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Remembering Nam, the vets, the regulars
who did not come back.
Hadn’t the flutes fragrances the seasons drawn
in pencilled lines and Telemann / the fathers
in smoky yards / the villages dressed like Halloween
been scares enough to him / the sky-high flames
arranged in drumspeak and guitars / in these notes
let loose to play their tricks on cornering? He thinks
of the names for wildbloom / of the stack-fires nights
The Sanity shuts down — sorting the ashes left
when Time itself caves in — rubbing away
the midnight volumes and dark stars. So what
if the coffee tastes like someone’s cleaning recently?
So what if the whole sky’s changed — the faces
of men besides themselves — the music that gave him
creeps the more he assumed the dalliance —
here where the green had overgrown / the hard rains
satisfied — composing a mind so local
it could pick the bonnets out? For all of that rolled
and odd-sized stuff — for all the exotic stuff
he’s only guessed the use for — he’s seeing the bodies
off — 1968 — their wallets as empty
as stuck beasts — the bodies lost in mis-alloying
daylight — holding the future out to him —
lost in the blue and bluer liberties they’d sighed for.
And here — where the berries were / where
the moonlight — slipping on bright gourds — repeats
the same first names and the white noise
of their erasures — he samples the lanes / blue lanes
/ the summer-to-autumn lives imagined lives
had strained to figure — eased by the lovely
walk of horns — and lost in domestic heat —
in this foam the moonlight poured and settled in —
bringing these hearts around — with nothing
glamorous to to tell you — and these hearts
brought home — to songs in the old style —
measured and licked by midnight
comics and street priests.
*
The sheriff’s hobnailing the porchboards asking in. And
the basework’s stretched for lengths of beltways
/ capitals. They’re sending the bodies / brothers out —
as if our lives were practice runs — arranged
in swaggering trombones / in the basework’s innocence.
So to the tug-nosed barges threading river light
and to the tongues of steam — playing the grounds
behind The Sanity and Three Crown Barbecue — this
mumbled and low somewhat — chasing the demons off –
naming the quarrels stirred and national betrayals. Even
the dark implodes. Even this cabby — drunk and racing
on his guide-star — screams the words to him –
repeats the words for him — closing down the century –
remembering the news and months-straight
news and absences. Families ( 1968 ) and versions
of families like events — getting the hang of sleep
in how many different bedrooms. Tonight — on this bridge
done lavender / this bridge done robin’s egg –
as early as action is — as ornery as light / as action is –
he sees how some men pour out themselves — moved
by these turns of light — sees how some children walk –
come out for smoke or exercise — remembering
the pants pressed crisp — the rubbed horse-muscle
ambitions traded on — and any Thursday
but his own — the tastes of domestic heat —
inviting such ends to dreams –
ends to the heat made up in common beds
and a shared breakfast.
*
He feels / he tastes the domestic heat — toasted
with Clark’s tonight
or some other local hooch. And all the important
visiting — as early as action is
/ as early as this last glow — settled
on rusty limbs and over the beanfield dissonance —
and over these same
dark-haired or tow-head sensitives — spooked
and taking numbers
on themselves — over the blocks
with best intentions
taking tenths.
But what can they tell him after all — as early
as action is — come home
as they have across deep space — dulled
by the ends of night-travel
/ dulled by the roars of night travel —
as they invented it —
remembering the ruins and interviews —
1968 — the kiosk dreams
/ beneath
the many billboards’
promises?
This morning the light’s day-lit by the Victoria Hotel —
the fog’s day-lit — wrapping
The Sanity around and the Three Crown Barbecue —
shrouding the barges / stacks
and all this stacked-on
genesis.
And here’s this librettist wintering — but
lacking the speech to call that back
/ to explain the literature — tipping his stingy brim
to them — to the wait-staff
well before they’ve leaned and stretched a stitch –
breath-taking / discrete — and
to these old men sniffling — remembering
the bridges above the sea
and tunnels running under / the dreams
like tongues of flame
and tongues of flame — like
a confession — let go
he thinks for cheap / let
go for give
-away.
So much for his own post-graduate and sensuous
slug-fests. So much for a cousin’s
company / for the dreams made new
or stiffened by arrivals / for
the dark — split wide — the fog split wide
and sound enough for him / the
parlors alive with domestic heat — bedrooms
and bunks — as bunks
were then — Time’s spoils — the ways
he thinks of them — and
kitchens as out of touch – hot
as the kitchens seemed
to him — alive in their own
mulled wines
and recipes for
hard sauce.
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About Robert Lietz
