Category Archives: American Poet

Frank chose to read Here, Bullet at the Beanrunner. Here was death, again, but not in the slow wasting of illness but in the adrenaline rush of the battlefield. The powerful, graphic poem drove us beyond the feeling of nervous into fear.

When I first heard the title I immediately thought of Bullet, The Wonder Dog who starred with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans on the 1950’s TV show.  The words “Here, Bullet,” could have been used then to offer the dog a treat for doing a hand-shake trick or uttered with hoarse urgency to lead him to his badly injured master pinned beneath a fallen tree. So, for me ” Here, Bullet,” was a trip back to my childhood sitting in front of the TV watching a thrilling plot unfold. I was too young then to realize that words mean different things as different times. Like for my childhood friend, Gregory. He lived next door and we often watched “The Roy Rogers Show” as well as “Lassie,”   and “Fury,” together.  All shows that included peril and rescue. A teenager,  Gregory enlisted and went to Vietnam. It was a matter of family honor: his grandfather had manned a trench in WWI France and his father saw action during WWII as a sailor in the  South Pacific. Gregory came home and told me he couldn’t get over what he had seen.  The look in his eyes was a look I had never seen before. He  committed suicide soon after. For Gregory the words “bullet,” and “Help me,” had taken on new meaning, new horror  beyond anything we could have imagined as we watched TV shows that  had  happy endings. Gregory will always live in my memory. When Frank read this poem, my friend’s horror became, for a moment, my own.

This poem shocked us and took us on a scary trip of terror. And its writer, Brian Turner experienced what he writes about: after earning an MFA he served in the US Army for seven years, including a year (1999-2000) in Bosnia-Herzegovina defending Muslims from Serb atrocities. Turner is the real thing when it comes to war.

Here, Bullet

If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh,
Here is he clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.

Brian Turner

High Speed Bullet



Jo brought this to “Poets You Can’t Get Rid Of.”

The Wild Iris

At the end of my suffering

there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death

I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.

Then nothing. The weak sun

flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive

as consciousness

buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being

a soul and unable

to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth

bending a little. And what I took to be

birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember

passage from the other world

I tell you I speak again: whatever

returns from oblivion returns

to find a voice:

from the center of my life came

a great fountain, deep blue

shadows on azure seawater.

By Louise Glück

When I moved from the city to the country I learned that the deer eat most flowers.  I loved the deer and didn’t want to fence them out.

I discovered I had the perfect soil, light and terrain for irises. They became my passion. I planted dozens, in every color. I lived for late May, the seasonal peak—perfectly in sync with Chinese artists for whom the flowers represent”the dancing spirit of early summer.” I even went to the International Iris Festival in Florence, Italy (the iris is the city’s emblem) to see acres and acres of the colored blossoms I adored.

On the morning of my mother’s funeral I did not want to leave my house. I did not want to see my mother, dead, in a box. . I did not want to say good-bye to her, ever.

As I approached the door, I could see a family of deer waiting outside, in silence, near our car. “They’re here to help you,” Barre said. They did.

And the impossible happened:  one iris bloomed in the freezing November air.  Named “Immortality, the color of the moon, and big enough to fill my hands held together like a beggar asking for alms.  I remembered that in ancient Greece, the task of the goddess Iris was to lead the souls of dead women to the Elysian Fields. That awful morning she appeared dressed in white and filled the air with a fragrance as warm as it was sweet. Thank you.

3/3/10

Poets group meets tonight. One of the poets, Jo, has a birthday today. Same as my late husband. He would have been 70 today. I buy a cake for her. I could have baked one, something really good, Julia Child, with Calvados and apples, a clafoutis. Real. But instead I want a birthday cake that looks like one. Sometimes you need that symbol. I buy one with the pinkest pink roses and an almost neon Happy Birthday. Inside: strawberry cream. Go all the way. We may sing. It’s gray, so gray outside. Let’s light the candles, too.

I love Jo’s poems. “Loss,” is one of my favorites. Perfect for me today. Thank you, Jo.

LOSS

I have lost a bird, I have lost a tree.

I have lost a city. And a state.

I have lost money. I have lost land

with a blue heron and a green pond.

I have lost flat fields and mountains.

Lost a river. A sea.

I’ve lost a father, old friends.

A child. A husband.

Now, I must lose the memory of you.

I nearly have it. Your crisp edges slip.

It’s almost done. There. No, not quite.

Jo Pitkin

from THE MEASURE

My birthday present for 58 years was my mother telling me the story of my birth, the morning I was born. She’d start: “It as a hot June morning. Close. Not exactly raining, a fine mist…. At 7:42 the nurse said, ‘Mrs. Pearce,’ you have a beautiful baby girl.” We would both cry a little on our ends of the phone. At least, I did. Or her voice would break a little as she said, “And you were. You are….”

My husband was adopted. There was no story for him. There was no where. No who. No known face that saw him first. I want to research the weather on that day, the phase of the moon, anything to know him more.

My wedding present from his adoptive mother was this poem. She kept it framed above her desk. When she gave me this poem she gave me her son.

I AM THANKFUL

To my death from my birth,

I am thankful I am on Earth.

I am glad I am not an orphan

anymore.

That I have a real home

and toys galore.

I am thankful for things

that are mild

For everything tame or wild.

I am thankful for this modern age

And for life of humans at any stage.

I am glad I go to school

Because if I didn’t I’d be a dumb fool.

Barre Littel

Grade 5

Happy birthday, baby.