Lessons for a Barren Population
SMASHWORDS EDITION
Copyright © 2011 by Harvey Stanbrough
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
* * * * *
Lessons for a Barren Population
Acknowledgments
With grateful appreciation to William Baer, Ambrose Bierce (I.M.), Linda Bosson, J. Lynn Cutts, Kurt Fickert, Don Johnson, Sandy Kidd, Tamara B. Latham, Howard Nemerov (I.M.), Dorothy Parker (I.M.), Elaine Preston, Jack Williamson, and Fredrick Zydek for inspiration, epigrams, ideas, and lines, and especially to Mary Wolf of Hard Shell Word Factory for being the first to put this collection out there.
Many of the poems in this volume were previously collected in On Love and War and Other Fallacies (HarMona Press, 1998) and Residua (WJM Press, 1998). Several other poems among these were first published in ByLine, Castalian Springs, The Formalist, The Candlelight Poetry Journal, Feelings, Penny Dreadful, and Tucumcari Literary Review.
for those who do not need the Lessons...
Observations
On Viewing a Road Gang, Incidentally
On Writers
Lament of a Small-Press Editor
A Pulitzer-Nominated Poet, Desiring to Teach...
On War
On Viewing a Former Human in Razorwire
On Love
The Lessons
Lessons for a Barren Population
This Livin' Ain't No Easy Thing
As Death, You Know, Sometimes Occurs in Dreams
On Putting Too Much Stock in Nemerov
Observations
"November, n. The eleventh twelfth of a weariness."
~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
I
I would invoke the muses here, but fear
their shoulders turned and cold might render this
a failure, and I couldn't bear to fail
unless I blamed the failure on myself,
as is my earned inheritance. Instead
I will invoke the reader, you who seek
this mirror and who search it, hoping both
you will and will not find herein yourself:
This is your verdict, your portrait, your fault,
a meager shot at a superficial redemption
of sorts. We take them when we can, don't we?
We all need that redemption—though we seek
and find it in our different ways—and mine
will course along your bloodstreams, through your thoughts
and back to me through careful observation
until it comes to rest upon a page
much like this one, for all the world to see,
for you are my redemption. You—reader
and subject in the same soft shell—provide
the wheat that screams between the stones of this
unobtrusive mill of things, and I,
the miller in this case, provide the bread,
the chance to dine upon yourself. How rare
this mild occasion is, and how painless,
for as you read herein your faults and ills,
you read your neighbor's too, and that, my friend,
makes the drifting finally worthwhile.
II
My father had a bout with lust and lost
(as he was wont to do, he threw the fight)
and loved the woman of his current dreams,
filling her with more than warmth that day,
remorse and other sorry, soggy stuff,
and I was born, as was my wand'ring pen,
into a weariness, a wandering,
from this sweet fruit to that: a searching out
of things that cause a smile, and avoidance
of things that bite and sting—as I have learned
that most things do if given time
and opportunity—and absorption
of what I could absorb. I've come to find
no oddness in this wandering: no place
to go where none has gone before; no pain
that has not been endured by someone else;
no Thing I have affected over much;
and finally, no Thing that has escaped
my subtle influence—this ragged pen—
scrawled across some surface, thought pristine
until it suffered me and this loud touch.
III
Most things wander, wearily, from things
to other things and other things then fall,
left out or over from some larger Thing
or things, and seldom learn a direct route
or anything as bold or consequential
as poems speaking loudly and concretely,
calling things not Things but by their names—
persons, places, actions, and events
(a valid argument)—but sometimes things
are things and nothing else. At such times
things must be called Things, appropriate
to atoms, molecules, and combinations
of those smaller things, which, after all
comprise the lot of us and every Thing
and matter not at all, as we do not
except that every Thing has been left out,
omitted from this thing or that, and shoved
hard aside, a disturbing knowledge
everywhere substantiated. So
without concrete, specific imagery—
here I record that drastic omission
of Things from other, greater, larger Things,
that you might be forewarned: to be a common
thing is to exist. You must affect
the other things around you; strive to leave
them out as often as is practical;
let them, not you, become residua.
IV
Don't you tell your children Be Something?
And don't you, with that same advice, advise
them to do what they must to affect
the other Things around them? Don't you wish
that other Things would not omit your children,
leave them mere residua? We slide
from one omission to the next, each Thing
among us lesser, greater, and the same
as every other Thing, and we avoid
the lessons of omission in no way;
nor do we spare the other Things, whose paths
we cross, the lessons we would have them learn.
And so it goes, this weariness, a drifting
from remorse into regret and back,
my pen my greatest comfort, and a book
my solace in this funny little world
where so few laugh and where so many die
and seldom spend a second looking forward,
so busy simply striving to survive
their past and what some others thrust upon them:
residua in the true sense of the word.
