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Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Our hands were calloused once,
the birds would flit in fields,
chasing grasshoppers off perches.

Those fields were plowed
by grandfathers,
by their grandfathers,
tilled by their horses,
and planted with our foods
in an Oklahoma freshly wounded
by wars and broken treaties.

We were busy running from
countries that no longer felt like home,
too busy rebuilding our families
to notice how the soil we dug
had been taken from a people
whose lives had become
defined by their deaths,
a people who never had the luxury
to find themselves too busy to care.

Still, the birds respected us then,
in our collective mourning.
They were here before,
in an uninhabited and hostile land.
They were here when we marched
our shame into this place,
when it was easier to pretend that
some people aren’t worthy of respect.
If they knew the truth,
they never showed it.

I wonder if flycatchers tell the tales,
if they gather to hear about the time
before the fenceposts,
when the fields were filled with
butterflies and grasshoppers.
I wonder if they cast us as the villains,
if they can see who we really are.
I wonder when they learned about us,
when they began to see our cruelty.

They are moving northward,
the fields still full of food,
away from the children
of the children of the children,
too many generations to understand
this place or to love the land,
away from the deceptions,
away from the delusions,
away from the cowardice.

I’m waiting for Spring,
and I’m watching the fields
for the dancing grey birds,
while they still visit us here,
and I wonder what we have learned,
and how much we still lie to ourselves.

Notes

Written 7 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

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

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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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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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Okie Dokie

We were so young
our crayon-drawn dreams
still hung on refrigerators
My eyes were bright then
my mind full of possibility
We encouraged each other
skipping toward happy futures
we never considered not reaching
I got stuck in moments of youth
flailing my arms and hollering out
for them to turn around
and pull me along
Alrighty-roo, kangaroo
they’d say, but they didn’t stop

Jeff wrote books to impress Molly
Molly baked cakes to impress Jeff
together they placed a star in the sky
for me to look at and be impressed
I was
I tugged at my legs
eager to join the fun
but my legs never move
when I need them
I took out binoculars
looked into the distance at my friends
awards now pinned to their chests
and medals hung around their necks
I wanted awards
I pulled out a bullhorn
called on them to stop
to share the awards with me
and show me the shiny medals
Yipper-skipper, li’l dipper
they’d say, but they didn’t stop

The sky ahead filled with stars
and I was truly impressed
They were meandering and singing
One sang his songs in French
hanging his fancy French star in the sky
It was fancy and impressive and French
Others sang songs about babies
those songs always out of tune
My friends became tiny specks
in the distance, no larger than the stars
songs fading as they went
I was impressed by how far ahead they were
and I stopped struggling
with no chance to catch up
When I had stopped, my feet could finally move
I finally ran forward in the direction of my friends
So, okie dokie, artichokie
I’ll say and I won’t stop

I’ll go read poems by Jennie Lloyd
or some rather poetic obituaries
and I’ll think about the faces
I’ve left in the past
left stuck in the moments of their youth
And maybe Jennie will notice
and show me the path she traveled
warn me about the potholes
She sing me her own song and I’ll love them
humming those songs to myself years later
Maybe I’ll catch up to friends I’ve forgotten
or meet new friends on the path
who have been running toward dreams
we can share with each other
dreams still written on treasured papers
in crayon on refrigerators
I’ll be sure to place my own star in the sky
a bright light to impress the ones still stuck
and when I’m just a speck in the distance
all I’ll think about how all the boys
who never kissed me

Notes

Written 17 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma

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

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Pieces of Dissected Butterflies

I left Tulsa when my friends had died
and we were all set adrift, angry and lost,
wondering if staying meant more of us would die.
I tried to go to Dallas, to a life I wanted.
They boys swarm thickly there,
and I still wonder if my days would have been
spent in the beds of strangers if I’d gone there.
I’ve always longed for the beds of strangers,
to feel taken for granted and awkward.

In moving, I detoured, finding myself in Anchorage,
near the place where my dad spent his youth,
carried on winds I rode for too long, or just long enough.
I was not qualified for life in Alaska,
not qualified for the men who had gone there.
But I was determined to find myself,
or to find Dad in the places where his friends still lived.
His youth was left in an Alaska that no longer exists,
so my mind found new reasons to keep me there.

I found the spaces I understood,
the pockets of the city that seemed familiar,
bookstores filled with other refugees,
of lives that had started to drift.
My mind invented the things I didn’t know
and the people around me became gods.
I didn’t question that, and I formed a religion.
Their lives were spent being perfect
in ways I could never spend my own life.
They are still gods; I pray to them in darkness,
my soul crying out to be acknowledged.

On cold mornings, I liked to price books,
scanning their barcodes and attaching a sticker.
I would think about my friends,
wonder about the shapes of their bodies,
and worry that they could hear my thoughts.
I’d worry that I was saying the thoughts aloud,
and I’d wait for Kevin to go upstairs to inject his insulin
so I could stop thinking about his waist.
I’m still thinking about his waist.
The decade I’ve had to reflect has made me more curious
and sometimes I worry that he can still hear my thoughts.

I have been dissecting butterflies,
stained glass wings pulled apart
by unwieldy spinning steel fingers
as I think about beauty and conformity,
praying to my gods, mindlessly offering
the insects as a tribute.
I didn’t intend this massacre
and in the lawn lie the tiny lifeless parts.
In the hot sun of the places of my youth,
I don’t have new shapes to fill my mind,
new boys to think about.
I dwell on the boys of my past.

I’m reaching back, feeling myself grasping
for people I can’t always recognize,
the names apparitions in my mind.
Some of the gods’ faces have merged & morphed.
I’m taking the ones I wanted the most,
or the ones I wanted to be the most,
and placing their pieces where I can sort them
and try to hold onto them in my mind.
I’m still thinking about waists and hips and shoulders,
still wondering about the firmness of skin.

They haven’t seen me wondering,
their lives have pulled them toward much happier places,
some growing beautifully in Alaska,
others found scattered by the winds
that had first deposited them near me.
The butterflies are whispering secrets,
understandably warning each other about me.
In new cities and states, in their new lives,
they think about the times we spent together
and I go on thinking about their bodies.

Notes

Written 12 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Brian Fuchs, “Pieces of Dissected Butterflies” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)Continue Reading