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About Sugar Trail--
***** "Absolutely Beautiful," "Recommend Very Strongly," "It's Gorgeous"--Monica Gomez, host of "State of the Arts," KTEP (NPR-affiliate, El Paso, Texas).
***** "Sugar Trail is three books in one. . . leaves deep furrows in our imagination . . .leads to renewal."--Joe Speer, Editor, Beatlick News: A Poetry and Arts Newsletter.
Neck surgery left me with 10 inches of titanium in my neck and paralysis on my right side. Muscles in my wrist, elbow, bicep, shoulder, neck, and back were affected. Some were lost permanently. Some continue to grow back. I lost my memory from day to day as well for several weeks. After four months of physical therapy, I had a heart attack, bi-pass surgery, and many of the nerves damamaged from the neck operation were once again damaged. I started over, almost from the beginning. It's been a few years. I am doing well. Part one of Sugar Trail is about this recovery. One example follows.
His nerves are burning fuses. Over
his arms, this prayer blanket
presses like hot steel balls, the kind
Emerson and Thoreau used
to heat their room at Harvard
more than a century ago. His limbs
sparking, jerk to escape their circuit
of heavy flames.
You might think medicine has come
a long way, more than compresses
and morphine,
but when pain is the main line
to and from his brain,
his cognition clotted
within himself,
and he recalls the body he was
when he took for granted the triumphs
of motion, now
may seem like the age of transcendentalism,
death, the only medication
doctors know,
and I, without faith
for many, many years, fold
this blanket,
and pray.
from Part II (Prose Poetry)
While doing physical therapy three days each week, I was too exhausted most of the time to get in my car and drive home immediately afterwards. I was still wearing a neck brace to drive, and essentially driving with one hand. Originally, right-handed, I quickly became ambidextrous. The prose (poems) in part two of Sugar Trail were begun at one or two coffeehouses where I stopped after therapy. Most prose pieces are whimsical, but a few are on the dramatic side. Here's a typical one.
If you enjoy humorous prose pieces like the one above, I maintain "The Burning Man's Blog" which includes only humorous prose or flash fiction.
from Part III (Roman Candles)
Part three is an adult romp through a Rome in which time has been conflated. Thus, you might stop at a modern traffic light and see a row of crucified bodies from the reign of Nero, or note the clean streets under Augustus being maintained by a litter union or a photo of Calpurnia in the newspaper following Caesar's death. The basic premise is that the narrator, a politically sophisticated male, drives Dr. Quintillian, an art critic, across Rome to a suburb where a jury meets to select submissions for an art show. En route and once arrived, he meets or remembers a number of artists, patrons, emperors, warriors, and religious leaders that have shaped or mishapened his outlook. You'll probably note more than a few parallels to modern times.
Julius Caesar is assassinated.
Augustus's chosen heir, step-son
Tiberius, flees Rome;
His successor, nephew, Caligula,
is murdered; His appointed
heir, Claudius, poisoned;
His adopted son, Nero,
allowed to commit suicide.
Valentinian orders Aetius
murdered.
Followers of Aetius
assassinate Valentinian.
Otho, Vitellius, Galba, and
Caracalla
serve less than a year as emperors.
Titus witnesses
the eruption of Mount Vesuvius,
destruction
of Pompeii. His brother Domitian,
emperor within a year,
seeks to restore Rome
to its former glory, make his
the most
powerful government in the world,
return men
to traditional values:
He persecutes Jews,
Christians, Muslims, queers,
witches, and women.
We learn not to pray for new leaders.
We were raised at the corner of Clark
and Kent where gods descend into men,
men into steel machines, bodies
built like Buicks,
faces hard as chrome.
We learned to speak with our mouths' full,
talk while taking a leak, belch
and burp through diner meals,
scratch where ever we itch.
My daddy said I had what it took.
I just didn't have the desire
to spend my life with my dick
on a fender,
my head beneath a hood. I pulled out,
like I told Lana I would, pulled out
before I was married and mortgaged, fighting
anger, fear, and whoever came near.
One day I was thinking about Jesus, remembering
"wipe the dust from your cuff." I hit
Interstate 80 at 75,
picked up
Jimmy, drove east 'til we ran out of talk.
He said he missed Lucy more than he'd thought.
I didn't miss Lana enough
to go back
to a Sinclair future or a body shop job
in a town with gravel driveways, one
traffic light, lots of old family vans,
balance
and align myself with steel-belted men
who stick oil-stained fingers in their ears, walk
like John Wayne--the cowboy,-- sit like they're
straddling a gear.
And all I kept thinking was,
I'm going to end up in a neighborhood bar
where you know a man by his truck and his tab,
spitting image
of his daddy, same bruises, same fears, same scars.
I pulled out, like I told Jimmy I would,
pulled onto the highway and never went
back to the Corner of Clark and Kent.
Original Version published in Eureka Literary Magazine
Echo Teaches Her Daughter to Sing
was published originally in Fickle Muses.
The video below features art
by Las Cruces graphic designer
extraordinaire, Louis Ocepek.
Echo Teaches Her Daughter to Sing
NOTE: Even with ESL, let the video load once with all its reconnections, then play it the second time and it ought to keep pace if your read the words below with the imagery.
Her skin, white as her eyes. Eyes,
dark as her hair. Hair, bursting with flames!
Lips, unmistakably red.
Her voice, Echo's--
I am beautiful. Am beautiful. Beautiful.
He turns away, leaves
no trail. No ripple on the pond. No broken
twigs in the woods. Not even a brush of air.
She is fire with child. She sings in the empty
wood. We are beautiful. Are beautiful.
A generation ago, the women of her village
would pick up their buckets and fill them
at the communal well, carry them
on their heads or shoulders or
by the grip of their fingers
back to their kitchens
Today, water breaks in the bowels of earth.
She gives birth to flame, her hair
about her face like ashes. She teaches her daughter
to sing, I am beautiful. Am beautiful. Beautiful.
Too soon, her time to let go, send
her daughter to the city to work in a kitchen.
She warns her--Stay away
from the water, the waterfront, the docks, the piers,
boats and ships.
She warns her-- Stay away
from the sailors and captains, dock workers, dock
walkers, fishers of men and fishmongers. Go
inland to grow young, live in peace. Go
sing to the trees and to men in the fields
who work the raw earth with nimble fingers.
Teach my grand-daughters and sons to sing,
I am beautiful. Am beautiful. Beautiful.
When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag
and carrying a cross --Sinclair Lewis.
Wayne Crawford lives in Las Cruces, NM, where he manages Lunarosity. His poetry has appeared in, among others, Las Cruces Poets and Writers, Eureka Literary Magazine, Language Arts, Aethlon: The Journal of Sports Literature, Sage Trail and Concrete Wolf. Online, among others, at Moongate, New Verse News.com, Shampoo, Mannequin Envy, and Fickle Muses , and Zygote in My Coffee.
His most recent chapbook, "The Corner of Clark and Kent," was published by Mesilla Valley Press (2004), his book-length collection of poetry, "Sugar Trail," Sin Fronteras Press (2007). He Is completing a spoken word recording with musician Randy Granger. Their collaboration, "Dancing at the Totem," can be heard by going to Itunes and typing in Wayne Crawford, or by going to myspace/waynecrawfordpoetry. You can hear an interview with Granger and Crawford about their collaboration with the Hang Drum and poetry on KTEP 88.5FM NPR station with host Monica Gomez. It lasts about 8 minutes. Hope you enjoy it. Listen to the interview at: www.randygranger.net/ktepinterview.html
If frames-incompatible, Click Lunarosity