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It’s finally out.  And I can finally get some sleep!  Here are the links to my book on Amazon.  I think it looks so much better in paperback, but there is a Kindle version available.

Amazon Paperback

Amazon Kindle

If you don’t already know what’s up, here’s a little backstory.  I’ve been writing since I was a child.  My first poem that I remember was written in October 1988 when I was 9 years old.  When I was 12, my teacher accused me of plagiarism because she didn’t think a child could write.  I don’t say that to congratulate myself at all.  I’m not even sure if that was worth all the aggravation.  It has been lost to time.  It was titled Paige and it was about the life of a woman who never finds happiness.  But I imagine the actual poem would seem completely juvenile now.

I started writing in earnest in college and since 1997 I have written consistently.  While I veer off into other projects, like short stories or novels, I find poetry that I always return to poetry and enjoy writing it.  Over the years, I’ve developed my own style.  That is a good thing.  The problem is that I also haven’t had serious critique of my work since I graduated from college, so I don’t actually know how my work is seen by others.  I’m amazed that I’ve managed to spend the better part of 20 years unwilling to share my work for fear of rejection.  And I really should have managed that sooner!

When I lost Mom last year, the first thing I did was crawled into a metaphorical hole for 9 months.  I wanted to disappear because I didn’t understand how one can live without his mama, and I’m not too proud to say it.  It also brought a few things into focus.  One of those things was letting go of the expectations and opinions of others.  Now, I mean of me as a person, not my work.  That is a lesson that has been taught to me my entire life, but sometimes things need to cook for a while.

So, now I’ve got a book.  I worked diligently over the summer to get it done.  My garden is sad and neglected, my roommate is sad and neglected, and my family… well, they are too busy to have noticed, but if they had I imagine they would feel sad and neglected.  For this first collection of poems (because I don’t want it to be the last!), I wanted to focus on a few things: 1. Poems with very specific references to people.  It’s not that I won’t write that way in the future, but I wanted to give people the words I had written for them before getting into other subjects.  2. Epitaphs.  I’ve lost a lot of people and I often have things to say about that.  I’d like to get through a lot of those I’ve had lying around, but there are many more.  3. My very favorite poems I’ve written… that aren’t too scandalous.  I get it, family will buy this first book. They will even hang on for a second, but by the third they won’t be too fussed about it.  So, I have actually created a plan where my third book is where I completely let my hair down.  That does mean I have to do at least 2 more books, but it also sounds like I’m censoring myself.  In a way I am, but I’m not completely either.  I want my prudish great aunt to be able to have something she will never read, but that won’t make her blush too much if she decides to open it up.

Last thing I will say about it, I decided to make notes on each poem.  Rather than include them in the actual printed book, they can be found here… in the writing tab, or at this link.Continue Reading

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1975

I’m sizing him up and putting him
in the him-shaped space left
so long before I was born.
I didn’t call him anything,
but sometimes he is everything
and there are nights when I sit alone
with the stars and wonder
if I make him proud.

21 September 2019

Notes

Written 21 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “1975” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)Continue Reading

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Quentin Clingerman Has Died

The winds are picking up
blowing trash into my yard
and announcing a storm that will
fall apart before it arrives.
The worn out flags and crosses
still look as majestic as they did,
but I’m opening by insides
and filling my pages with secrets.
I’m waiting for critiques
by entrenched folks who think
too much about the sex lives
of other people, of my sex life.
I want to reveal myself again,
try to make people see my words
and my techniques and stop worrying
about who I’ve kissed or
who I haven’t, but wanted to.
I want to edit volumes of poetry
about God and America and guns,
poems filled with the lies we tell ourselves
and enjoy them because the author
knew how to write the words beautifully.
I don’t want to read the judgement.
It starts to rain and I’m surprised;
I thought the rain would miss us.

Notes

Written 21 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Quentin Clingerman Has Died” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)Continue Reading

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Triticum aestivum

for Brent

Soon enough we’ll be old and nostalgic.
You’ll talk about the prices of wheat and corn
like you grew up on a farm
instead of being a spectator at the rodeo.
I won’t understand the language of agriculture,
but I won’t care because you’ll remind me of mom.

