Surrender Not Peace/ Young Man Standing beside
Empty Chair with Kepi and Worn Boots, ca. 1865 [1]
Your belly hardens. And then. Softens. Putrefies. Blood-gilt.
Shuck. Strip. Become. Discharge. Pardon. Pardon?
Sunburnt. Is she child or woman? Fancy. Forfeit. You ask. Again?
Seed. Reach or languish. Decay. Forage. Trade. You. Crease-
patterned. Across. Across. Your. Your opaline brow. One who.
One. Not two. Dance in the. Empty streets. Heather high.
Hollow. Set aside. Piled.
Bearded. Or beardless? Vacant. Victorian tussock-ruffed
chair. Leather boots. Kepi. Busted. You don't. You’d prefer.
Preferred. Brother. Brothered? No longer. You left. Him. There.
But not. Alone. Lone.
Carte de visite:
(Albumen silver print.) Alongside. The many. Beside. Side.
By side. Batched. Gold braided. Trenched. Tattered. Shovel
stench limed. Half rotted. Some eyed. Some yawned.
Some
Nearly. Stripped. Shoeless. Sockless. Your rations. His. Yours.
Picked. Clean. But not. Not. An ending. Day/ time. Inconsolable.
Cast. Standpoint. Angle. Stance. Cessate. Not tender/
bellicose.
Drum scape. Spry flare. Flame roll. And mock. Flash wake.
Trifling wonder. Hare and chase. Slam burlesque. Sunk.
Bottomless stupor. Boondockery. Sham. But solemn. Gay. Camp.
Gaiety. Of. Last. Encampment.
Enchantment. Past doom. Past drill. Past parade. Past
union. Fiddle. Patch. Filch. Meat. Mete. Chicken wrung. Some
citizen’s blunt. Spark up the poplars. Lamentable.
White picket. Front porch. Yard. Cripple fence.
Black husk. Old Crow. Margin. Drift. Glume. North light
candlelight. Sky. Home is. Undoing. You always. Need.
Examine. For love. For rain. Brazen. Effortless.
Endless. Peace. Sleep.
Patter. Pour. Hope. Hope. Hopeful. Utopian. Argue.
Argument. Cause. Drain. Brash. Bandage. Wrap. Sore. Bash.
Stooged: No damn. Good. Edge to precipice. Forward.
Rear. Drive. Hedge.
Girdle. Wither. Petition. Lee hands Grant. His finest. Never.
Never. Tincture of. Blade. Pure romance. Upright. Strip-limbed.
Tobacco fumed. Hard. By trade. Or inclination. Fervor bond
bonded. Bent.
Bondsmen. And women too. Hood-snap. Steel blind bound.
Sojourner. Clod. Divot. Split-hoof. Maggot. Manure.
Dirge. Gorse mat. Blind. Bid. Bid them. Order. Order them.
Abide. Swallow it. Stomach it. Bide. Bide.
Take it. Current. Casual. Causal. Catastrophic. Surrender
not peace. Unperturbed. Wedged. Wedged in.
Below. Piddle-paddle. Row. Oar. Pull. Punt. Above you.
Like a bear climbs a Pin Cherry tree. Maul. Hot
Scat. Steam. Road. Behind. Look. Behind. Behind you. You.
Span. Outskirt. Province. Purview. Tent. Yard. Shiver stacked
bayonets. Rivulet. Bottom feeder fricassee. To the top. Eat.
Feed. Gorge. Before. Until. Grass. Weeds.
Mud ooze. Shit. Hunger. Chaff. Your belly bloats. Hardens.
Softens. Lustrate squab and hummock. White. Black.
Mulatto. Quadroon. Blue blood. Patrician. Lace curtain silk
stocking insurgency. Subdued.
Swell. Itch. Alive with. Knee deep in. Bygones.
Occupations. Coercions. Military law. Race as in race war. Post.
Post-Appomattox. Post-Charleston. Post-Roanoke. Post-gunned
down. Down on live TV. Obscure
Church shooter. Vengeance. Plunge. Plummet. GoPro twitter
tattle automatic feed. You’ll know. Know if you’re hit.
Hit. Governance by Glock. Magazines. Rounds. Justice by
alias. By social. Media. Reportage. Revenge.
Retribution. Hollow point. You mind. Streaming. Video
spasm. Content may. Stream to the Bay: you watch them. Paired
sailing sailed sail high away. You watch coupling
eagles swear their. Glide. Mated. Spray scrub
Airtight zip-tie post-service church basement secession
sesquicentennial supper. Nothing squandered hot or cold.
Nothing wasted crumb or scrap. All-in. Used Up. Face it. Taste
it. What is the. Shelf life of.
Grudge. Savor it. Hold it in your mouth. Blown. Grave
blossom O be joyful/ blown away. Will or capacity. To fight.
Scalawag. Sap. Sapped.
Sapper/ smash. Not lost. Lifeless. Yet. Unforgotten.
And Other Things Besides
They’re never the same lounging the lane black
and gold bellied rat-swoll bush drape poke-
lick sun savor bask the slate terrace hid in the crick rubbish
rusted-out washers and tires and
piles of busted tools harmless warmth
suckers coil plumb sashay up and flicker
nicknamed for local personalities
radio hosts balding TV weathermen or just on general
attitude easy-six-footer-slide-up-rough
rake-the-flue bust-out-the-shrubbery slam-into-the-
driver’s-side-door you’d have thought to death
but nope
sidle-off-nonchalant-as-a-skunk-after-a-spray
did I imagine it? sinuate muscle non-associative
behavior according to the nonplussed
farm agent city friends with their pretty new
baby walk the trace directly into big-fella-munch-
one-whole-while-the-other-unfledged-cheeps-its-cleft-shell
peek-gulp-right-quick-from-born-to-dead park my
butt on the brick crumble snowmelt stoop
nurse an extra-hot coffee urge me up hard
but slow go easy don’t argue slip back hand
on my shoulder draw me up inside one hand in
my hand the other square-aim-spade-yellow-tail-baby
copperhead-flung-airborne tinny bang free
______
Reticent they are
thinly venomous lickety-flick fork tongue
heat-seeking
______
Uneducated we were
and frightened of alien somethings and other
other things besides
Lineman (Tap The Pure Blue)
If you could see the spiral arc bound
circumferential current trunk flung
cable slung shoulder sluice a shudder
quick the arm bone blow the hand
clean off -
tap the pure blue
If you could see him stuck where he stands
paralyzed high up the easement platform
magnetic field’s captive the hand his hand
at large fallen to earth as what? electricity
must flow through ions in the body right?
bolt gantry crossarm clutch
If you could see extremity as covert weapon as
voltage quiver a spark/ a surge through
& through him if you could
observe him from a distance spot the child-
size yellow tinsel wings fly past/ bank the leased
land come in (take hold of him discharge & release him)
low & let go a dusty riverside pesticidal stream
(steady he mouths the word to himself steady)
If you could see the stub sear tout-de-suit/ hear
the engine brawl/ recall a dream he once
dreamed
If you could picture him in his little boy’s reverie
come true/ chimeric/ a crippling trance
atop a tower/ a hooked stump prosthetic conjure/
a prognostication/ see an unplanned pirate fall
to land/ push a janitor’s broom
with just one hand
[1] Photography and the American Civil War, Jeff L. Rosenheim, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, New York, distributed by The Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2013.