Imagined Geography 2: New England Song

a stolen Volvo

of all things

rolled on the dunes 

kids all hanging 

upside down

still listening to tunes

out to covered bridges

out to the beaches 

out to summer cottages

out past our reaches

summer homes 

full of nothing

bric-à-brac, 

knick-knacks.

ruck sacks, 

kayaks,

quick snacks

nut sacks,

racken-fracks,

six packs,

a fishing shack

out back

bring back

a stickleback

bring back

the click track

the click track

the click track

drunken college girlfriends run together in my memory
drunken college girlfriends run together into the sea

Are you picturing distance?

Are you picturing distance,
perhaps some other hills,
and the hint of water there?
This is what I thought.

This landscape is
photons, vibrations,
the inhalable molecules
of life on the air.

This landscape is
brochures and other ephemera
your mother received from
chambers of commerce.

This landscape is
the 'grey' and the 'white'
I have written on a plain
sheet of white paper.

This landscape grows
more distinct now, rolling
over the hills of the
thing in your skull.

Are you picturing distance,
perhaps some other hills,
and the hint of water there?
This is what I thought.

the weight of the soul

[[ Weapons -- bullets, bombs, missiles -- and the technology of violence, the politics and philosophy of violence, the blinking out of life. And there was the famous (?) experiment in which someone claimed to weigh the human soul and came up with 21 grams. ]] 

how fast they move

these pieces of metal

how hard and sharp 

they make themselves known

the projection of power

is airtight, cylindrical, 

streamlined and modular

how small they seem 

these pieces of certainty

how they disintegrate

all understanding 

the end of it all 

has just crossed the border

and gone underground

how fast they die 

the cells of memory

how the mind blinks out

second by second

the weight of the soul

is the difference between

the body before and after

how small we seem

with no more certainty

how we disintegrate

past understanding

the end of it all 

has just crossed the border

and gone underground

the weight of the soul

is the difference between

the body before and after

we die surrounded,

surrounding, before and after,

feel the weight of the soul

intentional love song 13: Never get over

[[ a brooding song, with memories called up like pages from self-help articles, museum dioramas, films, plays  ]]

Yeah, it's been awhile.

Never get over.

I go through things

like the agony aunts

in magazines

a thousand times

in waiting rooms

I go through things

like a bad museum

with manikins

still holding poses

as if they were real

Yeah, it's been awhile.

Do you dwell on things?

Do you live on that street?

Do you eat and breathe, 

Do you dream it?
Do you?

Yeah, it's been awhile.

Never get over.

I go through things

prime vintage porn flick

with funk slap bass

here comes the pizza

but the plumber's here

I go through things

like art house drama

with painted tears

and painted laughter

to an angular dance

Yeah, it's been awhile.

Do you dwell on things?

Do you live on that street?

Do you eat and breathe, 

Do you dream it?

Yeah, it's been awhile.

Never get over.

where and when she was

this is where and when she was 

I remember nothing from yesterday 

but this is where and when she was 

I could draw you a picture 

I could draw a picture of her, 

where and when she was

in a thunderstorm, 

sheltering under 

a bronze monument

on a cross-country bus, 

buried in her hair,

all out of Mississippi

sunburnt on the grass 

at the fire hall field day

after all summer 

clinging to a railing, 

orange shorts, orange shirt, 

orange roller blades

standing waist-deep 

in an Arizona lake 

and watching me back

crossing a street, 

her skirt gently swaying 

as she disappears 

[[ all real images, not all the same person ]]

out-of-town news

[[ I am far from where I grew up and I am old enough that people are starting to die. I check the old hometown paper online for obituaries of anyone I might know. ]]

Been out of touch
with everyone for ages
ever since our changes came

Check the hometown news
obituary pages
just looking out for my name

Will it be me?
Will it be you?
Who'll feel the loss the worst?

Will it be you?
Will it be me?
Whose heart is going?
Whose heart is going to go first?

Look at their stories:
he fished weekends,
she was known to talk and cook.

Now surrounded by family,
surrounded by old friends,
all having one last good look.


Will it be me?
Will it be you?
Who feels the loss the worst?

Will it be you?
Will it be me?
Whose heart is going?
Whose heart is going to go first?

Whose war was she in?

[[ From a memory of when I was very young in the 1960s and my mother had brought me with her into a social club. A drunken woman approached us to see this pale little boy. She said she liked my name and repeated it back to me in a low, drawn-out voice several times. Her face was scarred, seamed, pieced, I don't know from what. In those days, she could have been through either world war or through a windscreen made from the opposite of safety glass. ]]


Who is this tumbler reeling
towards us in the club?
I must be five and she a thousand.
I must be terrified and frozen.

Save me, ma, from
the fates at night.

Save me, ma, from
the bombs that fall.

Save me, ma, from
the patchwork face.

Save me, save us all,
ma, from us all.

Who is this woman with
a glass of something golden,
an orange cigarette smolder,
a face pieced back together
along the seams?

Save me, ma, from
the fates at night.

Save me, ma, from
the bombs that fall.

Save me, ma, from
the patchwork face.

Save me, save us all,
ma, from us all.

Whose war was she
in? Whose war?
Whose war was she?
No one left to ask.

give up the ghost

[[ What can this mean? The narrator's nervous system is haunted. ]]

give up the ghost

= = = = =

little ghost

I know you're in there

the light is soft

the tem-per-a-ture is 

in-ex-pli-ca-bly low

this sound is mind

this sound is mind

this sound is mind

this sound is mind

rest, little ghost

= = = = =

another day 

the little ghost returns

returns with little friends

each little ghost 

is in my spine

swim-ming in 

my spi-nal-flu-id

swimming through 

each after each

the rings of bone 

my vertebrae

a circus trick -

hop through the hoop

each after each

a ring of bone 

a ring of bone 

a ring of bone 

a ring of bone 

a ring of bone 

as if a school 

of little fish

each little ghost 

swims up my spine

and waits beneath 

the inland sea

open mouthed

open, close

oh oh oh oh

= = = = =

I clasp my hands 

and peek inside

aha!

another ghost is here

where have you been?

the end of amnesia

[[ This one is more poem than song, I suppose. I tried to make each line a separate image or idea that could stand on its own. For example, "a box of familiar" and "remains to remember" could be two things, perhaps two ways to describe a dead person's ashes. Words do double duty. ]]

A box of familiar

words on a shelf:

we'll be together

when ash is dust,

when smoke curls to

high rolling clouds

(how heavy are they?

let's look it up)

and clouds burst.

When stone smooths
away in the wind,
when ivy obscures,

when nobody here

remains to remember

we were, what endures

weighs as much as
a black locomotive

burning in the sun.

an experiment come down in a field

[[ A fairly true story from my childhood, when the Bell test pilots used to fly the x-22 over our county -- I really watched it -- and they eventually crashed one in a field behind a school friend's house. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_X-22 ]]

Many years later,

I tracked down a name,

a man named McAllister,

who said we were friends.

I no longer remember 

the days that we spent.

An experiment

come down

in a field

Out behind houses.

This we remember.

No longer ourselves,

but this we remember

An experiment

come down

in a field

A Mustang pulled up

to the edge of a field

with a mother and child

and a wreck in the field,

fallen from the sky,

and the grass on fire.

News crews take it in

and honest to god

government men

watch us watching them

and the thing from the sky

we now draw for our children.

When we were children

we used to watch it

flying over corn fields

flying over cows

He said I'd been to his birthday

We were best friends that year

I have no recollection, 

of childhood anymore

tell me more, Mr McAllister,

tell me who I used to be.