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Hymn III: Birds & Vapor

Before knowledge, peace existed.
Innocent children don’t long for the touch of others.
I’m reflecting on bird calls,
sorting out in my mind the ones that seem familiar
from the ones that are new.
Except for the mockingbirds —
their song has changed as much as I have.
I can barely tell the difference between
childish pursuits and adult desires.
Except for skin.

I find myself a poor litmus test of what I want,
what I remember wanting.
Whispers in my ear from the past — or is it the future?
I’m forgetting things I thought were important.
I don’t remember the smell of skin pressed against
my face as I sleep.
I’m trying to remember how close I can get to the sun
without tumbling to the ground.
Have I reached that limit?
The men are turning to vapor, mists deposited in a wizard’s pensieve
filled with what I choose to remember as unbridled passion.
I’m searching through windows for faces,
for quiet morning sun spilling in through panes,
spotlighting the drifts of dust as they dance
like a great flock of tiny birds.

It feels like he’s still standing there, if he was ever standing there,
eating cherries on the front porch,
spitting the pits out into the garden.
I am thinking about fruity cereal.
I am thinking about the taste of cherries lingering in his mouth and the taste of mulberries lingering on mine.
I am thinking about birds and music and sex and dust.
I am thinking about the faces, the many overlooked faces.
I am thinking about vaporizing.

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
calling for you and for me;
see, on the portals he’s waiting and watching,
watching for you and for me.


Notes

Written 2 November 2001 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.Continue Reading

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Hymn II: Reading Tolstoy Naked

My reality merges with memories, with desires,
is there a reality? Have these lives been mine?
Events appear in my mind, translucent and ethereal.
A lanky man in the doorway, light spilling
around his silhouette, casting him as a sort of deity,
a cigarette hanging from his lips
like he’s come from a previous century.
A burly man, his chest a thicket
of soft hair for fingers to explore,
reading Tolstoy in a dimly-lit living room, still naked.
The lamplight shines on his skin, casting strange shadows.
Is he really there?

I’m searching through faces,
longing for the smell of cigarette
smoke rubbed on my back as I’m
pulled toward a mouth still tasting of tobacco.
Or maybe I’ll find myself coyly asking about Russian literature,
massaging muscular shoulders, satisfyingly corporeal.
I’m distracting him and pretending not to be distracted by him.
I’ll kiss him until everything is wet and beautiful.
Imaginary friends rarely press their lips back,
and never with such force.

I’m searching through faces,
watching men sleep for hours.
Eyelids dance as they dream and I wonder
about the wide-eyed boy, belly full of mulberries,
a face on fire from the attention of adults, strangers.
He didn’t know about men and the uncontrollable smiles
of the attention of adults, strangers. I miss him.
The nights are filled with breathing and rustling, peaceful.
The mornings are filled with coffee and cigarettes
or the pungent sweetness of a joint
which I pretend to enjoy because he does.
Weekends are a tangle of arms and legs, old movies,
sweaty and lazy afternoons.

It is well
It is well with my soul

I stay, huddled on beds or floors.
I don’t tell stories about playing in the woods,
or about finding an armadillo skeleton,
or about my preschool teacher.
I’m searching through faces
for the man who wants to know.

Notes

Written 29 October 2001 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.Continue Reading

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Gold Bugs II

The search has continued,
and I have come to realize
the lack of significance
in so many things.
That valued token,
the small French bauble
must have reminded you of me.
It is now with me, where it can
now remind me of you
and of our searches.
I’ve placed it among my most
treasured items,
the most precious among them.
You weren’t warm,
and you didn’t smile.
They had forgotten to adorn you
with the shells from your backyard,
the discarded husks of aging insects.
I imagined them there in your hair,
sprayed gold and violet, resting
against the grey beautiful mass.

Notes

Written 1 March 2001 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Gold Bugs II” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)Continue Reading

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Hymn I: Mulberries

I didn’t know then what I didn’t know,
what I wanted to know.
Desire was reserved for cartoons on Saturday morning
and drinking our bowls of fruity cereal flavored milk.
My bowl would be abandoned next to those of
brothers, and we would go outside for the day,
exploring the spaces already familiar.
We would eat mulberries until we felt sick,
or we would run down to the
wooded area where ours met the adjacent street.
My days were spent being alone in groups,
keeping to myself and drifting off in to the clouds,
thinking about how beautiful everything is.

