there is such a thing I am possessed by mud And you and I don’t Even exist in a way we can understand Staffordesque Just across the grass The music plays Jovial music of happy humans Doing silly things An innocence rises into the hot summer air Innocent hands play Songs of progress A locomotive steaming, churning Headed west Men in top hats cutting Star and stripe ribbons That break levees of greed Their smiling faces bow As good As God
Innocent notes do not know The long arm with manicured hand Extending through time and boundry And it flickers in well-‐know and unknown sounds Joy dancing in a field of green Shopping I filled my cart with identity I looked at the menu I chose who I would be Powerful is important Money is power A soldier’s look Jaw and crew cut A warrior will do No, listen You must follow to the root Deep into the darkness and cool water Where your death waits Where you life waits And see what caused you to be You cannot choose what has been To go without understanding Stay there Alone Seeing all the shiny Could be’s and will be’s Alone with other alones Yearning to be together Yearning to know each other But afraid to ask a question 5 a.m. The thing I like most About 5 a.m. is the stillness No horns or explosions
No clanking of bottles No cash registers The thing I like about The quiet is the time to Think—about the wind The soft drops of rain That only I get to hear I like the water and The toast and coffee It tastes better At 5 a.m. The dew settles into the Dry soil of the dry summer day The heat isn’t turned on yet The dog’s chest rises And falls without effort There is a moment When morning ends I too hear it The wheels of the forever factory Begin to grind metal to metal And future soot That’s when I want to go Back and I say to myself— Well, that was that, and I take another cup anyway And join in with all the hammering Turn Em’ Loose Turn em’ loose a little bit I say Let em’ ride in the wind and rain Bumps and bruises built ships Temples of experience That push the large parts Through time
They sit there blankly Staring with glazed thumbs Flashing narcissism Eyes looking at the crack In the door from the sides of their faces The hum of the forced Air and forced thoughts Makes still minds And brushed metal hearts Turn em’ loose Let em’ take big bites of breath Let em’ choke on dreams Let em’ twist their ankles On river rock and know The force of life with Wide eyes and drift-‐wood, pinned Then—let em’ tell their stories Let em’ write poems of Pressing palms and thighs too high Cuts deep, and blood red I say, turn em’ loose to know Love like reckless wandering songs In the night’s moon Like her breath for the first time Like the pink slug Of a best friends kiss The Mustang I know what it feels like To be deeply loved roughly To be torn from sleep By winding roads in the night To be ugly and beautiful I know the smells of Warm wet river rock in Evening
Crawling into bed scared I know what its like to Run for years up and down the coast Looking for something in the sand To eat bowls of bitterness With milk for any meal To be wrong to be alive She smiled and said—“you know I love you Jesse” squeezing my knee Like I squeeze my son’s I crawled to the floorboard And prayed to no god in particular That this would all end The World Turned The summer day was Calm-‐-‐as the drama Played before us There was a knock With strong words A scuffle as the world turned She told him to go away He said no He told him to go away And I was about to stand The real red of love And hate He shoved himself in Right leg first He shoved the blade in All to cure thirst Later he walked in They did together He went to bed Smoking cigarettes, rings of mistakes And I wrote A note to myself
When Lawson Lied When Lawson lied today I shrugged oh well But then morning came And it was a mild hell But calmly I addressed Our grievances to him He shrugged oh well Then I knew the deal I lied and lied and lied and lied To make myself complete And here I see that I have Passed to him this dirty thing We spoke again And asked him to apologize He agreed I saw him think about it, oh well But is wasn’t enough for Laurie We leave these moments unfinished We wring our hands with guilt Can he forgive us for not teaching him To be good? And then I remember A message from The Wanderer: There will come a time when all We have said and all we have hoped Will be all right.