sw00051usabys-15.oct.sonnets.20of25

20 of 25                                                      

 1976 Today
                353 bicentennial year sonnets (290-305)

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October: Year-day 290

To touch you deeply and be loved for it
(to be so close our minds' extensions cling
and have no desire to part/ though I bring
a sensibility that does not fit
with yours, a dark intensity you sit
and stare at, fearful of its heavy ring
you imagine binds, will not let you sing
your own ragged self from a place well lit)

is the center of what I star for, blown
about by circumstance, ruddered by will,
planning to scrub West Bend for College Park,
surmising within that haloed unknown
deeper satisfactions would fight each chill
than so far have, call me/ out of the dark.

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October: Year-day 291

Oh me oh my, what's hiding in the sky?
Born Brian Salchert in flat Fond du Lac,
marshed in Wisconsin when winter was high,
forty-one's January in mid-track,
I was baptized Catholic, faithed from Fate,
thoroughly fused with the holy absurd
though it may from the first have been too late
for a being moved by a counter-word.

Symbols, cymbals, winds, dreams, Reubens, dark beer;
married, childless, condemned--my last name Bass
when once I ranged leather Buovincian, queer/
once not; or Barrington or else, for class.
I'm tolerable though, though my cornball wit,
hearing these names, dubs me: Brian/ the Split.

(February, 1977)

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October: Year-day 292

The Collected Poems of Brian the Split.
Why not.  Earth has worse fancies to endure.
Besides, who's to say anyone for sure
is no more than one on the face of it.
Rejected as one, rejected as three,
the latter at least allows for more laughs
as I rhyme and rhythm to nourish me
who would blossom in you, unite our graphs.

There'll soon be a day when the snow's so dry
it grows from my car like a fine white mold,
and the swilled airs swallow my human cry
at the wonder of it.  And I too, cold,
flipped Alden St. Cloud, doubting who, where, why.
Keys beyond flesh open anything old.

(February, 1977)

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October: Year-day 293

Starting/ with who I am, owl in the wind,
the leaves vapid titters/ hidden by rain,
I tell you, my loved ones, no one will gain
while fear of variety keeps us pinned.
When the millipedes of clouds scamper hard
across the waters, the changeable "o"
that rules my voice, silent, wide, lets a show
of laughter out.  Everything's somewhere marred.

So all the elements, mingled, remade,
the visions I weave, am inventor of;
all the serious games I have played, love.
And I'm pleased you have come this far, & stay,
alive to my patterns, the ways I pray,
glad there are brambles to struggle above.

(7-7-77; 10-19-77; 1-23-78; 12-28-06)

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October: Year-day 294

So much has been written, and will be still
as tumbleweeds knock at gas station doors,
and flat earth quietly puffs to a hill;
and macho men, gentled, play on all fours.
So much: touting the old; arriving proud,
part of the crest of the current; or--
the horse and the crocodile haven't allowed
the dalliance of wonder.  Write so much more.

"Calm is the sea; the waves work less and less."
A certain madness rages in the bone.
I write because to be, to curse, to bless
men's dreams/ such making/ shows faith best.  Alone,
I'll neither hope nor love; and just to guess--.
Encompass us who sail/ the not yet known.

(1978, 1979, & 2006; quote: Surrey)

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October: Year-day 295

I've not written one perfect poem, not one;
yet all the jobs I've ever had, or will,
can't match the joys that through my being run
when a single line comes right: vibrant, still.
Yes, I'd chuck them all in a moment if
this act of patterning my blood and breath
could insure my blood from becoming stiff
and my pulsing lungs from an empty death.

How/ shape a swath of light though into darks--
chopped & bonfired roots spread/ clearing the way
for the terrifying quick & new--stay
identity-killing changes?  Mere sparks.
Bow, acquiesce; the inventions of men
far surpass the dreams of gods trapped in when.

(octet: 10-24-77; sestet: 2-4-78)

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October: Year-day 296

"It can never be satisfied, the mind,
never."  Nor the heart.  Thirty-five now, I've
journeyed and searched an average amount, signed
my name to execrable ventures, deathly alive;
played a part in this / in that, given more
than my share.  Oh, I haven't been superb
inordinately, a squirrel made to store
enough for each winter, learning the verb.

More often than wanted, my hearts /minds falter,
injuring me and others and the world
no matter my intentions at the altar
a moment defines.  Still, I am uncurled
regardless, however slowly, the length
of my life the master/ with will's glad strength.

(some of this made: 10-22-77)

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October: Year-day 297

How I'd like to live essentially me
over & over again, passing each time
new ways: choosing Boston orthe gold sea
instead of Marquette and the Jebs sublime;
choosing San Francisco right out of school/
going to court with Ginsberg; or remaining
at home, Janice heavy with the children who'll
supercede the weathers of my complaining!