V
Residua, as it is used herein
should not be misconstrued to mean the poems—
that is, these varied works were not left out
of some great tome you missed during trips
to libraries and bookstores—no, Dear Friend,
residua refers to you and me,
the common Things, left out from time to time
of some great feat or cause or some grand notion
in which we might have played a worthy role.
Residua refers to everyone
but Neil Armstrong, whose footprint marked the moon;
and everyone who's never stood in line
to serve or sup on soup on Friday morning
and all of those who have; and everyone
whose parents were divorced and everyone
whose weren't but wished they were; and everyone
who prays in every church for everyone
who doesn't belong to theirs; and all the meek
and all the pushy bastards; everyone
who's fought in war or on a picket line
or in a bar or on a seedy street,
and everyone who's never fought at all;
and everyone who's given birth and all of those who can't.
Residua refers to everyone
left out of anything at any time,
in any way at all—the non-essential
chaff remaining when the wheat has gone,
those whose job it is to ooh and aah
at any great event that slings past them:
Residua refers to you and me.
VI
We occupy the shopping malls, the stores,
the city parks, the broken marriages,
each city, every state, and every nation—
the wops, the wasps, the spics, the kikes, the gooks,
the cops, the thugs, the bikers, and the Injuns,
the lawyers, politicians, and the hookers,
the former girlfriends, former boyfriends,
computer geeks, librarians, and barbers,
housewives, butchers, bakers, editors,
prophets, seminary students, plumbers,
comedians, and movie stars, and spies,
explorers, witches, and adventurers,
guards, prisoners, and haberdashers,
role models, and craftsmen, and instructors,
novelists, and readers, and dead poets,
the best looking, the ugliest, the mean,
the rich, the poor, the fat, the thin, the healthy,
the vegetarians and all the rest—
our common trait? We've all been left behind,
residua of families and clubs,
remainders of society gone trite.
VII
This simple mirror shadows your dismay
that what you thought a special, secret sin
for which you might never be forgiven
is also special to some million others
who, like you, thought themselves the special sinner,
who thought themselves at once the best and worst,
who thought themselves not worthy of the mill,
the gizzard of humanity's last chicken,
the chaff remaining when the wheat has gone.
VIII
For each of you and me, the weariness
continues, dragging me and each of you
along a desperate road, compatriots
in desolation on the Figured Wheel
of Pinsky and beneath the watchful eye
of Frost and Nemerov and other gods
whose works spun up onto the Wheel, their lives
immortalized as all the other grist
the Wheel has ground more finely than I could:
the Wheel has ground the chaff—residua—
and sifted it until it makes no difference
to the maker or the made, and so it goes.
IX
Like all good things (or not) the weariness
must end eventually, and this long road
has slowed as it would do. This weary pen
has tired of testing smiles for sweet intent,
quick flirtations for veracity,
and words for essence; more than that, this heart
has stopped and started twice, a physical
anomaly reflecting on my soul
and drawing me into the yawning maw
of cynicism: Love, I've come to find,
is just a ruse, a necessary means
to some harsh end, a way to spend the evening
less alone. If this must be a mirror
I leave you with a plea to turn away:
deny that you are mere residua,
just another Thing among the Things,
and strive to make a difference in this world,
where so few laugh and where so many hunger
for someThing—anyThing—to give them joy.
You are the rhythm underlying poems,
the essence of the living, breathing word.
* * *
I see that we are not alone
except in that most needful way—
our world is such a tiny spot
it disappears into the sun,
just disappears into the map,
as do our neighboring planets. Hell
the nearest other star, Alpha
Centauri's just a quarter-inch
away, and that's the tragedy:
if Earth were simply to explode
not only would nobody grieve,
they wouldn't even know.
* * *
They donned the suits, did Shepard, Grissom, Armstrong
and all the others deemed to fly the heavens,
screamed across the atmosphere to break
the bowl and dance in weightlessness and awe.
They orbited a toy earth and saw
the frailties of this world flung farther out,
assailed the moon and further scarred its pock
marked surface with the flag of aliens.
And what of us who stood upon the earth,
who gawked, as primitives at a shooting star,
and wondered at the works of NASA's men?
We stretched the truth, connected ourselves to them,
proclaimed that they and we were of one cloth.
Why, even Armstrong named his own "small step"
a "giant leap for mankind." How godly of him,
knowing we could only stare and dream.
* * *
I
Let's say twelve million people start to glow,
but none fry in a fireball—too passé—
and ten-point-two of those millions wore blue
and one-point-eight wore long-sleeved white
and ran the companies that made the stuff
that caused them all to glow. Now I wonder,
would clothes affect the chance of those in blue
to grab a chunk of heaven? Would clothes affect
a poem, say, if one of those blue-shirted
guys thought he was a poet and had tried
to write the whole thing down in that split second
before his fingers greened and began to melt
the keys on his keyboard? Do you suppose
anything would matter anymore
to anyone who'd learned to pray just right,
and at the just-right moment, to some god?
