sw00616p-poem23s1

Postures 2007:  #23 Side One



Aunt Martha


Your eldest and most brilliant son
born with one of his legs
comically crooked behind his head
squeezing from his forming brain
the holy gift of abstract thought
did not silence your solo hymning
in the High Mass choir at St. Mary's
or desiccate your quiet will.

So, terminal some years after your
husband's death and the beginnings of your
second son's computer and familial success,
drugged by cancer from the daily tusslings
with those movie-bent notions of your eldest,
your smiling when my brother told you
it would be Christmas in two days
and your dying in the 2nd hour of Christmas Day

seemed right.  I venture angels choired near
as your spirit sang through midnight Mass.




- - - - -
09-18-07:  About a week ago I came upon this poem
in one of many manila folders containing writings of mine.
As I had forgotten about it, its existence surprised me;
and (for whatever reason) I didn't date it.  My guess is
I wrote in 1989.    
- - - - -


-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00206p-overview

Postures 2007 - Overview


2007 043 02 3 1

  All 57 of the poems which are 
presently in Postures 2007 are now
up.  They are a strange lot.  Yet
among them are 2 sestinas and
2 odes.  Yes, there are sonnets;
but there is also an edgy ballad 
and a sly selection spoken by
an animal housed in a museum.
That piece has three-line stanzas
in which the final words in each
line in a given stanza rhyme.  Oh,
there are, of course, numerous
free verse poems.  Also, there is
one villanelle, and several short
pieces which are for children; but
the only way the volume coheres
is in the variety of stances which
can be found in it.  Even each of 
the poems about death has its own
posture.

[ 2008-06-12 belated note:  
   For familial reasons, a poem
   I found among my papers
   was added as #23 of Side 1. 
   This book now has 58 poems. ]



 - - - - - 
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00205p-poem35s2

Postures 2007:  #35 from Side Two



"Francis Grey Owl, Walking"


Tumbleweed,
skeleton of earth,
what warriors
              dance
in the airy circlings
of your bones?
what squaws & maidens
                      cry?





-
Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00204p-poem34s2

Postures 2007:  #34 from Side Two



"Epiphanies"

  [ "Epiphanies" is a poem based on
    a true story told to me by a high
    school bow-and-arrow deer hunter
    in 1973.  It is an attempt by me to
    vicariously experience his experience. ]


Dreaming the blood of deer
as the sun dies redder & redder,
I kneel with the wind in the corn,
set my bow, listen.
The leaves barely whisper,
my spine knots from the cold;
the spaces before me grow small.
Crackles!  A doe!  Her fawn.
Fingers, eyes/ tighten;
the deer sink in the stalks.
What sun I inhaled turns shadow.
Then, just to my side, a buck!
in this Indian day's last light;
& I see him gutted & hanging,
his wildness beguiling my tongue,
but can only look/ wonder,
caught where I can't let go.





-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00203p-poem33s2

Postures 2007:  #33 from Side Two

"Four for John Ashbery"



1.    Erasures


Begin with three white nines
chalked on a green board:
trees / people bowed in a wind;
oval nerfs standing on their tails;
lasso symbols.

Erase to three zeros:
stylized eggs;
invitations to dive in.

Erase to crescents,
reeds,
parentheses:
             .  '  '



2.    Bones that Speak / Flesh that Reasons


Heavy with seeds,
this is our garden
which--when rains & rays of sun step on--explodes
into roots, stems, leaves, blossoms:
strictured irregularities
that pulse
           /
             breathe



3.    Passages


Winds thread weeds.
Bodies thread madness.

White-hot deeds.
White-hot sadness.

Nailed needs.
Nailed gladness.

Spirits slither.
Ignorance stabs.



4.    Portrait


Every few seconds    loud clouds
flash their roots of fire,
brains crest with inspirations;
stars dig in,
waiting for arrivals:

in the atmospheres of carrion hearts
the luck of double rainbows:

soles held by earths crossed,
heels and toes,
relaxing & tightening daring bowels,
wander a little, rock:

bit by bit, time swallows us;
we do not digest well.

