by Adam Sol
INCIDENTAL MUSIC IS OFTEN BACKGROUND MUSIC
I was too tired to wander.
Even standing on the curb —
with the billboard screens flashing,
and the traffic, and the people —
was exhausting. So I did
what any tourist would do:
I got rush tickets to see
Hairspray, with Michael McKean.
Lord knows I know where I’ve been.
Up in the third balcony,
surrounded by high schoolers
on a day trip from Greenwich,
I recounted all my sins,
and repented with Edna.
O, I bawled like a baby,
despite the teachers’ shushing.
What was happening to us?
Outside the whole world has crashed,
and there I was, keeping time
with the unionized pit band.
I am back in the vacuum.
If I hadn’t picked him up,
if I had just let him rave
until the local police
brought him back to his people
would he be safe now? And me,
would I still be hauling cakes?
Did I abet his madness?
Did I help make it, driving
him not like a chauffeur, but
like a jockey? Or was that
just what was wanted from me?
After the show I walked south.
It took less than two hours.
FINGERPRINTING
Fear not, young men of Judah!
We will be hauled from this hole by the shoulders.
Yea, we will be lifted like infants.
What sins you have committed before the Mayor,
He will commute.
Your fatal errors will not compute.
Here, take this ticket and stumble home
like the rest of the fumblers and tumblers.
Friends, I have seen you in your oblivion.
I know of your petty theft and possession,
and I have sent a shock to shake you.
Look around and tell me you see no message.
Behold I have marched from the marshes,
and fled from fields to tell you this.
It is a big day, good sons. Yea, a whopper.
Do not fail your ancestors who knew destruction
like an annoying uncle at the table.
Nay, yield not to your usual sad-sack escapisms.
Be steadfast with your spirits!
Do not neglect to floss!
The ink on your hand is a stain on your hearts.
Cleanse not with the cleanser, but with your tongues!
We had been spared the scary until now.
Let us not flinch before the mighty needle delivers
its purging medicine.
SONG OF REPENTANCE
I have learned to think less of myself, because
I haven’t learned to think less of myself.
SUPPORT THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS
The fence was so high around the site
that from some angles it’s just a glow
from the klieg lights and sounds from workmen
clearing the debris and putting down
the foundations of the new Towers.
All to be finished by 2012.
I pulled out some of my transcriptions
that had rolled themselves into a scroll
at the bottom of my pack, and read.
I read, in full voice, under a light
at Church and Dey. I read, not because
I thought it was the Holy Temple,
and not because its destruction meant
anything I can articulate,
but because J wanted to speak here
and I was part of preventing it.
I read the whole sheaf, until sunrise,
and then I found an all-night diner
and had a quiet pile of pancakes
before heading back up to Times Square
to find the precinct where they held him.
If nothing else, if absolutely
nothing else, I had to bring him home.
IN THE HOLDING PEN
Words come to me out of the nowhere that
the locals call the sky.
Here in this pit I gather them into piles,
like toenail clippings.
You are wondering,
What makes a man shout from streetcorners,
break his lungs for the sake of glory,
believing himself some sorry emissary?
My answer: when he hears the words
and they are so full of melody, how can he
not let them sing?
Of course there are the soldiers to cart me away,
and the King does as his advisers advise.
This is as I have been warned
by good people in diners and buses.
When I began my journey,
I was in the thrall of a grief greater
than my mouth could encompass.
I have held the broken bone between my palms
and done nothing.
I have caressed death with longing.
Now I sit in this pit
with a hammer for a tongue and anvil teeth.
Lend me your hardest metal, and I will
bend it into a pretzel.
Give me a tube of simple glass,
and I will make it weep.
I am not finished with my prayers and preachings,
and will see another sunrise
before the dust clears from this cell.
RELIGIOUS SONG
Take care of my father.
Yea, be his proper prop.
Take him by the elbow
And guide him home to me.
Take care of my prophet.
Yea, be his faithful scribe.
Take down his every word
And bring him home to me.
Take care of my people.
Yea, be their clearest eye.