II
Let's say another ten million or so
lost their eyesight staring at the sun—
the real one, though, not the one that caused
the shirts, both blue and white, to glow a brilliant
green—eight million of those on a fluke,
the other two in search of human roots:
Could you be either one of those, you think,
if you had learned to pray, et cetera,
or one of those who didn't care at all,
whose prayers had elevated you above
what either sun or shirts of either color
may have caused? I mean, before you blinked
they all were gone in one way or another
anyway, some glowing and some rambling
about The End of Time and missing prayers
and how the wages of sin just might be death.
III
Assuming all the others sun-flashed blind
and now exist, for all they know, only
in their minds (having felt the heat
and having sensed the greenish hue) if they
couldn't see their own knees bend and couldn't
know for certain they were supplicant,
would they be? Could they ascend to Heaven
by any definition of that place?
What do you think? Of all the myriad chances
we have to suddenly begin to glow,
and all the myriad ways to denigrate
ourselves, and gods to whom our prayers might rise
whether Baptist, Hindu, Moslem, Peniténte,
Methodist, Presbyter, or the rest,
we all must answer to a higher power:
And what of you? Is yours the just-right god?
* * *
". . . and this, the Age of Technology,
is the greatest season of mankind."
~ an Electronics Technology professor
We rise, remarkably, in no Great Season,
rise to mediocrity, our wealth
of knowledge siphoned into fledgling robots,
channeled into artificial minds.
We speak, and volumes ricochet off metal.
Once-noble thoughts diminish, fall aside,
our failing minds atrophied and dying,
dependent on the spiritless machines.
We rise, remarkably, with no great passion,
tap our lines and lives on plastic keys,
save ourselves on disk (no need for Jesus),
e-mail all our friends, have sex sans bodies
travel through a desert without feeling
sand, and through a jungle without fear
of lions, tigers, life in general,
throughout the cyber-spatial netherworld.
We rise, remarkably, for no good reason,
(having dreamed ourselves into a corner)
except to bow before the fine machine.
Jack Williamson had warned us once before
that life might hang precariously by a plug:
now our greatest season passes by us
driven by the bold machines we've made
as we, the meek, observe with folded hands.
* * *
The slow curtailment of the least of these
will lead to confiscation of the rest
and threaten that for which we boldly stand:
the right to save our precious own
and quickly sell the rest.
* * *
How odd to see the wonder in his eyes,
this small, grandsonly image of myself.
Oh yes, his mother's looks, his father's too
reside there in small bits—a turned up nose,
a curled lip, a flash of browning hair—
but the wonder, the awe of life, he took from me.
See? Nothing more remarkable than a leaf,
just fallen from a tree and touching down,
causes the sharp intake of baby breath,
his tiny finger pointing, stiff and locked
upon a new and wondrous discovery.
It thrills him so and has the same effect
as any of the magic things he's seen
in his first three years. That fallen leaf,
his first glimpse of the stars or of the moon
or ants or rocks or laces in my shoe
all hold an equal wonder for this soul,
this tiny one whose eyes reflect my joy
at witnessing his awe, and makes me wonder
how fingers tiny as those can work at all.
* * *
Sometimes a man's great expectations come down to very little at the end. A few minutes relief from the pain. A few words of comfort from someone he trusts. The thought that, for a little while at least, he'll be fondly remembered by someone.
~ Don Johnson in A Texas Elegy
Just as the child must watch the parent die
(that is the way of things) so must we too
observe the things that were and watch them pass,
despite our need for constancy, despite
our need for solace in the sorest times,
and finally, despite our memories.
It was like that when you, a boy near tears
but holding back to prove a million things,
held on to Whit, not asking him to stay
nor rushing his departure. It was that
sore bond, that urge to fill a need, that fear
that you might dwindle down and be alone.
Each of us and every thing goes on
and each of us and every thing comes down
to very little in the end, just like
our expectations of the way of things.
Sometimes a minute is a lifetime, Friend;
sometimes a comfort is all we can give.
How grandly you spoke of Love but never used
the word itself, citing instead our need
for fond remembrances, for memories,
for constancy, for solace in these times
when all we've known is changing and when all
around us moves so quickly to the grave.
Just as the child must watch the parent die,
so must we too observe the things that were
and watch them pass, not rushing them along
nor holding them too tightly. We observe
and hope that each of us will serve to fill
the expectations we considered great.
* * *
Each day at three p.m. she visits him.
He's always lying down when she comes in
quietly, tip-toeing across the room,
picking up his clothes and straightening
the photos on his dresser, looking closely
for cobwebs in the corners and for dust.