[ "Four for John Ashbery" was written when
  I was using my pen name, Alden St. Cloud.
  It was published in 1980 on page 37 in
  Vol. 14  No. 2 & 3  (the fifth season) of
  Wisconsin Review.  I have made some minor
  revisions to it.
  -
  Today is Thursday, August 24, 2006.

                     Brian Arthur Salchert ]


-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                    

sw00202p-poem32s2

Postures 2007:  #32 from Side Two



"Memorandum"


The day I learned,
a 3-step approach
lefthander taught me.

Odd.  Having
watched, and
heard, the pros,

I should have
started sooner,
& properly;

but I,
muddy romantic
(a kid

determined
to wait until
his 16th birthday,

more into when
than how or where
or why

no matter his
supposed desire
to be great,

holding the ball
comfortably
before him,

his left hand
underneath it
even though

it was just an
alley ball &
didn't fit right,

the smoothness
required
hard to master,

depending so much--
as it must--
on his knowledge

of both his
own body's
characteristics

and those of/ the
objects of/ his
serious play,

eyes concentrating
on the third arrow,
the 1-3 pocket,

his distance
to the foul line
carefully measured,

his position,
posture, balance
checked & set, yet

his crucial first step
and pushaway
entered

too hurriedly
to create
that flow

and establish
that direction
needed/ to

carry his
ball
driving into its

target
at the height of its
power

and/ at/ its
optimum angle
& speed & roll

to topple from its
forward apex
to its 4-pin base

the smart triangle
of precisely arranged
10 ring-necked pins),

foul, gutter; spin naught
but the pins of pride
to the floor.




 -------
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00201p-poem31s2

Postures 2007:  #31 from Side Two



"To My Student Poets"


Tonight
the beginning of acorns

tonight
the sea
the sea

I am standing before you
like the leaves
in a wind-
rattled
           tree

Yesterday
                I would have said
                the dead
know

but not
tonight

You have come to me
to understand
how language moves
& you
          can move it

but I can only give you
silence

Today
the beginning
                     of acorns

Tonight
words
grow down



[ This poem is for the students in my first
  creative writing class.  It was originally
  written on 8-31-71/ and revised on 10-3-72.
  For the revision I used a pen containing
  red ink.  Both the original & the revision
  are on the front flyleaf pages of a copy
  of the paperback Contemporary American
  Poetry, selected and introduced by
  Donald Hall, and was first published--it is
  now 9:11pm, and today is Saturday, 8-26-06--
  in 1962/ with yearly reprints from 1964 thru
  1970, meaning that my copy is from the 1970
  reprint batch.  The publisher is Penguin
  Books Inc., 7110 Ambassador Road, Baltimore,
  Maryland 21207.  Donald Hall holds the copy-
  right.  I have chosen to post my revision here. ]

[ 2007 042 02 2 7:  There will be more about this,
                    and about that night, later. ]




-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00200p-poem30s2

Postures 2007:  #30 from Side Two



"Between / Within"


Rising, falling, the leaves could not quite cross
His window's length, and now the wind wrinkled
Less and less those spades.  There would be dying
Even there.  He tries to forget that water
Closing over her, that torrid distance
Through night brightened by the suck and whine of fire.

