An afternoon in a café
a drink on the scarred wooden table
watching the life on the sidewalk
laugh and whisper
and glance with that look.
Copyright Joseph Bird, 2015
This is the next installment of my poetry jag. This was written as a reflection of family trips to the beach. I don’t expect everyone to fully connect, though there might be some resonance for those with similar experiences. I used InDesign to incorporate photos with the text, but couldn’t figure out how to cleanly post the finished document. I decided on the Portable Document Format, aka as the PDF. And to see the post requires one more click. We ask that you please bear with us.
Sit, he says,
on this bench beside me.
It’s been months.
I thought he might be dead.
He’s the kind of person whose
death would go unnoticed.
He smells of liquor, I think.
Maybe I’m wrong.
How are you?
Not very good.
He’s never very good.
He’s had a hard life.
This much is true.
Brought on by
his own poor decisions?
Maybe.
Still.
A couple of dollars
is all he needs,
all he ever asks for.
Sometimes I give more.
He’s got to get out of his apartment.
It’s his third one since I’ve known him.
Always looking for a better place.
A better life.
He is ragged, blood-shot eyes
As he wanders the streets.
I’ll see him at church.
He says he wants to go more.
It’s just hard, you know.
Got to catch a bus.
Too cold, too hot, too far.
He’s always bedraggled,
Always tired,
Always worn out.
But he keeps going.
Why?
In his shoes, I would fail.
But he doesn’t.
He keeps going.
How much better is my life.
How much more I have.
How easy I have it.
I hand him three dollars.
He thanks me.
Promises to try to get to church.
Thanks me again.
And he goes.
copyright 2015, Joseph E Bird
Author’s Notes: This an excerpt from my novel Song of the Lost. It’s the story of James and Katherine who struggle for the lives while lost deep in the forest. Chloe is Katherine’s estranged daughter who lives on the streets of Nashville. Although mentally challenged, she has occasionally expressed a latent musical genius. She has been befriended by Brad McNear, a country music star in Nashville. In this scene, Chloe is hanging out a public library.
Chloe had two hours before the library would close and she went to her usual place, a table near the newspaper racks across from the reference desk. She wheeled her cart beside the table, took off the blanket, set her brass compass on the table, and took out her book of poetry. She had read the poems so many times that their rhymes and rhythms had shaped not only the songs which seemed to emanate from her spontaneously, but also her everyday speech patterns. She would have been regarded as special and lovely simply on her own natural countenance, but to those who took the time to talk to her, her poetic expression created an aura of special knowledge or prescience. In the sense that they conferred wisdom and understanding upon her, it was, of course, unwarranted. But in realm of simple clarity of truth, there was no one like her. For these reasons, Chloe Nielsen attracted people of kind and gentle heart.
Georgia Taylor, one of the librarians, was such a person.
“Hi, Chloe,” she said as she approached her table. She sat down beside her holding a book, which drew Chloe’s eyes. Its binding was old and worn, with frayed strings which at one time helped form the cloth that was glued over the cardboard cover. Along the spine in gothic letters that had faded into barely visible shadows was the name of the author: YEATS.
“Hi, Georgie,” Chloe said.
“It’s late for you to be here, isn’t it?”
Chloe nodded, then reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the pass to the show at Willie’s. She handed it to Georgia.
“Oh. This is to Brad McNear’s show tonight. Where did you get this?”
“Brad gave it to me.”
Georgia leaned back in her chair. Her look was quizzical. “Do you know Brad?”
Chloe nodded. “We play music together sometimes.”
“You play music with Brad McNear.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of implied doubt.
“Sometimes. He recorded my song.”
Georgia could no longer feign her belief. “Are you making up a story, Chloe?”
Georgia had heard Chloe play and sing, but she had never witnessed her genius – only the three-chord cover songs that eventually disintegrated. She had never known that there was more. She gave up her pursuit of the truth.
“Well,” she said, “if you’re going over to Willie’s, be careful. The hustlers will be out trying to take advantage of the tourists. They prey on the vulnerable.”
“I know,” Chloe said.
Georgia looked at the ticket. “The show doesn’t start until eight,” she said. “You’ll have to be out of here by six. Where are you going to go until then?”
Chloe shrugged.
“Have you eaten?”
“I ate lunch at St. Mark’s.”
Georgia thought for a moment, then went to her desk. When she returned, she put a folded twenty-dollar bill into Chloe’s jacket pocket.
“There’s a sandwich shop between here and Willie’s. They’ll make you whatever you want. Get you a cup of coffee, too.”
“Can I have tea instead of coffee?”
“Of course. Just stay there until you can get in the club. They won’t care as long as you buy some food.”
“Ok.”
Georgia smiled, then slid the book in front of Chloe. “I thought you might enjoy this. I know you like poetry. This is William Butler Yeats. One of the great poets of the twentieth century. I’ve had this since I was a child. It means a lot to me. I want you to have it.”
Chloe ran her hand over the worn cover, tracing the edges with her fingers. She opened the book to a random page and felt the yellowed paper. She followed the words with her eyes, her lips moving as she did.
Georgia patted Chloe’s hand. “I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.”
“Thank you, Georgie. I will.”
Georgia went back to her desk; she had work to do before closing. Chloe opened the book of Yeats poetry to page one. She read the half title, the title page, the colophon, the table of contents, and the forward before stopping at the first poem, The Stolen Child. She glanced at the verses that seemed so long, with words that were strange and unknown. She read the first few lines, stopped, and read them again. The meaning wasn’t clear. What was this poem about? A lake, herons, rats? She read more, grasping a phrase here and there but failing to put it together into anything coherent. Until the last line of the first verse.
the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
That, she understood.
