Gumbo
by nate
Going along with Shawn's interest in procedure, as well as Mike's interest
in why we write the way that we do, here's an explanation about the method
of this, my "travelogue poem." If you'd just read it without
explanation, just skip this paragraph. Anyway, the first section is
obviously quite visual, and doesn't really need much explanation. The rest
of the poem, however, is comprised of "Songs." The form of each Song was
dictated by the outcome of a series of bowling games. The Song number is
the number of the final score (Song #126 was my best game ever). The
number of pins felled equals the number of words in each line. Anytime
there was a spare, I included the word "spare," or some sonic equivalent.
It may help to think of these Songs (I'm tempted to call them "Gumbo
Sonnets") as a combination of the economic, quasi-chance-generated poetics
of Shawn and the homophonic punnery of Mike. See for yourself.
comments by:
jon dimarco (who was on this trip)
Rte 81
fog darkish rain
streak mudflaps
lights reflected
blurry tollbooth
hum windshield
pendulum swish
floorboard slick
wind accelerate
sonny rollins on
rolling on bridge
cigarette icy and
dome light route
center line flash
dotted state lines
pine stump cross
road radio towers
reddish diner eat
dashboard glows
three bags full on
hancock street or
walker street and
swerve cat dexter
sausage this state
gravy don't have
a single even city
average antietam
intelligence pass
on the right turns
pass signal other
sign welcome to
key west virginia
shoulder garbage
huddle egg house
diesel coffee refill
hours ago octane
little debbies hot
fries & powerade
still the pouring
seat belts dangle
rain bumping if
tennessee whisk
ing past rest stop
next for miles on
root beer miles en
route eighty-one
stretch far sleeps
from jersey city
carlisle or tokyo
cabin smoke the
fever every city
has a pine street
map intersection
infinite junction
louisiana but first
alabama the kettle
whistle speed over
limit fuelstop over
speedometer blink
tired hallucinates
air rushing past
open wind rush
ing past an open
wind rushing air
past open window
past rushing into
present dawning
an arrange meant
also approaching
Song #94
a city colder than her last kiss goodbye
a poet who writes in fierce pursuit of angles
a bayou song
the scent of sugar
a sense that anger fades like a photograph
sparing none
have hey do quarter man you
hey man
sorry
been days since I even tried to smile
a city colder than midnight
colder than
place where the
bars stay open
where visitors are welcome but enter at their own risk
St. Louis Cemetery no. 2, established 1823
Song #110
Hippie Johnny swings into the sugar bowl
on
chef menteur drive, a circadian spare tire juju boogie rhythm
and although he has forgotten how to keep score
he knows his height
and his shoe size
and has
vague impressions of this place
this big easy crescent city
this music pouring into the streets, filling the pavement cracks
the staccato crash of the pins
at contact
he had dreams of a much more dramatic loneliness
only the crash of the pins
only his voice
Song #126
bourbon street shadow
something tactile with all my spare time
all extra frames will be charged
will frames all be charged extra
I never know where to start a poem
vision can be merely an attempt to make things
whole
tumbling down the aisle
a sardonic caricature of the hot five Louisiana swamp blues
pool strike hustler jive talk, Marlboro ceiling fan brush stroke
stranger's collateral kiss
speaking this foreign, furtive tongue
do you know what it means
to miss New Orleans
the 6th ward dirty dozen in Jackson Square
Song #113
four on the floor
but who's keeping score
spare us the tire aid saintly grease monkey blues
please
bartender midriff hip swivel, fifteen early morning postcards
forty-six dollars for a painful lesson in street smarts
central grocery mufuletta, sausage & rabbit jambalaya
one mint julep
I want to see the process
the verbal spare change
a synapse snaps in time
rhythm
pulsating
din, a ricochet verb tense
scene unfolds on the cusp, pair of dice, laws
broken
glints of glass on the cobbled street
Song #109
pallid full moon
sidecar tracks aligned
an orbit forms an arc, a texture
a landscape
fingers running along a bethlehem wrought-iron hand rail
drumming
rudimental blue notes, dark as the tide
something
oscillating slowly, stirring the gravy train
something heavy
dream in which the river has frozen solid
in which
she moves through the shadows, calling my name
Song #111
just like that,
one poem runs into another
word follows word like a spare string of beads
forgotten
swept
aside like so many tattered pins
still life: woman alone at table with tears
to spare
just another french quarter daydream
just another clever turn of phrase, another street musician
another horse-drawn tourist trap, another bowling allegory:
always one pin standing, union on strike, strong-arm
tactics, Armstrong pyrotechnics, percolating phrases in a stew pot
clock strikes a minor third, crawfish congregate by the pound
and who's to say when it's finally time
to stop?
From: "Jonathan DiMarco"
Hey there, Nate. Goin' off to Cleveland for a bit, a little windy city
blanketed by Lake Erie's grimy currents. Read your poem up and down, tried
side-to-side, too. Here's my brain on your poem:
Many questions, as always. If words evolved in direct response to
humanity's needs, then it only proves us lost after thousands of years,
don't it though? A powerful kick forces your words to stream down the
page, images swirling together like the fog in some tourist trap's
Hurricane. If the road doesn't end, who do you blame, then? Eisenhower
and his visions of endless asphalt, quiet ambition disguised as
inalienable rights; maybe a thousand different scapegoats, starting with
God and ending with yet another pre-fabricated highway monument. Perhaps
you're right. Even when the pressure of that pulse is at its strongest, it
never slides into a steady rhythm. We hear the whine of stripped gears
trying to connect, grinding together to find a few teeth that aren't yet
blunted. And, what happens when steel does push on steel and we shift into
a single revolution? It could just be a passing glance of a kiss, a small
memory that fades and bloats as one. It's the illusion of movement that
fools us - a comfortable whirring sound, a streaming note that is pleasing
to hear but dangerous to study. If security cannot be earned, then what
can be?
well, that's what I thought after reading it, so you can consider it my
little critique. Hope I didn't overstep my boundaries there, but at 3:00
in the morning I let my old semi-writer persona out of the closet. Maybe
it's a little rusty :)
- jon