But how?  Under what should orange fire
Be hidden?  Under the weight of a cross?
Clenching his pillow to stuff the distance
Of total blindness into his wrinkled
Eyes, distance to shut away water,
Fire, he wrestles with what has no dying

Outside of--sleep, hurls his pillow; and dying
With the wind, arches over his bed, a fire
Himself, choking.  Singing beside the water
That night, was it so, where neither one could cross,
Enter, crumpling toward the ashes, as wrinkled
Again, he squirms on his sheet?  Distance,

Distance?  I saw him drop.  I know the distance;
But the heart?  If his body were dying,
My senses wouldn't be so lost, wrinkled;
But it's mostly his heart which remembers the fire
And whatever barrier he did not cross,
Yet feels he should have.  She used to water

That wildflower on our desk.  Tom watched her water
It often, having brought it a moon's distance
After all, for her.  He looks at the cross
Above it: her gift.  Cross, plant: dying
Unites them too, now.  With no divined fire
To keep earth's creatures green, they have wrinkled

In their thirst.  He rises--as his wrinkled
Bedding shows.  Shall I follow him: to the water,
The North Platte, where that orange fire
Sparked the green to black; or any distance?
His heart is his, not mine; his dying--.
Falling, rising; Tom, Sharon, flower, cross--

Between these a confusing, wrinkled distance
Conjures a wall: the water of their dying,
And that human kind of fire/ he has yet to cross. 





-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00199p-poem29s2

Postures 2007   #29 from Side Two           



"November (the Last Day of)"


Overcast airs, their warmth, hour into hour,
dropping from near sixty to below freezing,
all this Sunday long/ siren through our windows

as you, Percy Bysshe Shelley, borne to me
more heated, more cold, more human/ by one
Richard Holmes/ than I ever would have seen,

scream across your Adriatic tomb,
wrestle with the macabre, elope, divorce,
menage, entrance, politicize, and con,

and moving by necessity from house
to nervous house, moving by whim, by art,
explore the end of each new thing, the source,

till I am bugged by vessels torn apart
and fantasize rare healings, mind in heart.





 -------
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00198p-poem28s2

Postures 2007:  #28 from Side Two



"To Us"

[ George Bernard Shaw said that if Man ever hopes
  to transcend to a higher level he must exercise a
  heightened "command over himself" and concurrently
  go to those places where Nature retains "command
  over Man".
  -
  I leave it to you to find his exact words. ]



The matter of our beings
Spattering into the deadly air;
Forests turning inward--
Silent, bare;
The movements of our rivers
Slowing everywhere:

I do not know.


Technos, Technos,
Pinching out the stars;
Butterflies and woollies
Beneath our cars:
Nothing that we look at
Will be ours . . .

Who do not know.


Sarah, Johnny, Pat,
Chalking on a wall,
Wonder at the breezes,
Why they crawl:
Empty is your wisdom
If Homo sapiens falls,

And does not know.


Consciousness encumbered,
Knowledge that conceals;
Broken eggshells,
Broken fields:
Oh God of our awareness,
We are heels,

Who cannot know.


Holy, holy, holy,
Wholly, wholly, whole,
Bodies without number
Penetrate each soul:
Earth is what we make it,
Pole to pole,

Who will now know.





-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00197p-poem27s2

Postures 2007:  #27 from Side Two



"20° Breeze"


The snow fence crackles
like a paper bag





[ "20° Breeze" was
   originally published in Abbey. ]



-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00196p-poem26s2

Postures 2007:  #26 from Side Two

"From this high bridge"


i drop
a stone

a duckfoot shape
                 fluttering
           indian red speckled green

a moulting
summer tanager
               in a long slow glide
   over rapid
   russet water
   & stands of cedar

a soundless
splash
       of light

-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00195p-poem25s2

Postures 2007:  #25 from Side Two



"November trees"


scraggly grey

emerge through fog

arrayed with diamonds






-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00194p-poem24s2

Postures 2007:  #24 from Side Two



"Registration"

[ Explanation:  The following is what I call  

  a found poem/ because the content of it is 
  not mine, but the words of one David Max, 
  a student who (some 35 years ago) came 
  to me for registration counseling, which is  
  why the "Registration" title.  While there, 
  he asked about how a poem is written.  I   
  do not remember my response, or even if 
  I had one; but I decided to listen closely
  to him, hoping I could somehow use his 
  words--in the exact order he spoke them-- 
  to create an example of how a poem might   
  be written.  That is why I kept the 4-letter  
  word in it.  Only this poem's form is mine.  
  That is why I chose both his stress-filled 
  words of the moment and also those words he  
  used to reveal a certain more pleasant past.
  That is why I placed his words on the page 
  as I did, and why I presented our example  
  to him before he left.
  -
  The opportunities which foster poems can  
  come at any time from any where; therefore,  
  those who would write poems need to be ever/ 
  ready for them. ]

           for David Max


"Good grief!
Not gonna have any time to eat
on Thursdays

what with all these classes
during the noon hour--
shit!