A smell wakes me from the foggy daydreams
of childhood. The ends are pulling at me,
I’m remembering experiences I haven’t had.
Leather and old cologne… and sweat.
Absence and anticipation compete for the space,
waiting is agony when the body has been
unlocked, when the ignorance melts away.
I’m searching through faces,
looking for cowboy boots (I think)
or the smell of fruity cereal and milk.
I’m waiting to feel hands on my skin,
imagining them rough and gritty, remembering
a feeling I’m still anticipating. I know these things now,
I feel them in my heart and in my groin.

Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me
I was once lost
but now I’m found
Was blind
but now I see

I want to conceal the existence of my youth,
but I want to share stories about morning cartoons
on exhausted weekend mornings when he and I
would rather stay in bed than face the lives that existed
before one another, without one another.
These days before him are long, full of longing.
My skin is eager for the feeling of another’s skin. I’m searching through faces,
forcing myself into crowds,
looking for the boots, cologne, memories, dawn.
I am looking for a man with bad habits,
who I can grow to resent, a person who doesn’t want me.
I can still taste the mulberries
and I can already feel his body.

Notes

Written 28 December 2000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Hymn I: Mulberries” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)

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An Exposed Thread

An image of G sticks with me:
lying in the beautiful soft pink,
a thread exposed on her lower lip.
An imperfection.
A delicate mistake,
almost beautiful,
revealing the truth concealed by layers
of concealer and foundation.
Something was odd about her mouth,
it wasn’t right…
she was made of resin or wax,
a replica of the woman I love.
Her vacant expression,
the nonsensical sleeping façade,
glasses on like she’d need them for reading
later when the casket was in the ground
and she had become bored of her situation.
G wound’t have been proud of me,
of how weak I felt in her presence,
of how I couldn’t touch her,
couldn’t speak to her,
couldn’t pretend that she was napping,
especially with the thread exposed,
pulled through, pushed into my heart,
anchoring me to this awareness.
I’m haunted by her waxy face,
the rigid opacity of her wrinkles,
the horror of loss.
An image of G sticks with me:
imperfection,
silence.
That shell won’t leave me,
and I guess I don’t want it to.

Written 26 December 2000 in Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “An Exposed Thread” from Muskox vs. Unicorn (Scissortail Press, 2020) Continue Reading

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G

in memory of G, a mystery

Strange woman, you left us
wondering who you were and
why you couldn’t go on.
I waited and waited and still
thought I had more time — these
things don’t happen to me —
the strong always survive —
this should be the fairytale.
It’s not. Your secrets were
your secrets — tiny new pearls
in the oyster of your life.
That mussel was enough for
me. You secrets are now eternal.

Brent and I still made noise
(the irritating chatter you always
hated). We didn’t even try not to,
hoping you’d sit up and tell us
to cut it out. We miss you.

I never found a new gold bug
for you and I am sorry. I’m not
sure I really tried. Probably not.

I do not think I was kind to you,
lovely woman. Reverent, yes.
Respectful, yes. Committed, yes.
But kind…? Dear woman, I loved
you deeply. I hate the days
I put off visiting. I hate that I wasn’t
there at the end for you, though
I know you felt me there —
I pray you were somehow comforted
by that.

When I saw you, you were weak — very weak.
You were artificially alive with tubes and knobs
and gauges and buttons — it wasn’t you in
that shell. I could see you fight; try to get back —
get back to what…? I know you didn’t want this.
Pain…medication…doctors…nurses…anger…tears.

I cried for you — hard. Some of the tears were guilt
(I never did enough). Most was pain — separation.
I never wanted you to go and I almost couldn’t take it.

12.21.2000Continue Reading

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Gold Bugs I

Stop hiding secrets in jewelry boxes
with your finest turquoise pieces,
prized possessions from a vacation,
a former home — I never asked.
Can you see me reach my hand to you,
and still hold too loosely?
Can you feel me slip and turn away?
I am only gone a moment;
I must search for another
rare golden bug we have discussed
for so many hours, silently.
I found one in France,
in the heat of a Provincial market.
I cried when I heard you valued that trinket.
Where should I go next?
Egypt, where they have lovely scarabs?
Maybe I should simply spray a cicada shell,
a false and dazzling interpretation.
It seems important to find these tokens;
they enhance your warm face
and make you smile.
Smile more!
When you do, I feel warm
and I long to search for more bugs.

Notes

Written 4 February 2000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Gold Bugs I” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)Continue Reading