Word Salad

Five Poems from Forthcoming Book

Back in the days when this picture was snapped, I dreamed of writing poems that others might like and possibly buy, that someday I would hold a book that I had written in my hands. It only took me twenty-some years to accomplish that.

Word Salad has been a manuscript for years collecting dust. Periodically I’d pick it up and add or delete poems and return it to the pile, not knowing what to do with it, where to send it. Finally last week I reached out to FootHills Publishing who have made five books of poems for me over the last fourteen years. I’m happy to announce that they will make it my sixth title in their catalog.

Below are some poems from the new book.

---

Word Salad

Humanity
And poetry 
Are us

Even alone
As we always are
The words

Continue
Rhythmic chants
Or repeated gibberish 

A compulsive 
Chatter that feeds
Our hungry need

To know
What’s beyond
The sunrise

What’s deep 
Beneath the dark
Cave inside

Those dry bones
My bones
And yours

---

I dedicate the following poem to Susan Carlson, a wonderful artist and human, who passed away last year. She let me use her art for the cover of The Imitation Blues. She was a generous soul, and Chris La Tray generously helped me create the cover for that book. That’s another thing I love about FootHills, they give me creative control of all aspects of the book.

No Surprise . . . Yet 
         for Susan Carlson

it is the only news
that feels 
like real news,
that carries real weight,
gives us pause,
the chance
to appreciate
our motives,
our movies
rewound, the images
we cling to,
our stories fading
like Kodachrome, fallen
leaves crumbling to
stardust . . . at the risk of
sounding poetic,
that's just how I feel.
Death sets me back
on my heels—
with each exit
I look to see Old Nick
there in the dark
beckoning me 
to join them, move
ahead or back
into the black, wherever
we go . . . or were
before egg met sperm . . .
and of course
we know all we can
truly know 
will be no
surprise

---

Given that my son turns 42 this month, this poem is eight years old. Ray Carver is one of my favorite storytellers. Stories. We cling to our stories, never forget our first view of death.

Fifty

Ray Carver died at fifty. My son turns 
34 today. Older than Christ they say
and about the same length of time
Ray wrote poems and stories
about people like me, the common
folk in the last half of the 20th
century. He captured us perfectly,
those various voices struggling
to survive their own failures, pleasures
in dreamland. The booze almost 
killed him, so he finally quit
after it killed his marriage.
But the cigarettes finished him
at fifty just as he was hitting his stride. 
So he died and left us here with what
we know (not much) what he knew.

I remember my first dead guy.
Not all dolled-up in a casket but 
freshly expired at a basketball game
jostling along on a stretcher, one arm 
flopping, clothes askew, sport coat, white 
shirt and tie pulled loose, his glasses 
cocked up on his forehead at an angle 
off one ear, eyes closed and face gray-blue. 
He'd been pulled out of the bleachers by 
four or five guys manning the plank. 

They'd stopped the game. Like a silent
movie, everyone watched the hustling
Keystone Kops run down the aisle then
twenty rows up and over, a wave of bodies
receding, then the procession rolling back 
down and out, an odd comic tragedy that
passed beneath a group of us kids sitting 
in that section right above the exit. 
We had a bird's eye view just six feet below,
could hear their urgent voices and heavy 
breathing. I remember holding my breath, 
and after they'd left, I noticed everyone
was looking our way. We jumped
when the scoreboard buzzer sounded
to resume the game and laughed 
at the shock, our fear, not knowing
what to think or say. Then the crowd
noise came back into play, another
buzzer, the seconds ticked off again,
and somebody scored. Later I heard
he was dead in the stands, but still
they had to give him mouth-to-mouth—
I guess there was vomit everywhere. 

His obituary gave his age as 54, 
just a few years older than my dad
who smoked Camel straights, not
the (un)Lucky Strikes we saw bleeding
through the guy's breast pocket.
My mother's brand was Old Golds.
Cigarettes were America's snack food. 

I followed suit for a decade, coughed 
my way into Copenhagen by the can 
for 25 years before a six year withdrawal 
on false chew, and though the snoose 
was more addicting, I don't crave it
anymore. It's odd my desire to smoke 
is still there. The romance, the security, 
a family/film bond like a childhood
friend, an intimate relationship 
you can lean into, that sweet partner 
beside you, arms locked at the elbow, 
toes dangerously, liberatingly close
to the edge of the cliff, a So-What?-
Who-Gives-A-Shit! ticket for fun,
tough-cool . . . an exit for one. I miss it 

and don't and do, but I'm still thinking
about it, still drinking to you, Ray, 
my sons, that stiff on the stretcher stuck 
in my head, and fifty in the rear-view 
mirror. His-story. Her-story. Dust. Why?
We don't find out much in our time
here beyond these seemingly insignificant 
tales about each other we hold dearly 
as our own lives. Literature acts like 
highway reflectors, guideposts when driving
those pitch-black nights in a full-speed
wiper downpour or during whiteout blizzards
in the blinding daylight. We do what we can,
keep our eyes on the road, leave something
behind that others might be able to use 
for awhile before it's adapted, changed, 
and lost—when the earth reclaims it, 
when its finally tossed and gobbled 
in the worm hole of time.