Take in their fear and grief
And lead them home to me.
ITEMS IN THE PRISONER’S POSSESSION
Assorted worthless artifacts removed from construction site:
papers, part of a seat cushion, the key to a file chest.
Photograph of prisoner with son, neither smiling.
Steel-toed boots, worn down to a pair of moccasins.
Sweatshirt: “Property of Cincinnati Reds.”
Old sleeping bag smelling of cat urine.
Pack of Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum, opened.
Two dollars twenty-seven cents.
Map of Ohio, tattered.
Three pairs soiled underwear.
Four greasy T-shirts.
Army duffel.
Can, baked beans.
Bible.
Belt.
EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED PERSONS MAY BE RELEASED INTO THE CUSTODY OF FAMILY MEMBERS AT THE DISCRETION OF THE COMMANDING OFFICER
When he came out
they had just given him back his things
and he was holding them tight
to his chest like
any refugee. I was so glad
to see him I nearly broke his back
hugging so hard.
But he was quiet, pale and subdued
until we left the precinct.
He looked at me
and smiled with a rusty tenderness,
holding my arm down the stairs.
Outside he said,
“Bruce, they are more like you than I thought.”
What do you mean? Like me how?
“The people here —”
He waved his arm across Manhattan.
“They fear souls like they fear rats.
“Now they’re waiting
to be told how to ‘channel their grief.’”
I asked, “But shouldn’t they, now?
“Won’t we
be changed?”
“Yea, you will be. To snapping turtles.
You will learn to eat your young.”
We walked a bit,
heading east, but before we had gone
three blocks, J was out of breath
and had to rest.
We found a park bench and J slumped down,
suddenly a frail old man.
I had worried
about his mental health since the day
we met in Chillicothe.
But I hadn’t
ever thought about his strength until
the hour we spent on that bench.
Then he sprang up.
and started heading north, double-time.
“Not finished yet!” he called back.
The streets wheeled by,
and then there was Port Authority.
WE’RE ON OUR WAY
The first commuters were disembarking in their sad suits for another day’s work. J surveyed the board like he was reading a menu, but there was only one place to go now.
Come, my prophet, let us sail from this destruction
and worm our way back over the Alleghenies.
Yes, let us return to my rivers and fields.
So then? Are you free? Has your tongue let go of you? Is your son at rest?
No, dear fool, we must spread the news!
The villages must hear our depositions!
O, Bruce, the harvest is past, the summer over,
and still the people grieve.
We are a long way from saved.
But I know an old soldier in Mt. Gilead
who might sell me some special lotion . . .
I’ll get him home and we’ll go from there.
Fear not, fair wanderer.
Neither be dismayed.
Even the suckers will get their succor.
Even the slaves will sleep.
Two for Cincinnati, please.
NEWARK LOCAL
Lord, I am weary as an old mop.
I have nearly emptied my pockets
and spent my last — no.
Enough! Begone, cowed canker!
Away, weariness and grief!
There is already too much tragedy on the Turnpike today.
I will withhold my contribution.
See how even the exit signs plead and pulse.
Yea, though my heart burns and my neck
creaks and cracks,
yet will I urge, cajole, bluster and muster.
For indeed we are a holy people.
Yea, see our hodgepodge and hullabaloo.
We have built more cities on hills
than all the ants of the Amazon.
But we still do not know the path to righteousness,
o my soul.
Those who say so are false teeth and toupees.
Behold we are lonely emperors.
We are coyotes in strip malls.
We are lost bees.
Send us your wisdom and discretion, o lord.
Renew us as in the days of old —
Not as they were, but as we imagined them.
FORTY-TWO PERCENT OF GREYHOUND PASSENGERS ARE BETWEEN THE AGES OF 18 AND 34
Jeremiah’s preachings on the bus
weren’t loud enough to cause
any disturbance,
but just after we hit the Turnpike
he started to shiver and
vomit on his shirt.
The driver pulled into a rest stop
and helped me carry him off,
shouting, “Get help fast!”
Someone called 911 and someone
else found a first-aid kit, but
all it had inside
were gauze pads and old disinfectant.