Notes

Written 20 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma

Brian Fuchs, “Triticum aestivum” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)

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Gleditsia triacanthos

for a friend

You were beautiful once, and maybe you still are.
I rarely revisit those moments when we became adults
on Sunday mornings, skipping church for each other.
I don’t think about the length of your neck
and I don’t dwell on the smell of you skin.
I’ve turned you upside down, exposed the roots
and tried to understand how they worked,
rubbing the soil into the grooves of my skin.
I don’t want to return to your kindness or cruelty,
and I don’t want to put you back how I found you;
Your branches are thorny and I’d end up hurt again.
So, I’ll repaint the photos I have of you in new colors
and we can pretend that there were no feelings.
And I’ll send you copies of the new versions
and you can pretend that you don’t remember.

Notes

Written 18 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Gleditsia triacanthos” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)

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Unpolished

for Skylar

I had found the stone in the snow,
in the space between mountains and ocean,
between rabbits and sandpipers,
between past and future.
I collected her because she is beautiful;
rough hewn and cold,
delicate dusty green nestled in white,
a homogeneous frozen expanse.
I picked her up, rolled her around in my hand,
snow melting through my fingers,
dripping holes into the snow below.
Her texture was porous and it transported me
to the hand of my father’s grandmother.
I’d hold the old woman’s hand as she
told me about her youth, about boys.
Her hands were forged through decades,
shaped and textured in iron-rich soils
and in the kneading of bread.
I recalled boulders along the Red River
where I had not yet learned to be ashamed
of my flamboyance and the swish of my hips.
I remembered running my hands along the surface
of a stone I sat on, my red shoes dangling
above the water streaming by,
wishing I could meld with the river and the trees
and become a part of the mountains of New Mexico.
I looked back at my new treasure, perfectly natural.
I could tumble her as I had tumbled the stones
collected in my youth, from New Mexico
or from my grandmothers garden,
or else purchased at a store especially to polish.
She would shine in the sun, glossy and brilliant,
and her colors would become intense and rich.
I had found the stone in the snow,
in the space between rough and smooth,
between male and female,
between sadness and joy.
I collected her because she is perfect.
I took the rock with me, displayed her
among the treasured glossy specimens,
those enchanting pieces that I admire daily,
somehow now so ordinary.

Notes

Written 17 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Unpolished” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)

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Daucus carota

for Angela

We came together
to write new chapters
and to tell stories,
if only to ourselves.
Some were writing voluminous sagas,
spending time in cabins
they hoped to translate
like a Boris Pasternak
of Alaska’s near-wilderness.
Others wrote their memoirs,
revealing to us all
just how cold snow can feel
to a Samoan family.
We’d laugh at how ridiculous it all seemed,
and at ourselves because we
are all ridiculous and cold.
I worked on new lines of verse,
wrapped up in myself,
observing and reserved.
We were all doing our part,
all trying to be interesting.
Angela would arrive with carrots,
small globes pulled from her own garden,
and some tea from her travels.
Or beets,
pomelos.
The pomelos she’d purchased
at a grocery store because oranges
and grapefuit
are too ordinary.
They invite no questions.
Her story would transport us
to the places in other states and countries
where she had enjoyed a meal,
or to the soil of her garden,
bursting with vegetables.
And we’d talk about gardening
and the carrots
and hunting.
I would watch her face,
framed with a desire
to be accepted,
to be loved,
appreciated for her carrots and pomelos.
My life would hang there,
uninteresting
and I wouldn’t talk about that with her.
I thought about other Angelas
of my past.
They didn’t share beets with me,
and their offices didn’t have
the sweet aroma of a teahouse,
cinnamon, clove, raspberry,
vanilla, soil.
I wonder about the bonfires
I never attended.
The discarded wood,
the friends and beer.
Was Angela there,
bunch of carrots in hand?
I can see her with the glow on her face
from the brilliant fire,
reflections of children or dogs in her eyes,
smiling because she is happy,
always happy.
What about Faydra?
She has surely lit a few fires
in her solitude.
I wonder how brilliant
the fires used to be for her,
I wonder how dull the fires seem now.
Oh, Faydra!
Faydra
Faydra
I wonder if the carrots help
on the days when things
start to collapse.
I worry about the darkness,
understand it.
When our stories are all written,
will we understand the languages
in which they’ve been written?
I find my own language so difficult,
and I worry about understanding
the bonfires we all set for ourselves,
the interest we take in pomelos,
carrots, cabins, the sun, or
which tea goes best
with happiness.

Written 17 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma

Brian Fuchs, “Daucus carota” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)