And when she's done she sits beside his bed
and prays, wishing the Lord would take him home.
At three-fifteen she leaves, closing the door
quietly, tip-toeing down the hall.
He peeks, one eye at first and then the other,
listening for receding toes, then stands
and strips and flings his clothes across the room
and puts the photos back the way he likes them
and wishes he had a bag of magic dust,
stuff of the earth that she could not wipe out.
* * *
Even after years of seeing doctors—
who found nothing wrong, in their impatience
to label her a hypochondriac,
but scribbled quick, illegible prescriptions,
then gave her office samples they retrieved
from shallow drawers full of medication,
perhaps to justify her frequent visits,
perhaps to hedge their bets, and just perhaps
to once deplete their store of sugar pills—
poor Rosa passed, with certain family members
quipping "It was for the best," and neighbors
saying she "had been around, you know,"
exchanging winks and sipping Rosa's wine
and swiping Rosa's crackers through the bowl
of queso they'd prepared for the occasion,
proving cheese is not the only thing
among doctors, neighbors, Rosa's family,
and other dips, that smells of rotted curd.
* * *
It rained inside the other day and I,
fool that I am, threw caution to the winds
that whipped around the sofa and the bed
and up across my easy chair, and popped
my old umbrella wide to shield myself
(the floor be damned, y'see, the carpet too)
against the pelting drops.
I wish they'd come
to see me ‘though it isn't Saturday
or Sunday or whatever day they come.
It hovers here whenever they're away
above my bed and desk—the cloud, I mean—
but hardly ever rains too long or stays
in form too long—sometimes it snows, y'see,
and now and then it hails. They seldom bring
the children anymore, but that's the price
I pay (bad luck be hanged along with pride)
for popping my umbrella while inside.
* * *
Between the third and fourth, he rose to leave,
slipping up the aisle without a word.
Even Cæsar seemed to stare agape
at his receding back, as if that turn
of a shoulder ushered in the Ides of March.
But Harold knew that certain scene and knew
that Cæsar was the lucky one: To die,
even crudely, shoved from knife to knife
by righteous men and pierced repeatedly,
beat Harold's fortune, going home to face
his bulldog of a wife, his ball and chain,
and seven screaming kids. And so he strode
upright right up the leering aisle and left
without a word, proceeded to his car,
slipped in behind the wheel and turned the key
determination—grit—masking a smile
then drove into the sunset of his life
glad the final act was his to steer.
* * *
My abhorrence of relatives who stay
much longer than agreed upon, and who
remain in bed far past the early ray
(some longer still, beyond the tick of two),
and who present refusal to complete
the smallest of the helpful chores, like you
and him, your husband, glued there by the seat
of his immense pants to my fav'rite chair,
full-willing, more than able to defeat
the least desire to raise himself from there
and thereby put a smile upon my day,
which otherwise is lost, as if you care—
My abhorrence of relatives like these
may thusly be summed up: I am not pleased.
* * *
The coroner slipped in through the back
on most nights, but this time he used the front
since he was on Official Business.
He hoped the girls would exercise restraint,
not hug his neck and flirt like usual
on every Tuesday night at eight p.m.
He had a job to do: some poor fool
had died a happy man. The girls all knew
to check a pulse, of course, as well as he
and not to move the body. He climbed the stairs,
eyes following the swaying miniskirt
up to Room 5; Elaina stepped aside
and motioned him into the room, Just like
last Tuesday night, he thought. There lay the stiff
beyond the bed, his skinny legs protruding,
resembling a rooster, dead of shock
but happy for his life. The coroner
stepped around the bed and eyed the face,
long wrinkled by the stresses of the years,
then knelt and felt the absence of a pulse.
He pressed a bill into Elaina's hand
then shifted her to the bed. "It's all quite perfect,"
he said, disrobing, moving over her.
"What does he charge to just lie there like that?"
* * *
He was a gentleman in reduced circumstances;
his weeks were four days long....
~ Linda Bosson, "Reduced"
He wasn't always stretched that way, you know,
strained through that fine sieve and powdered out
into polite society, a mote
in someone else's eye. That guy trained hard,
compressed himself into the various molds
that others thought he'd fit. Nobody bothered
to show they cared—to try to add three days
back into his week or put July
back into his year—no, they just smiled
used him for their purposes, the last
of which was as the subject of some brief
but witty poem, and nobody knew
or wished to know the worst, most violent
effect: his circumstances were reduced
until he slipped from here to mostly gone.
* * *
For reasons we can never understand,
they practice supple movements with no clue
that they display a subtle reprimand.
Subliminal though it may be, it's true.
So we may dream of night in light of day,
the ones we most desire sway to and fro,
but likewise, in the motion of the sway,