The Emergency Almanac

The last note from the shore  
by Henry Williams   

‘Pardon my sore toast, nominal & blunt & let’s get on toward the sea.’

 

                                                            —John Berryman

 

                                    i.

 

When the timbers creak the ship ancient

and ever still slick as a fox swimming in oil

then Robert Johnson

                                    strummed and slid on the strings

                                    ‘you better come in my kitchen

                                    there’s gonna be rain outdoors’

 

these shanties flame sung as farewell, final

footing beat

                                                and pasted to water

my seal,

                                    loaded a barrel of fresh herring

and onions. this is where I signal there’s reefs,

yes, and all their ornamentations

 

but running the sandy waves

was all the waking sailor could manage.

 

                                                We changed the light bulb

and cursed the moon for her influence.

 

 

                                                ii.

 

 

Delta of a snaking flow

where traders tie crocs to canoes, approach the barges

 

world that started our trek.

 

From brushing jungle feathers against the rail, these

nights blanket steam kicks a drum tap of trees

                                                slapping hands to bulwark,

                                                baby carriage

bursting up stream listed and wobbly,

 

 

 

 

and this was hole-in-the-pocket excess leading

towards an ocean, this, Conrad’s river:

his jungular bulging with percussion

 

or heat or adrennial smiles cautious slant.

We at the mouth traded gasoline and steel

for wind, canvas

 

old fashion mess

our best waist coat.

 

 

 

                                                iii.

 

 

Pulse pattern madness as we

baptized the hull, darkest grain maple dressed

in pitch & tar,

                                                            we prepared each sail

like lingerie suited to seduce the wind;

                                                thrust sent us script thru white caps

                                                                        hot held bow past Truman  Ike

and camelot.  suppose we are Vikings,

this would be truth:

                                                            the sea’s cold promise digs

                                                                                                                        under all roots.

                                    To know finally why a half a century found

a peaceful us out to swagger with baton

any regular cop’s beat

 

                                                                        container myth

of missiles  airborne  &  gray painted fleet.

                                                                                                                       

we are no Bush or Cortez,

working for

 

a listless whore.

 

This is voyage.  Not sinking.

 

 

 

                                                one part

                                                     the boat

 

 

(a)

 

Welcome this party pushing craft

from Chesapeake swampland to the

cliffs emptying earth off north

 

Californian coast.  twelve existing

between pressed pulp and pen, we

move what coasting scud of our hull

 

slide this is.  Fuel, muscles own strain

as it is the only way to dream this

spiraling journey on its course.

 

Ernie Pyle,  our Delphian guide, drifts

from 1930’s articles,

travel-tips never missing.  critics

 

mention drastic changes must’ve

happened, but then how many

left the narrow confines of desk

 

or chair, much less made it their boat, dared

sail anything save thick cows tongues

from their oily rotting teethy holes.

 

Our goal:  to cruise thru 50 years

soaked wood history, warped pine of

the white house & trembling limestone

dome, the argument for this mind’s

expedition.  Not to judge but to see.

 

 

(b)

 

 

So we stompt the grapes yet smasht

the bottle, wine transmogrified,

artery split, spilt veins poured

 

thru silt and the ocean disappeared.

the American states were born in

1945 to Roosevelt

 

dying, and Truman rising.  It was D.C.

where we began pushing the boat be-

hind a horse dawn hearse;  seven

 

different steeds from the islands off

Hatteras, roped there to pull to

Arlington that last brave patriot

 

who nature kept from being Caesar.

the crew south now, sitting drunken;

shrimp boats riding swells, and how

 

do we understand this nation’s

slide sipping wine, getting high, obser-

ving the beach skint by tide.

 

Waiting for the stars to now point

mapish the roads we should skid the

craft down;  list this crew so far:

Coltraine and Idlewilt, the same

it’d seem but pushing opposite sides.

 

 

(c)

 

The picture window was 50’s

golden timed sensible timid

buyers;  American image, one meteor,

 

its century.  Butter and whole milk,

synthetic silk, Ozzy & Harriet blew

kisses cross their twin bed canyon.

 

but entering just right to exclaim

for us, squatted forty years past

the prime is a trinity more true

 

to those middle decades than Ike

or Nixon on his rotten blood rise:

Kees, Bruce and Dean, all ghosts now.

 

What better sparkling last shot

at these years than the abandoned

car on the Golden Gate Bridge west

 

entrance;  subtle as a missile silo

in Nebraska, or a broomstick to mop-

sweep glaciers spastic angles;  we

 

passed Ernie’s Indiana yesterday.

Last seventeen hours spent coating

stomachs with apple pie and vanilla

ice cream.  Heroes all choked on chicken

bone excuses, painful failing truth.

