Dan Masterson
New poems from his nearly completed manuscript
That
Which Is Seen:
Poems
Based Exclusively on Artwork. |
(Based on Picasso’s “Woman Ironing” and ”The Old Guitarist”)
“In the struggle for existence, man must have either keen intelligence or
the heart of a beast.” -Maxim Gorki
Blind since the armistice, he strums out
The old songs for passers-by, coins now
& then dropping amongst three lead slugs,
An illusion of money he has lying in wait
On the flannel lining of his guitar case
Open for business. Inside, near the wall
He’s propped against, his only kin irons
The last fold of a napkin, adds it high
To the stack near the door, & starts anew,
Back & forth, back & forth, trying to hush
The cough that grows even worse in steam
That rises from the damp linen fresh from
The hand-crank wringer wired to the sink.
At dusk, they’ll take a 100 cloths in all
To the cabaret next door, where he’ll set
Up shop in Smokers Alley, playing for tips
Until she takes him back home to while away
The hours on his side of things, augmenting
The notes that leak in through the partition
Of this charred, lightless storefront set
For demolition ever since the riots gutted
It down to the bone. She’ll find a bundle
Of soiled napkins & a basket of dry bread
On the front stoop when she rouses to stoke
The stove: there’s, first, his tea to brew,
Water to pump & be set boiling in kettles,
& the bottoms of three flat irons waiting
To be scoured with the wet knobs of burlap
She rubs with the gritty scree and sand she
Finds between the alley cobblestones, before
Setting the irons to heat atop the fire lid.
She’ll kneel to add kindling to the embers &
Wonder what will become of him when the gray
Folds of her threadbare lungs wear through.
A Murder of Crows at Dusk
(based on Aboriginal Crow Art, hetnet.n/)
”If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be
clever enough to be crows.” -Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, 1851
By the thousand they have
Come again to these woods
By the highway, precisely
At quarter past six, this
Pitiful stretch of oaks
Tall & safe from marauding
Cats. Why, is their concern,
But here they are, filling
The sky, settling in atop
Randomly chosen perches,
Cawing in thunderous chorus,
Each high branch tipped with
Them, none beneath the other:
A lesson of droppings passed
Down by elders. Soon, the sky
Goes empty, waiting to be
Filled with dawn, when they
Will leave in waves, some to
Hook Mountain, more to the
Hudson where the Palisades
Give shelter, others to roofs
Flat & puddled, or to the town
Elms until the waning light
Sends them soaring skyward
Into haphazard formations that
Bring them again to these woods,
Speckling their pink horizon so
Soon to fall to dark about them.
|
Dan Masterson
New poems from his nearly completed manuscript
That
Which Is Seen:
Poems
Based Exclusively on Artwork. |
|
 |
Le Repas Frugal
(after Pablo
Picasso’s painting of the same name, 1904)
"A broken spirit drieth the bones." - Proverbs 17:22
Make no
bones about it:
A meal’s a meal no matter who’s had at it first. This one
they found,
As they often do, sticking out the window of the cooling shelf, still
warm
On its cardboard shin, a gift from the waiter they know only as Alex
Of Brachium. She has spread her shoulder wrap across the kindling chest,
& set their place: milk-crate chairs, their backs to the wall, the
alley now
In broken shade that shimmers on this evening hotter than a pot of neck
bones.
The tin plate will stay with them when they go off to sleep amongst
The thick brush behind the moss-jutting rocks of Brenton Park. The
bottle
Stands ready with a last whiff of wine to whet the t-bone they’ll
soon inhale
As though it were all there. Some of the grizzle & much of the fat
remain,
Mixed with torn potato skins & a cob of corn: a few yellow teeth
still hanging
On, someone else’s lipstick smeared like orange ketchup across
the ruts. No
Concern: a quarter turn will make it a never was. Villagers have
watched them
Fade from taut to frail during the long years, sitting close against
the market
Wall, fingering their tiny flutes, his hat upside down beside them, the
flutes
Exquisite in their trill. They fashion them at night from the hollow
bones
Of fallen pigeons whose feathers weigh more than their bones. At dusk,
The coins that feather their nest weigh something less than their
bones, more
Like the light heft of an owl’s plug of mice bones found on the
attic floor far
Above their usual spot: this windward side of Ganther Lane. You can find
Them here, pressed together, as passers-by stride clear of them,
whispering
Dull things about bags of bones & arms too sparse even for soup
bones, &
Fingers transparent & gray enough to earn them a cadaver’s
coin at Old
Sawbones’ cellar on Wealtham Street. He’s waiting for one
of them to bring
The other in for cash, rattling dead on a borrowed bone wagon.
