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Saturday
Nov302013

My Own Private Cannery Row

© Tracy Prescott MacGregor

Rarely do I write poetry. Even more rarely do I allow it exposure. Not entirely sure why. I revere great poetry, but I find it to be a rare species: elusive and golden, hiding in shadows or, occasionally, in plain sight.

So here's a poem, no more fanfare than that.

 

My Own Private Cannery Row

 

"Accept loss forever." — Jack Kerouac

 

Here I endure my own private cannery row.

It crackles and breeds in

the dark parts of

an unruly heart—corrugated sheets layered over 

smoky post-afternoons, 

heavy enough with loss

and the memory of loss

and the fear of its return

and traffic

and iron

dragging gull

flocks in slick patterns against a volcano sun.

 

Twenty-first century. Under a bridge,

five slow crawdaddies move

in murky shallows 

sluggishly annihilating an 

immense fish head, 

while Steinbeck sleeps

and, worse, will never again wake.

 

Makeshift guido, cursed on a contrary shore, 

adrift off a refugee coast, face

boasting reflected orange 

yet

this smudged collar's powder-blue and new-sewn

with my fugitive name (upset) in gold below it:

 

Beloved. 

Strong. 

Among.

The Woods.

 

Say it. Woods await those

who fear themselves

lost, and lost 

indeed

is my new locale.

I might even call it

sorrowhood.

 

Plus this:

Names are potent, yet

the cogent grain of twilight welcomes smut,

refracting it for such long

drawn-out breathless

prayer flag horizons.

 

Music, too.

Blue jazz in a wineglass, Hendrix, bluegrass,

pure smartass, rhythmic

tantric belligerence.

 

Hopper beckons, eyes downcast. Lonely as hell—

old, weird America, less 

permanent than it believes and now

utterly unnerved.

 

Primary. Planar. Endless

sunflower acres.

We've come so far.

 

A thick-framed window, sunlight

ambergold, pouring like

fresh-squeezed motor oil, dripping from a citrus sky, 

easing us toward some

inarticulate lie: Desolation row, go, desperation

ground, loud, discovery known, flown,

deception pass, past, passed

below, ago, just so...

 

We cutouts tacked as

silhouettes. Transfixed somehow

with the mundane interplay of 

pristine fonts on 

the Grocery Outlet sign, where

we value our view; our warm, fawn 

thriftstore pact.

 

But come, listen, lookit.

 

Gather the lambkins, reel in the nets,

trawl the depths and count up the lost, 

bake the bricks, haul away the lumber,

give your day the ending it awaits,

its fitting close. Stumble past those who

would erode you, layer by

sheet, skin by cover, yet

keep on walking,

stumbling aloud, 

humbled,

cowed.

 

Agog. Gaga.

 

And keep your finger on

the fuck you trigger.

 

Especially that. Especially that.

 

Let the soft burr of a charcoal evening

smear the essence of your face like an artist

learning shading, blurring, obscuring.

Rendering.

Recurring.

 

Sudden evening quiet. The warm preemptive air. Sacred. 

Birds play then mute and the colours pulse dark, anticipatory,

so loaded, and indeed so

goddamned holy.

Abandoned flea markets,

green shoots and street scene clarity,

murmurs, a caress of freaks,

waterfowl feeding.

 

Someone in a waterfront townhouse,

on some higher balcony, 

is picking a banjo; pure

vibrations in the wires

aching with backyard echoes, 

the sound a trojan horse for a

renewed assault of grief, 

while your final drama speaks 

of absent fathers, trembling hands, 

half-gleaned urges, mother throes, 

white-hot and contradictory and 

wholly lonely: these

secret 

desert

fires.

 

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Reader Comments (10)

Word. And so much more. Especially these:

"Music, too.

Blue jazz in a wineglass, Hendrix, bluegrass,

pure smartass, rhythmic

tantric belligerence."

Thank you.

November 30, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterLaurie Boris

Laurie! Yes, that felt almost like hip-hop in a strange way. Or like a hybrid of free-form jazz and rap, with Hendrix's ghost watching over, making sure!

November 30, 2013 | Registered CommenterDavid Antrobus

Wow. Brilliant. Powerful. All of it.

Especially this:

"Hopper beckons, eyes downcast. Lonely as hell—

old, weird America, less

permanent than it believes and

utterly unnerved."

November 30, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterJen Daniele

Aw, thanks, Jen. Like Laurie, you picked words that packed so much heat *and* light. I truly appreciate your feedback.

November 30, 2013 | Registered CommenterDavid Antrobus

That was awesome. You got to read it at least twice. The imagery and rhythm deserve equal billing. Well in, brother. Even if it is poetry. ;)

November 30, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterJD Mader

Dan Mader! Thanks for commenting. I think this might need to be spoken aloud. Maybe I'll do that, find myself on a reading schedule.

November 30, 2013 | Registered CommenterDavid Antrobus

Ahhhhhh.... but you know my favourite part by far is definitely this...

"And keep your finger on

the fuck you trigger.

"Especially that. Especially that."

... and I'm sure we both get it.

This is beautiful and painful for me to read. Love and beauty yo. ;)

December 15, 2013 | Unregistered CommenterM

Yes, multiple meanings, too. :)

December 17, 2013 | Registered CommenterDavid Antrobus

I was haunted by the beauty of this poem. it's ghost guided me to every line and every word, locking me into a reflective trance, an existential glitch, that I struggled to shake off.

I saw Ted's ubiquitous fingerprints in the prose but any guilt for the piece was clearly yours. I loved it's shadows and light but most of all, I loved it's sheer beauty.

It seems unfair, that the insight and foresight necessary to fuel that undoubted talent here, belongs to just one person.

i was impressed by the textures of the poem; the humour; the darkness; the obscurity; the transparency. Shining through it all though, was the beauty.

I wish you could understand the power of your writing, Dave. I always read your work with pride and am usually so impressed that I can't wait to pass it to someone with unashamed passion stating, "I know him, He's my best pal. :-)

Pure dead brilliant, so it is.

Gordon

August 29, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterNodrog Werf

Coming from you, Gordon, this breaks through my usual denials and modest shrugs and goes straight in. Thanks, brother. And you know the layers of time that lie behind most of this: the references, the influences, the joy, the heartbreak, the love, the beauty, the outrage, the rainy Sundays trying to ignore (or goad) that scraggly fowl, all of it. The music, in fact. For that's what it is in the end. Music.

August 29, 2014 | Registered CommenterDavid Antrobus

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