Fate & dream / energies / chrysanthemums /
encroachments / ambiguous tongues of salt--
in and out of the shadows of the living--
rocks / airs / springs / flames / ridiculous lost crumbs
of "thought" pleasures & pains / leaves to exalt /
fingertips / pulses / the warm roots of giving

(2-5-77)

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October: Year-day 298

César Vallejo, you are so much!  Aye.
dios mio. . . .  No turn I could make could--
Why do I want to compete with you?  My!
My, my!  What cancers of termites breathe wood!
Unknowable stars whirl in/ my frail bones.
A music grazes beneath the crisp snow.
Tears well/ at the push of your tones.
I cannot compete/ with nowhere to go.

César Vallejo, Vallejo . . . held soul,
too exquisite for a worn Earth, adieu.
A saraband laces; the pampas roll;
not even the rains can compete with you.
Dark, small, fresh blood, fresh life, my one heart's goal.
You will plumb and plumb to make our lives true.

(2-5-77)

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October: Year-day 299

"Both of us like poems to be well made and
show decorum."  O Auden, how my days
are audited out/ by my nights, my stand
against bad fates/ less and less pulling rays
of confidence, as each successive choice
shakes/ another leaf/ from one left to moan:
Frustration is my middle name, his voice
naked & creaking/ down the chisled stone.

I shiver/ in my bark, beating the air
with my stripping words, ridiculed, ignored,
as I sink/ into my spirit / my roots/
for sustenance, for the power to care,
to grow, and return with clothed words, restored
& shining/ from forced retreat, on new shoots.

(nine lines: 1-28-78, and
several revisions: 12-29-06)

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October: Year-day 300

Finally got ahold of Connell's Notes _ _ _.
Let's now hope they can get ahold of me,
even if my middling head will not see
all they explain where their brightbottle floats.
Still, Life's soaring, though we must not pray so;
for out of wounds peregrine flights charge
the haze, and hummingbird wheelings enlarge
us who/ accept the ties in what we know.

As magnificent as I am, I am
a given.  D. H. Lawrence knows.  And thanks
to Joyce Carol Oates, and others, and trees,
and--I now know again.  The mustard seed.
"In the convolutions of the cortex
the newfrontiers": the eternal Port X.

(1976(?) and 1978)

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October: Year-day 301

And the witches of celestial light
wand the cannas red; and what John Clare said/
I:  " . . . neglect is the only touchstone by
which true genius is proved. . . ."  And the smart dead
inebriate my bones.  A path defies;
the makers of paths rejoice.  In the heart
of my senses, paths deform; your soul dyed/
rainbows of green/ learns the/ secrets of art.

Relax my spine, soothe the skin of repentance,
share.  With eyes for the shining wind, alone/
all one, we yet must read the final sentence/
of The Great Sunflower by Clifford Stone:
"Night and winter approach like the end of
the world--and nothing matters."  Who knows love?

(1978)

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October: Year-day 302)
(#10 of 15 I removed earlier this year)

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October: Year-day 303

Quitting Capital Beltway's Holiday,
I'm relieved & mad and ready to ride,
about to feel as on my wedding day:
"And the weak bridegroom strengthens in his bride."
Perhaps I shouldn't be, or as I am.
Perhaps this whole plummed nation's wrenched awry.
Whatever, we are traveling again,
& here & there & inwards, buy the buy.

The rural acres collapse, twist from view;
the cities the same, more slowly.  We are two
retreating/ as we charge along the roads
toward home/ & those happy to hear the news
we're returning.  Out the windows dreams blow.
If I solicit you, you can say:  "No."

(1976, 1978, 1979; quote: Roethke)

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October: Year-day 304

Here in the prison of my fears and wants,
the air sticky with rain, what can I blame?
Shaw said:  "People are always blaming their
circumstances for what they are"; proclaimed:
"I don't believe in circumstances"; then judged:
"The people who get on in this world are
the people who get up and look for the
circumstances they want, and if they can't
find them, make them."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . I honor you, G. B.,
but I cannot add an inch to my height
or say I was born by a churning sea
or say there's a vireo in my sight.
Some circumstances do/ entangle me/
though perhaps I am not yet set to fight.

(11-1-77 and 12-28-06)

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October: Year-day 305

I wanted to do better than I've done;
I wanted to stay longer than I stayed;
butthe small dead leaf from the web strand hung
spins in the sill's corner when the airs stab.
It's not that I figured I couldn't run
with some of the best with on a tougher grade,
it's just that I didn't knowthemarked rung
would be too slick for my fingers to grab

as soon as I'd hoped to, and that my wife,
in any case, would disparage the life
we each/ have had to make do with, her eyes
watery, looking at me, weakly wise,
trying to dodge quick circumstance's knife
in my weird attempts to win a vague prize.
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Brian A. J. Salchert