Did I really
want
this schedule?

-

Took a trip once
to Oregon
with a friend

We spent
entire afternoons
tromping along rivers

not even the rain
stopped us--
we ate apples

& swam."





-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00193p-poem23s2

Postures 2007:  #23 from Side Two



"In the Arcadia High Cafeteria"


To the dance
of the pots & pans,
the chance
meetings
of the pots & pans,
where all the latest gossip's
turned & tossed

I, with my awkward
steps &
words,
shout to talk

and if what I say
waltzes right on out there
or boogies
am satisfied

and simply hope my listeners
by their sounds
& moves
can tell me how they feel,
can boo or laugh,
or silently but well
across my brain's gray floor
draw patterns
with their eyes.





-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00192p-poem22s2

Postures 2007:  #22 from Side Two



"From a third-floor window"


two girls
making a snowman

who will not be made

arms quickly formed
punched on his body

fall off

Maybe his eyes
if they looked

would tell them something

but there isn't time
and besides

he must have arms

Not that they
want him

to hug them

but even a snowman
fan-twig headdress & all

ought to be whole

So the chestnut girl
prances again into drifts

though he will not laugh

and the grayish blonde
stoops around him

though he will not speak

And finally
after arms & arms

they are satisfied

and the window
seems like a canvas

happily painted on

For my memory's sake
I turn from it

but within the hour

am back
to nothing but bumps of snow

my headdress spread on the ground





-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00191p-poem21s2

Postures 2007:  #21 from Side Two



"For a Marriage"



Things human begin;
things human end:

some in the haze of happenstance;
some in the brightness of rite.

Today we gather with two
to once more grow into one

so that shadows shrink in despair
as our ages dance into flight.


Loves wake on a leaf;
hates nod in a hole:

each of us birds of day;
each of us birds of night.

Fingers fidget & grasp
in holy anticipation,

feeling the real & imagined rings
in their charged delight.


Lord of hours we think we waste,
Lord of moraines & lakes & sky,

Lord of beings we fear,
Lord of the rude & slight,

Lord of labors in & out,
Lord of re-creation,

bless our joys / bless our pains,
and ring this marriage we celebrate

with life-fulfilling light.





 -------
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00190p-poem20s2

Postures 2007:  #20 from Side Two



"Newlyweds End-of-Rite Petition"



Father, Son, Spirit, Mary,

be with us
as we walk toward the doors;

be with us
as we savor the air.


Father, Son, Spirit, Mary,

be with us
when our spirits stomp the floors;

be with us
when our bodies touch with care.




 -------
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00189p-poem19s2

Postures 2007:  #19 from Side Two       



"Wedding Toast"

   (for Janet and Hiroshi Araoka
        October 17, 1970)


The sun rises; the eagle flies.
Husband, wife,
Springtime.





-------
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00188p-poem18s2

Postures 2007:  #18 from Side Two       



"Recalling Mr. Tabet (1907-1972)"


It's been a long while now
since my last haircut;

it'll be longer
still;

it was not so long
twenty years ago.

Sitting, turning, waiting,
his fingers/voice

(touches
 I think were gentle;

 sounds
 I think were kind,

 yet cannot bring
 to my vision),

time after time
changing me,

I grew quiet/
and daydreamed.

To the looks in his mirror,
the smiles,

the simple experience
of being there

was what I marked,
and will ever care to.





-------
Brian A. J. Salchert