from Main Street Rag

The daughter is mad, and so
I wonder what she will do.
But she holds her saucer softly
And sips, as people do,
From moment to moment making
Comments of rain and sun,
Till I feel my own heart shaking–
Till I am the frightened one.
O Anne, sweet Anne, brave Anne,
What did I think to see?
The rumors of the village
Have painted you savagely.
I thought you would come in anger–
A knife beneath your skirt.
I did not think to see a face
So peaceful and so hurt.
I know the trouble is there,
Under your little frown;
But when you slowly lift your cup
And when you set it down,
I feel my heart go wild, Anne,
I feel my heart go wild.
I know a hundred children,
But never before a child
Hiding so deep a trouble
Or wanting so much to please,
Or tending so desperately all
The small civilities.

Alex

Where is Alex, keeper of horses?
Nobody knows.
He lived all year in the broken barn,
Dry summer stashed above the eaves.
Now that he’s gone, who grieves, who can,
For Alex of the tangled beard?
The soiled old man,
He chased my brother once,
Waving a rusty gun,
And he had hungry eyes
For money and the bottle.

Last week the town officials
Came in their gleaming trucks
And tore his old barn down,
And the last horse was sold,
And he wasn’t anywhere.
Well, maybe he’s in the madhouse,
And maybe he’s sleeping it off
Down at the edge of town,
Sprawled in a weedy bed,
Dreaming of horses and leather.

And maybe, with luck, he’s dead.

Mother Goddess, Mother Supreme.
She could sing the Fab jingle
prettier than the woman on tv.
Inhale the intoxicating scent of Fab
to be found on a bath towel,
then add her own twist:
a pantomime retch,
as if the smell of Fab
was nauseating. When she laughed
she lost herself in laughter.
Big wet rolling tears. The family dog
was always drawn to her,
always followed her, as did I.
She had more kindness and life in her
than any other person on earth. And fire.
Once, when we had been warned
but wouldn’t listen, she stopped the car,
ordered us bickering kids to the curb,
and left a stinging handprint on my thigh.
Smoldering reminder of God’s wrath.
When I was older, we became friends.
I came to know her as a person,
know her strengths and weaknesses.
She was not good
at going with the flow or following along.
That was her strength, or one of them.
A fiercely independent mind
paired with a limitless capacity
for love and kindness
in a life lived as a work in progress.
Always questioning, always seeking,
and never quite satisfied, or so it seemed,
until the end, when it became clear,
to me at least, she had lived exactly
as she intended. She looked back on her life
with pride, and when she passed, she was
not only at peace, she was happy.

Bad poets always believe
in their metaphors
and end up working for the government

Caught between treasons
I eat chocolate
and dream

I wish I had
drinking buddies to show
for all this running around

You say things are strange there
I think they are stranger here, myself.

from Harpur Palate

I watched a fox eat an egg
on Nature. He was in the rain forest,
climbing a tree. Not well, not easily,
but with trembling determination.
On a high, narrow limb
he reached the nest,
took the egg in his jaws,
and raised it up like an offering.
With a couple of quick snaps it was gone.

I cooked two eggs
sunny side up with salt and pepper
and slid each onto a piece of buttered toast.
Cut them three by three for
eighteen perfect bites. Ate them
with my elbows on the table,
thinking of the fox. His snout
raised to the heavens,
his tail hanging limp. Not thinking
much about anything.

from Kakalak: 2009 Anthology of Carolina Poets

Our light is never spent.
Is spent.

Thus have we scooped out
maceration reservoirs.

We will blaze forth
what remains
as pixels.

Great angels
fly at our behest
between towers,

along axons and dendrites,

so that things stand
as they stand

in the recruited present.

Hey there! Hello!
How’s everything? How’s life?
The answer is Fine, fine,
but what a question. Caught
for some why off-guard
I pause to consider it
and the earth beneath my feet
becomes a long creaking plank
over tossing seas.
My life? My god, man, we
are merely co-workers.
I’m not prepared to discuss it.
I may never be.
The pause expands
like a balloon left too long
on a helium tank until
I pierce it with a single word:
good.

from The Distillery

Who is that brave boy
marching into the sea?
Who is he to battle alone
the mighty waves?
The futility of his mission
is unquestionable
his forward progress
equally so. Icy roiling seas
leap against his stomach.
He scarcely flinches.
The rushing water subsides
and there is a calm
for a moment
or two
then a deviously gentle tugging
toward the deep
that quickly gathers intensity
sluices around his knees
sucks the water past his calves
while before him mounts
not a wave
but a wall of water.
Run boy! If you can hear,
Save yourself!
There is no run in him.
His fists are clenched.
As the wall falls in he throws
a punch and is thrown
tumbled slammed against
the crushed shells and sand.
On hands and knees
coughing clear his throat to breathe.
Will he rise?
He will.
He does.
Staggers, steadies himself
and turns to face the sea.

I am passing through the needle of spring
in North Carolina, as ignorant of the flowers of the south
as the woman at the barbecue stand who laughs
and the man who gives me a look as he pumps the gas

and everyone else I ask on the way to the airport
to return to where this purple madness is not seen
blazing against the sober pines and rioting along the
roadside.

On the plane, the stewardess is afraid she cannot answer
my question, now insistent with the fear that I will leave
the province of this flower without its sound in my ear.

Then, as if he were giving me the time of day, a passenger
looks up from his magazine and says wisteria.

 
“Field Guide” by Billy Collins from Questions about Angels. © William Morrow and Company, 1991.