What we Have Has No Name
Two freezing cold spring heads that thread
A creek through a granite gorge
Past mountain laurel, poplars
Reaching straight to skylight, then
A rich man’s muddy catfish pond,
Slipping the rock spillway to
Join the Henry Fork before
It becomes a murder river.
Poem
for Sam Silva
It’s
the shithead, he’d say
When
he called, meek-voiced
Deep
in the need to read me a poem.
Four,
five times a week
We
sent each other envelopes
Stuffed
with typed poems
Searching
for one reader
Learning
the line, making a voice,
End
of the 80s, the most boring
Decade
in American history.
Sam
was paranoid schizophrenic.
My
wife thought I was crazy, too.
Mr.
Peeler, you’ve got to hear this,
He’d
say when he called
In
his booming Voice of God
From
the house in Fayetteville
Where
he lived with Rachel the artist
Who
he worshipped
In
love poem and love poem.
She
saved him every day.
I
would listen to him.
Then
we would compliment each other.
Throwing
life preservers through land lines.
We
didn’t know yet how obscurity
Would
settle over us like a protective shell,
Delivering
us from the worse things
We
might become.
Now
we are old men,
Sam
only able to write haiku,
And
me, well, look at this shit.
But
there is nothing more relaxing
Than
an hour of his latest e-book.
No
longer a shithead,
No
more Voice of God.
He’s
damned good at it.
Mas
Mas, my old friend.
