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All Growed Up

The icons are all dead or broken,
ushered off in wheelchairs and caskets of immoral expense to paradises
surrounded by wildness.
My childhood crumbles without the support of the ones I admired and by the weight of my guilts and follies.
That time of heroes is so distant — it no longer even feels like a dream,
no longer feels like a memory.
The blurred fragments of the Sues, the Mikes, the D’Jielas… they are fading into emptiness,
leaving me with a search for new people to look up to, if anyone.
I miss the me who was in that time, but celebrate his death.
The me of now is an improvement, a focused replica of an aimless child.
The slate has been cleaned and readied for the new icons to place on pedestals.

13 September 2008

Notes

Written 13 September 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska.

Brian Fuchs, “All Growed Up” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)Continue Reading

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Summer reappeared briefly (I assume). It was a beautiful July 31, all of which I spent at work. Even during my lunch, I stayed inside enjoying soup I hoped would chase away the cold I’m desperately trying to not get. Thanks to the pusher at work today who slipped me a Mucinex D. It was a glorious hour of medicine-head bliss, perhaps the best hour of my day.

Of all worthless endeavors, I have appointed myself Ambassador to Serendipity, compiling information and researching release dates for the entire series penned by Stephen Cosgrove and illustrated with doe-eyed critters by Robin James. To me, they epitomize childhood in a way and I’d like information to be more readily available. To that end, I am reading, rereading, and analyzing. Many of the books have been rewritten more recently, prompting comparison between original and revised editions. Every single book is either sappy or preachy, but in an excellent way. They represent purity and simplicity and messages children don’t often get in such straightforward ways. It might even be interesting to work on a book about the series, offering histories and information for each book, as well as memories of the books by those who enjoyed them as a piece of childhood like I did.

Stephen Cosgrove’s Website

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Semiprecious

Turquoise makes me sad
because my grandmother is dead.

Notes

Written 15 July 2004 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Semiprecious” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)

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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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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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Gossip

French kissing was becoming the fashion
when we spent our afternoons learning
about poker and giggling about sex.
Years later, some of the girls got pregnant,
dropped out of school suddenly
while we all pretended not to know.

Notes

Written 29 January 2000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Gossip” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)