J wiped his chin with paper towels
and sat on the curb.
“I’d like a bag of potato chips,”
he said, and slumped into me.
I could hear sirens
but everything was moving so damned
slowly, and all I could do
was put my hand down
to support his weight. “You’ll go home now,
Bruce Gray, and resume your search
for the righteous path.”
“I’ll try to follow yours,” I told him,
my shaky voice informing
me I was weeping.
“No, you’ll go home and count syllables.
And I will die in exile
like a good prophet.
Remember me to the folks back home,
but don’t try to sell my house.
That’s for the termites.”
The EMTs did their best with him,
but we figured the attack
had started before
we had even gotten on the bus.
The first time he felt pain and
didn’t need to shout.
How I wanted to see a vision then
but nothing came. No religious rapture,
no love at first sight, no criminal scheme.
I escorted Jeremiah’s body
back to Mt. Orab, where he was buried
alongside his beloved wife and son.
Local people came to pay their respects —
neighbors, congregants, former co-workers.
Some of Ben’s classmates had kids of their own.
Afterward, someone had a barbecue
and we traded stories — early for late.
I spent the night on someone’s pleather couch.
At dawn I hoisted my backpack and looked
at the hills, sleepy with fall’s early mist.
I felt cold, wet, and raw, ready to walk.
LAST WORDS
How simple it is to die
at the Walt Whitman rest area,
in view of the swamp and trash,
in the thrall of my people’s hurry.
How they skip from their burgers to their seatbelts,
offering coffee to their dashboards,
cradling the cups as carefully
as they’d hold their daughter’s eye.
How simple it is to die,
with nothing accomplished,
the people in exile and our palace in ruins.
Our learned men have fled,
our holy rollers are just getting going.
But I will not see the restoration.
I will be long gone to swamp feed.
Bruce, you mustn’t take me the wrong way.
I am an eggshell, a used cocoon.
I’ve seen enough to say I’ve seen enough.
Still, I would have liked to feel
the hungry heat of another fire.
SONG OF LEAVING
Not wanting to lose them,
we travelers have tattooed hearts
into our arms and ankles.
Starlings outside
forage through take-out containers,
and Hyundais hum like children chewing.
We are still here. Still
here, dropping dimes into
the unmarked box next to the register.
Still winking at the skinny cashier,
and the thin music seeping from invisible speakers
is our cloak and cover.
O, to have been led to shimmering vistas —
We want to be more than we’re worth,
more than statements, warnings,
broadcasts, break-ups, and beer.
Here there’s still love and debt —
The janitor breaks from mopping
to wring his wrists
while spilled liquid trickles and pools, trickles and pools.
Hover over my shoulder, shadow.
Bless my lands and people.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Poems in this book have appeared, often in altered form, in a number of anthologies and journals. My heartfelt thanks to their editors: Barrow Street, Cincinnati Review, Crab Orchard Review, Fiddlehead, Grain, Maisonneuve, Shenandoa
h, and Zeek. “Psalm of Scranton” was included in The New Canon (Véhicule Press, 2006), edited by Carmine Starnino.
I’ve piled up a lot of debt working on this book. So, spectacularly effusive thanks are appropriate and probably long overdue:
First, to Ken Babstock, Harold Heft, and Michael Redhill, who have been invaluable for their support and advice.
To the following friends and family for their encouragement and insight: Gil Adamson, Jason Brent, the Colloquistas, Cynthia Good, Vivé Griffith, Don McKay, Martha Sharpe, and my parents, Richard and Roberta Sol.
To the folks at Anansi, past and present, for their professionalism and enthusiasm: Martha Sharpe, Laura Repas, Matt Williams, Lynn Henry, Julie Wilson, Janie Yoon, Sarah MacLachlan, and the Grand Master, Scott Griffin.
For their help on research, anecdote, and vivid detail: the Cincinnati Bernstein clan, Jessica Lynn, Rabbi Don and Greta Lee Splansky, Felicia Sol, Eric Brown, Tony Chemero, and Cynthia Silverman.