---

I dig playing around with sound and forms. And I love the blues. What old rock n’ roller doesn’t love the blues? My pal, Aaron Parrett, is a writer, musician, printer, teacher, father & husband (as my old neighbor used to say, “stick a broom up his ass and he’ll sweep the floor!). When he read this, he recognized the word play as a lyric and whipped up a fun blues rendition (so if you want that blues timing, make sure you pause for appropriate guitar slides and licks).

Quit Fuckin' Around and Call Your Pocket
	—for Aaron 

Buzz me up, baby
Light me up, Loose 

Deal me some luck, lady
I'll score us some juice

Wanna dance on your table
Make a pass at Miss Sadie 

Keep Cain killin' Abel
Won't settle for no maybe

I'll get your Mojo a-moanin'
Workin' that graveyard shift

Lickin' your dream time, Jones
Kissin' that California split

Call them shots Billie's Blues
Snooker an Eight Ball just for fun

You can blame it on the booze 
But you know I'm the one

Gonna buzz your cut woman
Inflame your swollen lips

Got a soothing moisturizer
For your hot pot of Rose Hips

Laid my money on the felt
Called my balls in your pocket

Claimed it mink, that old pelt
So I promised a ring and locket

Swore if you left me, Sugar
I wouldn't know what to do

Screw your buddy in the mornin'
Eat my pistol in the afternoon

---

Like many poems, this came from a dream, one I had after my sister died. My waking mind knows it’s ready to look death in the eye. My dream brain sees it differently. At least sometimes. Who is shitting who? By the time I know that it will be too late to tell. Who doesn’t love a mystery?!

Hanging 

Emerging in the pitch black
of the dark night's turmoil,
a length of bright blonde rope
thrown over a tree branch 

Swayed, no hangman's noose,
but a slip-knotted loop for
a tortuously slow strangulation
I knew was meant for me.

And there was no escape.
It was my destiny to swing,
kick for some lynch-pricks.
It was inevitable I submit

To vigilantes I didn't know, yet
they allowed me to prepare, 
get my mind clear, ready, set to 
meet my fate. All night long

I struggled and failed to accept 
the conclusion, step up and
embrace the end of this life,
my light, and what comes next.

I awoke disappointed in myself,
unable to transcend my fear
of leaving all I'd ever known,
let go of my anxious torment,

This cozy nightmare of loss 
and grief, the sweet relief 
of laughter, love, even despair,
our desperate drive to be. So

I guess suicide is not for me.
Like my sister and my old man 
I probably won't leave easily . . . 
but hang on weeks after I'm gone.

---

Stormchaser

Hungry, you wait like a hawk
or a raven perched on the edge 
of a blank page, watching, 

listening, thinking, & feeling . . .
you follow the wind driven by 
thunderstorms, spruce cones
 
pelting the back yard, maples
flailing to a branch-breaking
frenzy . . . then pausing, quiet,

followed by the distant roll 
of thunder rumbling & growing
louder, closer . . . the wind is

back, & the cat takes shelter
in the rafters of the garage, 
the late afternoon sunlight 

has dimmed yellowish-gray
in the smoky haze—forest
fires burning not far away, now 

raindrops plop, dot the cement, 
stop . . . just when you thought the storm
would blow over, pass south, you

jump when lightning flashes & thunder
crashes—the low growling tumbles
to crack & groan—a popcorn patter 

of rain begins, escalates to rattling 
downpour, a brief onslaught 
just short of deluge, that cooling 

quench, the satisfying balm 
of a late-August thunder poem 
coming to fruition, breathing 

that smell you know you’ll never 
forget, & this weathering, this 
hunkering inside the bone cave,

feeding skull fire, that appetite 
for the storm—& this odd need,
your constant craving to chronicle, 

to capture & craft, to tell this tale
simply, be witness to wild beauty—
another tempest beyond your grasp.

Besides Susan Carlson, Kurt Wilson, Missoula (and Missoulian) photographer gave me the above image of storm clouds for the cover of mostly cloudy. Jean Belangie Nye gave me permission to use Lee Nye’s Eddie’s Club photos in my first FootHills book, Forgotten Dreams. I am thankful for my friendship with these generous artists. My son, Cache Gibbons, did the covers of two of my FootHills titles, Shadowboxing and Sister Buffalo. Photographers, David J. Spear and Eric Heidle. also, let me use their artistry for the covers of blue horizon and In the Weeds respectively. I’m a lucky dog.

Sometime in the not-so-distant future, I will introduce the artist and cover for Word Salad. A new book is a joyous moment. And then it’s over, like everything else, but that can’t dampen the birth. Raise a glass with me. Slainte!