© 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.