Wyatt Underwood "a peculiar madness"

 

Wyatt Underwood “a peculiar madness”

 

 

1 > a peculiar madness

2 > could be’s

3 > on grappling with Wallace Stevens

4 > great men and us

5 > mother

6 > Ortegas de la Tierra

7 > silencer

8 > the instant

9 > the saddest man I ever met

10 > on what is not in a Cezanne landscape

11 > thunderstruck

12 > watercolors

1 > a peculiar madness

 

darkness falls like a mind closing

possibility shrivels, love hides

men stride about grim-faced

and some man somewhere in America

counts his rifles and his bullets

mind idling, lips curling into a smile

a pickup truck idles, tailpipe rattles

tires whisper across miles of asphalt

gunfire is about to sound

soon preachers and politicians

will offer us thoughts and prayers

and no one, no one, no one

will even try to find out

anything about this peculiar behavior

only some American men seem to savor

 

 

2 > could be’s

 

at eighty, all my cowboys swagger in a fog

but then so do my hero businessmen and stevedores

soon a surgeon will remove my cataracts

and maybe I'll see as clearly as when I was a child

yes, and maybe my back will uncurl

my hair turn dark, and my smile release its sadness

3 > on grappling with Wallace Stevens

 

I called his poem silly,

although others have called it bold

important, the touchstone of its century

to me it seemed an organ playing in a hut

grand language, sonorous, a skilled display of intellect

with neither feeling nor emotion decorating the braid

challenged as insensitive and boorish, I read others

and found a wonderful vocabulary

fine images artfully composed

comparisons that made me think

and even question what I knew

grand oratory and a lively mind

but any evidence of heart eluded me

they were like sunsets without oranges or reds

like lovers who were all sighs with no beds

give me instead a child dashing into the surf

emerging to pick up a conch shell and hold it to his ear

there!  that look of wonder!

and his offering it to a playmate to share

 

 

4 > great men and us

 

men like Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin

reshaped a world, probably thinking they had a plan

but worlds are stubborn things, rollick on around the sun

and listen to great men less than to ocean, wind, and rain

people are people, and mostly aspire to an inch above what they can see

roll on, brave earth, and bear us little people on your surface

waving our flags with faces of great men

but living more down to earth

 

 

 

5 > mother

 

my brother should write this poem

he has real memories of her

talks with her, stories she told

memories she shared

gnarled fingers straightening her pills

I knew her as a quiet woman

who told nothing about days in the asylum

a life with a faithless husband

oddly strong in his faith with God

a woman who as late as my high school

still told me I'd understand when I was older

I'm still waiting, locked in my eighties for a while

as likely as ever to understand

all she couldn't tell me

6 > Ortegas de la Tierra

 

listen to the wind wail

do you hear voices of ghosts?

when they hear those voices

some say the Ortegas de la Tierra

protest again betrayal by the gringos

four men in suits rode in to their estancia

in suits but wearing two-gun rigs under their coats

dignified they looked, as if they brayed in church

bankers they said they were. investors

looking for a place to put some money into

might they ask the patron some personal questions?

and they did, how many acres?  how many cattle?

sheep?  goats?  horses?  how many vaqueros?

how well were the boundaries guarded?

how well the ranch headquarters?

they made approving sounds in their throats

and promised a good report to their backers

they suspected the patron would soon have a boodle to work with

that night the patron hosted a feast and a bail

the four gunmen were the honored guests

they danced with his unmarried daughters

drank whiskey with his sons and spoke of inheritance

late at night the musicians and waitresses retired

the cooks and housekeepers had already given up

the madre and her daughters fanned and excused themselves

the gunmen talked until the patron and his sons fell asleep

and the killing began

they killed and they killed, knives first and then guns

the young women they saved for last

daughters, housekeepers, waitresses

so the gunmen could enjoy them before cutting out their tongues

but everyone else just died

the gunmen broke into the safe, stole what money there was

mainly stole jewelry and gold and silver

candlesticks, silverware, mirror frames

it was dawn before they packed up the mules

and each rode away leading one

and that was the first time the winds wailed like they do

the horses panicked, the mules whinnied and fled

treasure was strewn for miles

the mules fell into arroyos

the horses broke legs, the men necks

the Ortegas de la Tierra may have been dead

but not helpless

and not satisfied

even before that night, they had resented the gringos

and death did not end that

they haunt the hacienda, some say

listen to the wind wail still

keep your horses under control

 

 

 

7 > silencer

 

rain in a night

real rain like farmers sometimes pray for

and city folk mostly resent

it changes the streaks on tenements

turns streets to streams

that water nothing and raise no flowers

like snowfall, it deadens sound

gunshots sound like cork pops

a dog nudges at the body and may bark

but no one hears or cares if there's a why

some neighbor may rouse himself to holler "Shut up!"

rain falls in the dark

and city folk resent the added inconvenience

 

 

8 > the instant

 

how fast it fades!

whatever was about to become a poem

whatever I was about to tell you if I'm interrupted

feeling warm in a cool breeze

feeling good when the big boys laugh

 

in this case it was the sun refracted through a drop of dew

hanging at the end of a flower stalk

oh!  so pretty!  I had to share it and couldn't

 

drip!

