Poetry from Blue Fred Press

Saturday, November 25, 2006

NEW POEM BY BRUCE

waylon and willie were the soundtrack to your youth


those outlaws presented
the perfect image
of what a man should be
to your teenage mind.

with their hair and beards,
their rough clothing
which spoke of other places
unlike middle-class
estates in england.

their songs of wild nights
and mornings in the
fresh, clean air.
they could handle bars
AND mountain lakes

and their minds
encompassed both
with equal sentimental
love. the outlaws spoke
of the loneliness of heroes

as you were lonely, tho
certainly no hero. they
made romance where your
father made only
the ugliness of duty
he never seemed to want.

your dad was squashed down
by responsibility, or
the angry urge to show
that he had sacrificed himself.
they were cowboy gypsies,
poets living out a dream

of women, drink, drugs
resistance of the hard iron
that gets into the soul
and kills it. this you knew
from watching how
he gave into his rages,
and left at dawn in
smart clothes heading
to the office, silent,
resentment bloody in his eyes.

this you knew because
he never really looked
when you showed a picture
or some writing to him.
he couldn't come back far
enough from the chilly
world he lived in, not
even to make a stab
at faking a reaction.

the outlaws set you free
from that fate, which
your road had been prepared
for. you might have those
chains laid about your arms
and legs by family, or
mortgage, but your mind
would always be your own

and always itch
to hike into the backwoods
to smoke and drink and dream
and be large, as Kesey says.

the outlaws helped you
to see your own life
as a movie in which
no one was the star but you.

every time you find
a secret path into the woods
you turn into a wounded hero
packing iron, on the run

even when you're carrying
two bags full of groceries
or heading off to work..

NEW POEM BY AUSTIN McCARRON

Stone Water

In a room of stone,
at the gate of water:
to lose the friendship of air.

The draft of love:
underneath: the heart
is a fume of sinking rocks,
delivered by water, on seaflower ends.

Time grows feet,
suffering wings, on the upturned sole.

Tongue, crimson ladder,
zipped up in a uniform of skin:

I watch its images drown.

Mouth to mouth, mouth of hell,
plate of blood, I leave it with stone,
rolled over in front of its speechless eye.

The invitation of air:
we exchange cards; air visits my room;
we drink out of glass words a mix of empty signs.

The text of motion is like water to stars.



Austin McCarron lives in London.

love story

"jesus, what does it take with you?"
i remember one very kindly said
underneath her eiderdown one night
after her right hand failed to reach me