FOR CHARLES BUKOSKI
Hank was
a train wreck,
a mangled form,
raging, abusing,
simpering, weeping.
He wrote
like modern
architecture,
beams exposed,
ugly proving honest.
And for this
he was
esteemed.
Understanding
razor-strapped, acne-pocked,
drunk pugilist Bukoski
is too easy.
We are the ones
who puzzle me.
—Dan Edwards
FOR FRANZ WRIGHT
It is almost midnight
when the bright moon
makes its way high enough
to just peek
through the tops
of Carolina forest.
You, in your agonies,
in the fullest sense of agoniea
– athletic strain –
– not the agony of defeat;
there is no agony in defeat –
but in the struggle toward consummation.
You, in your agonies,
are furious, empty, and
deliriously grateful.
You have seen
just enough
through the tree tops.
—Dan Edwards
BLESSED
Blessed are those who can read Neruda
in Spanish or Merwin or Mitchell.
Blessed are they for there are times
when the heart is too dull
and then those times it is not
nearly dull enough.
But blessed are you
when Neruda speaks your very soul;
and almost blessed when he speaks
your soul remembered
almost fondly.
—Dan Edwards
FOR LOUISE BOGAN
“Poems came rarely and at a cost.”
Wendy Hirsch writing of Louse Bogan
Like children.
Like love,
the kind that turns night magic.
Like truth
that settles to the center and stays
forever.
—Dan Edwards
ALLEN GINSBERG
Allen Ginsberg, small and wizened,
gray hair of head and face
flying out in all directions.
Allen Ginsberg, hand organ groaning,
sang off key,
“Lay down. Lay down yr. mountain.
Lay down God.”
Wrote it for Bob Dylan
on the Rolling Thunder Tour.
Allen Ginsberg, small and wizened
author of Kadish, Howl, and Mind Breaths,
but whose best poem was being
Allen Ginsberg, small, wizened,
gray hair of head and face
flying out in all directions.
—Dan Edwards
MARY OLIVER’S DUCKS
If I had Mary Oliver’s ducks,
it would be a different story.
We might be talking
National Book Award or better.
Mary Oliver’s ducks, or David Whyte’s
– not to mention Annie Dillard’s –
make life worth living
no matter what your people are up to.
They quack and a quiet joi de vivre
seeps into your soul.
But the ducks in my neighborhood
are big and ugly,
the size of geese and just as vicious.
Red, splotchy faces betraying some ancestral liaisons
with turkey buzzards.
One has a wing that sticks straight out,
– his badge of honor from a bar room brawl.
The ducks in my neighborhood
chase the dogs.
Even the menacing chow turns tail.
Large these ducks, but quick of webbed foot.
They hurry between your car and the porch,
block your path, demanding bread,
then your watch.
You cannot write poems about such ducks.
Even Mark Strand could not
– they have escaped from his disquiet dreams.
Oh but if I had Mary Oliver’s ducks,
it would be a different story.
—Dan Edwards