 

 

(d)

 

it is September, a falling mouth, a

dispatched smell that will land over

the pushcart clouds, atop a dead

 

rain damaged or bug eaten leaf.

The force transforms, the frozen

concentrate about to be whipped

 

to these august swirls conclusive

off rumbling astropheric burps.

Actually watching football in Veterans’

 

stadium, saints and eagles on fake

green short grass.  Irregular, yes,

all those cars arranged around the boat’s

 

splintered hull–

                                                            but September

brings us here.  The coliseum drawn

like a well bucket from the metropolis.

 

ache the age, this era of game

that came sometime after manifest destiny

ended:  to help control the emptiness

 

which emerged.  So said the hobo

who found a ten spot and a free ticket;

collecting cans for nickels,

he dropt the aluminum, fixed his coat,

stretcht then strutted to play.

 

 

 

(e)

 

Entertainment’s moral concern,

the fair way to hit and score tuckt

into mediocre spirits with cash.

 

A sour rebellion, escape, no soothing

the throaty sand when struck pitches

curl human milk.  Confused, we slapt

 

the boat wood hull with our hands to

check reality.  Assuring grind of grain

on asphalt, we merged on I-40

 

west.  Yes mates, slipt the whole crew &

craft over Texas.  Kees, hand tight

on his bow hold, laught until he cought,

 

gagged senseless by the thought of San

Francisco.  The hills, he said, and

triumphs, but I’d like to till

 

this soul once more thru bay & mist.

What a bridge!  And silence again save

wooden scrape & splinter, a sorry

 

dusty choice shotglass next to his

voice.  Ruined pueblos, carved cliff,

haunted whistling behind us.  Fire

gradually follows sun, whispers

and snores greet wilderness’s black.

 

 

(f)

 

 

There have been trials:  ragged & hunted,

forced to disappear, twelve men go

these rocky gaps with us.  Black listed

 

by pork bulbous hungry hams in

ties.  & this Ike’s grand ole fiesta,

a wake, or more crazed funeral

 

for already thin individual

rights.  Stalin laughed at suburbs,

Levittown, a land for his heart.

 

Plums gone, and she couldn’t find

a corner grocer.  no choice since Ozzy

had the Plymouth but walking miles

 

for Wal-mart:  then only got apples.

Not a clear day to be bought, these hills

crackt chocolate, frost clawed edges

 

trimming the road.  Entourage rimmed near

the snake river, campt:  we knew Joe McCarthy

would dive into some sourmash pit.

 

This crucible (where spanning orange cliffs

cataract canyon) spun blindness

in a winding-scape, crevices tying us.

Words stopped as Jimmy Dean ran hand

thru hair with the usual tragic flair.

 

 

(g)

 

‘now sleeps he with that old whore death’

                                                                                    -Hemingway

 

 

In Idaho, bluffs & black streams shadowed

by retiring sun, we saw Hemingway

smoking a butt, scowled he;  the condos

 

spread;  civilized porno windows

looked on water dying.  Vital flow

stunk of tapeworm & ham:  not a trout

 

to fin thru slick rocks.  He spit thick

with lung & foul discharge.  Coltraine askt

if he still retained a ship swagger.

 

Torn hunting jacket hung on ghost,

Remington repeater twelve gauge

leaned on a tree stump, he spoke a tuba

 

hump. Short bass hums of tongue on

rotted cheek & teeth.  I’d gladly

sail tomorrow but this land is mine:

 

to leave, to pass these white tips for

a new Havana.  Those bars that ruin gut

and brain, the ease of companions.

 

He grabbed Coltraine’s corduroy coat.

Paris & poverty, that’s salvation m’boy!

Then burnt another lucky, slumpt on

a snow drift, hardened ice:  his smoke

a swimmer fading to sea, far past waves…

 

(h)

 

In a hotel room (Irving, Texas), the

All Star Inn, 14 of us cover up

the floor & two beds.  Boris Karloff is

 

weaving a story.  Face pasty as the tale

unfolds,

                                    —the scientists’ creation

somehow turned & haunted the humanity

 

it meant to lift.  Twisted then, when

the scientists sought to fix their poem

or pass its floating truth elsewhere:

 

they got hung.  The words weren’t exactly

unknown, more just a proper setting involved

for surprise application on earth.

                                                    He

sat & addressed his glass;  Boris drank

some rose to his cheeks.  Tom Idlewilt

pushed Bill from bed to rug, no doubt

 

stoned & stuffed.  By the intersection

and across from the west most acre of

truck farms was a Waffle House.  Tom ate

 

his self sludgy.  The 3.99

special for all of anything sunk right thru

stomach;  loaded with grease and slothy

complex carbohydrates, Tom said

what good would come smashing atoms.

 

 

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.