Something
To get by on when alone. Old Sawbones admires her vomer bone, &
often
Stoops to drop pennies in the hat to get a closer look, wanting to
touch it,
Barely hidden as it is by nostril skin. The husband’s profile,
gaunt in its rusty
Hinge of a jawbone, has caught the eye as well, but there will be no
wagon
This night, not a smidgeon of such thoughts, for now they have their
bounty
Before them, tasting it through closed eyelids. Feeling it in their
bones.
f
Breaker
(based on
Richard Estes’ painting, “Parking Lot”)
“An
anonymous police source indicates that the current rash of city
vandalism involving upscale car windshield breakage may actually be a
business tactic employed by one or more glaziers. The tell-tale
spider-web cracks spread across the glass suggest that breakers or
snappers–8-inch rubber straps with a ball bearing duct-taped to
their centers–are being used, probably by hired teenagers
familiar with their neighborhoods.” NY Daily News, 1956
Twenty rows of parked cars are baking
In the late September heat, their curved
Glass flicking shards of light back
Where they came from: flick flick flick,
Each flash cutting the eye, but he finds
A match to the year & model scribbled
In the note his father left unsigned
On the kitchen shelf this morning,
Its curl of rubber alongside, before
Slamming off to his rented storefront
Whose “Nu-Glass-4-U” sign blinks pink
& green around the clock. It was
Supposed to be different this time: just
The two of them, another chance after
The last town sent them packing. But
Here he is smack in the middle of week
Two of his senior year, setting up hits
On his lunch hour. He lays his breaker
Flat on the windshield’s shatter point,
The end holes snug on his thumb
& forefinger, straining hard as he draws
The trapped ball halfway to his chin
& lets it rip, the glass suddenly etched
In a sprawling web broad enough
For a colony of dock spiders. If he hurries,
He’ll be back in time for gym class.
|
Nothing But The Truth
~informed by Yan Chen’s
“Purple Slope”~
(“She prayed aloud,‘O God, I
am not good enough, O fear, O strength, I am draggled.
Johnny and other men have had me, and O clean power! Here am I,’
she said, falling
before him, and crawled to his hooves.” -Robinson
Jeffers, “The Roan Stallion,” 1925) |
"I seened
her
frum ware I wuz
at, hiden n waten to git my hors
bak that Johny stoled by chetin
in poker I seened what she dun
withe my stalyn n Johny seened
it to thats why he wur thrashin
it withe his belt n tryin to git
rownd it to git at her to tech her
sumpin but she wur all hunker
down buk nekked hangen on to
one of my stalyns reer legs til
Johny wen down n that wen she
krawl off towd the barne ware
Johny kept a shutgun on a nail
she kame out cokin it n squatid
rubin it n kliken the safty offen
on offen on nuthin mor nuthin
til Johny wur dead than kalm
as anythin she kilt my horse n
throwed down the gun n she
klimed ovir Johnys korpse n got
down on all fores besyd my stalyn
n kried lyke a baby thats wen I
got outta thare n went to towne
to fine Willie er Sheroff Walen” |
(Abe
“Scrog” Maskerow’s written testimony at the
“depraved-indifference” murder
trial of Mrs.California Hayes, quoted in The Carmel Dispatch, March
15, 1925.) |
|
kk
Dan Masterson:
Url; http://www.enskyment.org
Url: http://www.poetrymaster.com
Email: prdan@optonline.net
Books online: http://capa.conncoll.edu
Recent poem online: http://www.ontarioreviewpress.com
(#57 on past issues)
Dan Masterson's New & Selected Poems, All Things, Seen and Unseen,
was released by The University of Arkansas Press in 1997. It includes
work published in The New Yorker, Paris Review, Poetry, Gettysburg
Review, Esquire, Georgia Review, Ploughshares, Sewanee Review,
Shenandoah, Hudson Review, London Magazine, Massachusetts Review,
Yankee, New Orleans Review, Prairie Schooner, Ontario Review, Poetry
Northwest, North Dakota Quarterly, and The Yale Review.
For complet bio and other interesting information see: poetrymaster.com//index. |
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