Obscure
Early enough in the day,
Surely I’m about to surprise myself.
If I listen good, I hear
The momma turkey conducting
Her eight chicks across the trail
I will reach in five clicking minutes,
The light a perfect yellow fade
Into scrub hickories thick
As a full court press.
A fat copperhead, still full of night,
Crawling toward the granite
Aperture of his domain
Pauses to blend with pine needles
In a slow pitch of shadow
I pass without knowing.
What I Learned Today
In the 1930s, there was a half mile packed red clay track
At the Catawba County Fairgrounds, now Hickory High School,
And they ran car races there during the fair,
Races that drew 10,000 people, who stood outside
The fence, and they staged a head-on collision
Between two cars, which drew the top billing.
They had found something particular to the area
Where bootleggers ran trunk loads of hooch
Down mountain roads, the like of which
We can hardly imagine, that one in six adults
Was involved some way in the moonshine biz,
That World War II stopped it all for four years
Yet it returned with a vengeance, men and machines
And soon enough baseball was dead.
Prime Prine
There were years I lived on the
Strength of John Prine songs, singing
Grandpa Was a Carpenter
When I was feeling down or
Old People when I needed
To swim in melancholy.
I saw him my sophomore
Year Lenoir-Rhyne College.
He swayed and drank and warbled
Reaching for the mike stand one
Too many times when he near
Fell off the stage and then he
Sang a song I didin’t know
About Jesus walking on
Water into a boat’s path,
And when he finished a young
Man stood up and shouted You’re
A fool, Jesus can do any-
Thing and loud-stomped out the aisle.
Prine had been in the army,
Had been a mail carrier,
He had seen some crazy shit.
He reached for his beer and went
Straight into Illegal Smile.
Al
He sits across the bar table
From his former student,
A wheelchair bound late teen
When he taught him English
At the community college.
He’s come to interview him
As an alumnus for a book
The college is doing on its history.
He’s early 40s now, still boyish faced
With the same gleam in his eyes.
I DJ here four nights a week, he says.
It’s just before Christmas and the joint
Has a life sized Donald Trump cutout
Dressed as Santa Claus. The sound system
Throbs the latest bro country tunes.
I’m a lucky guy, he says. I’m married,
Got two children. The doctors told me
I wouldn’t live past 25, but here I am.
Mind if I get a shot of you in the DJ booth?
He scrambles across the dance floor.
Same as the old days, racing his chariot.
Back at the table, he asks him what do
You remember about the school?
You guys took me bowling one day at lunch.
I’ll never forget it. I wasn’t worth a shit.
But everybody was amazed that I could
Bowl from my chair. People on the other lanes
Stopped to watch me turn and fling that ball.
I took classes and got a degree. I was already
Who I am. That Day y’all let me know I was one of you.
Lucky
Never
forget how lucky you were
To
live your life with people who loved you
And
how you were only alone
When
you chose to be
Even
when you chose it too much
Even
if fame never came
Even
when the flame burned low
When
the pain was all encompassing
You
were lucky to be with people you loved
Some
people are not
Lucky
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.