She spent the next hour pouring over the book, reading verses and even single lines at random. It wasn’t easy. But there was something in the difficulty that was beguiling. She doubted that she would ever understand it all. She knew she would never stop reading.
It was almost six and Chloe was the only one on the main floor. She looked up at the desk, looking for Georgia. She wanted to thank her again for the book, but she didn’t see her. Chloe packed up her cart, putting her book of Yeats underneath her book of Frost, then covered them both with her thin blanket. She walked around the first floor, looking behind the stacks for Georgia, but there was no one. She started for the double doors at the front of the library and walked by the main desk.
She almost missed it. It was just another book among a dozen others to be re-shelved. But her mind filtered the blur of images so that the one book stood out and caused her to stop and turn around. She took a step back to the desk, and stared, her mouth open.
The elevator door to the right opened and Georgia exited pushing a cart. Chloe didn’t move or otherwise acknowledge her presence.
“What is it Chloe?”
“Katherine,” she answered. “That’s Katherine,” she said as she pointed to the back of the book jacket.
“Yes. Katherine Loudendale. That’s a new bestseller.” She turned the book over, revealing the cover art of the blue sneakers. “In the Forest of the Night. The story of her survival in the forest.”
Chloe turned the book over. “Katherine. My mother.”
“Katherine Loudendale is your mother?”
“Yeah.”
Georgia stared at Chloe. Anyone would have recognized the look as incredulity, but Chloe was oblivious.
“She got lost in the woods,” Chloe said.
“It’s been on the news,” Georgia said. “She was on The Shelley Show.”
“Dad got me a compass so I wouldn’t get lost.”
Georgia put her arm around Chloe. “Do you want me to take you back to the shelter?”
“No, I’m going to go hear Brad McNear.”
“Maybe I should just take you home.”
“I should go.”
“I’m worried about you Chloe,” Georgia said, but she didn’t say why.
“I’m ok, Georgie. I’m not sick that I know of.”
Georgia sighed, then hugged her from the side. “Please be careful. And go to the sandwich shop and get something to eat, ok?”
“I will. Thank you for the book.”
“You’re welcome. Try to get some rest tonight.”
“Miles to go before I rest.”
“Robert Frost,” Georgia said.
Coyright 2015, Joseph E Bird
I saw him then, that look of dread
Though months before I thought him dead.
His gate unsure and out of sync,
A scrape of red across his head.
He stepped too close, I did not blink.
His breath was sweet from heavy drink.
And though he looked as if quite mad,
He was a gentle man, I think.
Two bills he knew I always had.
His needs were slight, his wants were sad.
Someone to see his soul was right;
Though rough and worn, he was not bad.
In church, he said, he’d be that night,
As if a debt were owed to rite.
He walked away, his thanks polite,
My guilt and conscience to indict.
Coyright Joseph E Bird, 2014
Author’s Notes: These are true memories that I wanted to get down before they drift away. It’s written in a poetic style because my memories come to me in a sporadic, fragmented way. My dad, who admonished us to stay off the hump, would say it’s not a poem because it doesn’t rhyme. Let’s call it poetic expression.
A Sunday afternoon drive.
Like so many before.
We called it the country
though I know now
it was just outside of town.
A two-lane highway
heavy with tractor trailers,
me and my sisters pestering
each other in the back seat.
We would stand on the floor
and watch through the windshield.
Get off the hump, my dad would say.
We had worn the carpet
to bare metal.
The house was huge,
but it was tired and worn.
Bees buzzed from their hives
within the front porch posts.
Sheet metal was nailed over
the holes in the wooden steps.
There was an aroma
of old wood
soft wood
wet wood.
Earth shady from giant oaks.
And dogs.
Always family.
Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.
All there to see Mom and Sid Morgan.
The oldest people I had ever known.
Ancient and intriguing,
they loved having everybody visit.
Open gas fires
and peeling paint on the walls.
Linoleum coming up from the floor.
So many rooms.
Upstairs,
where no one goes.
An unfinished oil painting
on an easel
in the parlor.
And the museum.
A.S. Morgan’s life.
Alligators.
The two-headed calf.
A bald eagle.
The wheel of West Virginia trees.
Cannonballs.
Finally their lives could not go on,
the house could no longer stand.
Nature has reclaimed the land,
the museum was moved
and moved again.
It’s a hollow shell of what it was.
When I see it now,
it’s hard to think of Sid
or any of the rest of the family.
When my generation passes,
so will the legacy of
Albert Sidney Morgan.
copyright 2014, joseph e bird
“The poets are wrong of course. … But then poets are almost always wrong about facts. That’s because they are not really interested in facts: only in truth: which is why the truth they speak is so true that even those who hate poets by simple and natural instinct are exalted and terrified by it.”
— William Faulkner from The Town
Who knew James Brown was a poet? Not that James Brown, this James Brown. He’s turned into quite the sensitive guy. After watching a special on the evolution of modern dance, he writes this:
She flies.
All grace, flowing and free.
For a moment she is splendor.
She will always be
a dancer.
She flies.
Into his arms, sure and strong.
Together they are elegance.
She will always be
a dancer.
She flies.
Strength, beauty, trust.
One voice, one spirit.
She will always be
a dancer.
She flies.
copyright 2014
Yo.
These characters in my book, they just keep spouting poetry. I mean, what’s up with all the rhymes? I think it’s Larry’s fault.
Now Katherine, the chick lost in the woods with her new BFF, James, apparently knows a little poetry. She recites this little prayer of thanksgiving as a toast.
“Through shadow and light I bear my quest.
In forest deep I find my rest.
Till day is done and sun’s set west
and then I know I’m truly blessed.”
Cheers.
Copyright 2014
Joseph E Bird 