 

the dew rolled off the stalk and splattered on the ground

the sunbeam?

what happens to sunbeams when refraction ends?

certainly little boys don't know

and in this case, a grown man doesn't either

had it already vanished before the dewdrop fell?

or before the dewdrop splattered?

how can the existence of a sunbeam

depend on what's about to happen?

no, I have to think the refraction changed

with no one to perceive it

as the dewdrop fell

and when the dewdrop splattered

the sunbeam resumed it's straight path

to someplace the child could not see

leaving the child surprised and mystified

with no one he could ask about these things

in his family, anything God didn't do despite our sins

didn't happen

except by our sins

and even then I was pretty sure

my sinning hadn't refracted that sunbeam through that dewdrop

nor caused the dewdrop to fall

 

it was too much mystery for that early in the morning

I went in for breakfast

 

9 > the saddest man I ever met

 

I met him in a bar in Nederland

then a town just barely larger than a village

we were both drinking at the bar, backs to the crowd

I teased him, or thought I did

he never even turned to look at the girls and women dancing

or leaning over to to talk across the table

and show some fine décolletage

he smiled and said he knew, and maybe he'd look later

I asked if he was there for the same reason as I was

drinking in smoke and loud music to forget a woman

"you might say that," he said, "except it never works

nothing I do helps me forget"

I toasted him with my glass, thinking I understood

he smiled at me and shook his head

"you, on the other hand, sound like you might listen"

"oh yeah, man, listen is what I do best

so three women have told me

and none of them meant it as a compliment"

he actually laughed, but without much humor

"I was just doing my job, y'know?

He does that now and then, sends one of us to check up close

what humans do and what they say

when they think He's not listening"

I confess I did not hear the capitals

I tried to imagine who the man was talking about

but it didn't seem to matter much

I signaled the bartender for another whiskey

"and one for my friend," I said as he poured

the bartender studied my friend a bit then poured him one too

"thank you," my new friend said, "perhaps it will help

I've never told anyone this before"

we saluted each other with our glasses and sipped

"when I first saw her, I nearly tumbled out of the sky"

I knew that feeling, I thought I did

"instead I landed gracefully and hid my wings

we can do that, y'know, y'can't see mine right now, for instance"

well, he was right, but I had no experience seeing wings

I am more likely to see trolls or ogres

"I walked back to her, and introduced myself

she smiled at me and showed me the wildflower she'd just found

'so pretty I don't want to pick it,' she said

we walked, we talked, and soon found her door

'Y'want to come in?' she said innocently

'I could make us some coffee, tea, or hot chocolate'

it was simple as that, I fell in love

I didn't even know that was allowed, permitted, possible

we embraced, we kissed, we smiled at each other

one thing led to another and I moved in with her

we walked, we talked, we held hands

I quite forgot my mission and my duties

I don't know how it happened, but we were happy

I think I was delirious

six weeks went by, I think it was six weeks

then one morning I woke and she was crying

'what?  what?  what?' I exclaimed

she sobbed and asked me what was wrong

'wrong?' I baffled 'this is the rightest I have felt in centuries!'

she laughed through her tears

'centuries,' she scoffed

'that's what it feels like

I have done everything I could think of to let you know I'm ready

why haven't we had sex?'

I was dumbfounded and tried to explain

she threw me out and wouldn't listen to my pleas

I intercepted her seven times in three days

she would not see or hear me

later I figured it out, or think I did

she thought I said I was more religious than she

or lived a purer life, or some such thing

hell, I may have said it.  it was not what I meant"

he finished off his glass and closed eyes on the bite

then signaled the bartender for another round

I was still trying to understand what I'd just heard

the man beside me shrugged mightily

"she found another man, of course

married him in three months

and they were happy, I think, for a year

before he broke her neck and called the sheriff's men

'she was still in love with someone else, she said'

he told the deputies

'she called him an angel!  after all I've done for her!'"

and the explanation fell into me like a bell out of a steeple

the saddest man I ever met was no man at all, but a fallen angel!

"there was no going back, of course

I had abandoned my job and that was that

Lucifer and his minions have tried to recruit me

but they have no charms for me

not like she did and does"

we sat in silence and finished our drinks

then left the bar.  outside, he shook my hand

I put on my helmet and straddled my Harley

I thought I saw him unfurl his wings and lift into the night

 

 

10 > on what is not in a Cezanne landscape

 

there are no gods here

sitting, drinking, discussing, joking

flirting or provoking

no Greek gods, Norse gods, not even Vedic

no troop of soldiers marches

bayonets fixed

maybe a cannon trailing

no horse grazes, no bird flies

no troupe of actors

dressed in pieces of costumes

no peasants, no Parisians

no 9mm semi-automatic pistol

no umbrellas, no balloons

no aircraft of any kind

no bananas, coconuts, or potatoes

funny how one can list and list and list

what is not there

no pinwheels of stars

no icicles, not even a barn cat

no weapons of any kind

a landscape by Cezanne

sticks to terrain and buildings on it

what humans and gods do

has no relevance

even dandelions blowing in the breeze

would have more intention

11 > thunderstruck

 

I read an anthology of poems

in which men proclaim

how well they know and understand

Marilyn Monroe

what a funny idea!

do they think they share testosterone

with her?

 

 

12 > watercolors

 

she paints with watercolors

and so pastels

I do not know that but I think

there are no bright watercolors

I think it is a stand of hers

a statement she makes against the world

"there is no brightness in you

even my pastels are lies

the truth would be told in charcoals."

and I wonder what childhood

what adolescence, what experience

wrung bright colors from her eyes

 

Wyatt Underwood has been participating in the Los Angeles poetic communities since late January 2010. He has published six books of poems and has had a collection of his poems published by World Stage Press. He co-hosts an open mic at the Westwood Public Library.