“little SUPERHEROES”
2020-07-01
Written on or before 9 March 1998 in Claremore, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “little SUPERHEROES” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“Unpolished”
2020-06-30
Written 17 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “Unpolished” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)
“Campsis radicans”
2020-02-20
Campsis radicans
That house still haunts me;
the absences I feel are extreme.
Brad has kept the trumpet vines,
electric and intense like himself.
He pulled the irises that were once
lining the paths and taking breath
away from visitors as they passed.
The enormous black-purple blooms,
now towering only in our memory.
He inherited too much and not enough,
spending time and money adjusting,
spreading out and stamping his energy
onto the places that had been our center.
He’s added alcohol to the room where
my grandma’s last moments began,
highlighting the permanence of it all.
Where there was once an annual
display of daisies and cleomes,
a chainlink box sits, overgrown with
those intense trumpet vines.
The garden is all wild and unkempt,
like he’s trying to preserve something
that cannot be contained or suppressed.
Life spills out from our dark spots.
The house was full of undue pressures,
now settled into a gritty beauty.
The roots will continue to grow,
the trumpet vines will spread,
and one day my nephew’s children
will wipe tears from their eyes when
they visit a house that meant so much.
And they’ll talk about the intensity
and how much they’d give to have it back.
Written 20 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “Campsis radicans” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“Stillwater, Oklahoma : 4. Promises”
2020-02-19
Stillwater, Oklahoma
4. PROMISES
I’ve seen life’s simplicity and it made me smile.
I’ve watched the horses in their fields on the town’s edge,
visited cattle lounging in shade in July.
I’ve waved at the farmers on their tractors, thanked them.
I’ve laughed at the new goats frolicking and climbing.
I’ve seen your fuchsia redbuds in bloom, buds bursting.
I’ve seen joyful petals pushing out of branches,
the promise of Spring and potential of April.
I’ve chased butterflies, paused to follow scissortails,
I’ve danced with grackles with their long velvet feathers.
I’ve felt the sun on my back, warm and oppressive.
I’ve wondered in late Summer if the heat would leave,
felt the scorched grass and falling leaves of September.
I’ve found joy in the heat, remembering Autumn.
I’ve daydreamed about the promise and chill it brings.
Written 19 February 2020
Brian Fuchs, “Stillwater, Oklahoma” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“Stillwater, Oklahoma : 3. Throwing Spheres”
2020-02-19
Stillwater, Oklahoma
3. THROWING SPHERES: A MIRRORED CLOGYRNACH
My boyhood never depended
on throwing spheres like all men did.
I so often mused
if I had confused
dead with bruised
God forbid
Days in parks,
I’d explore
searching woodland floors
for seed pods and more.
Imagined tree friends, their rough bark
I’d so much missed since our last lark.
“that scattered belt of forest land, about forty miles in width, which stretches across the country from north to south, from the Arkansas to the Red River, separating the upper from the lower prairies, and commonly called the “Cross Timber.” — Washington Irving
Written 19 February 2020
Brian Fuchs, “Stillwater, Oklahoma” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“Stillwater, Oklahoma : 2. Weather”
2020-02-19
Stillwater, Oklahoma
2. THE WEATHER
I have stood under skies full of rain.
I have been a scared child, comforted
by the clouds which might burst into storms,
and by hail, the chaos of thunder.
I have seen the bright sun in the sky,
oddly close, maybe more than before,
close enough to reach up, touch its rays
if not for exhaustion from the heat.
Everything start to wilt on those days,
our spirits, slumped lilies still standing,
thinking back on Easter’s soft beauty.
Written 19 February 2020
Brian Fuchs, “Stillwater, Oklahoma” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“Stillwater, Oklahoma : 1. Heartbeat”
2020-02-19
Stillwater, Oklahoma
1. HEARTBEAT
“a vast and magnificent landscape. The prairies bordering on the rivers are always varied in this way with woodland, so beautifully interspersed as to appear to have been laid out by the hand of taste… to rival the most ornamented scenery of Europe.” — Washington Irving
I’ve felt your beating heart;
thump thump… thump thump… thump thump…
thump thump… thump thump… thump thump…
Old folks still make weekly
pilgrimages to pray,
to seek God and solace.
Many hours of my youth
I spent rubbing the hands
of my grandma, wrinkled
and loose-skinned like mine now,
while the congregation
sang hymns from “the blue book,”
while old family friends
talked about love, dryly
reciting the red words.
Three times or more a week,
we’d gather to worship.
Thump thump… thump thump… thump thump…
I have felt the comfort
of belonging there, fell
for empty dogma long
before my welcome stopped.
Written 19 February 2020
Brian Fuchs, “Stillwater, Oklahoma” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“Skyline & McElroy”
2020-02-15
Skyline & McElroy
These spaces were once open wide;
we explored the details for hours.
They seem to darken and cower;
now they shrink, wither, and divide.
Free, we stretched our wings fearlessly.
We never thought we’d have bad luck
even after Christine was struck
and Rusty was rushed urgently,
tire and concrete in his face,
to the E.R. for doctors’ care.
We’d still head on bikes anywhere
while those two recovered en brace.
Oh joy! to feel that wind rushing,
to ride down hills foolheartedly,
to find the paths left secretly,
to forget near tragic crushing.
Now, Gayane’s final act is all
the excitement I dare to take.
The shrinking neighborhoods forsake
my inner child — they’ve turned small.
Written 15 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “Skyline & McElroy” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“My Native Valley”
2020-02-15
My Native Valley
Lacosha! you kept passing by.
We never picked bright yellow
flowers in the fields on Spring mornings,
and we never chased rabbits
through people’s backyards on
Autumn afternoons.
I’m still looking for words,
my voice muffled by fear,
to invite you to my birthday party.
Written 15 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “My Native Valley” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“New Kids on the Block”
2020-02-15
New Kids on the Block
If the spaces under the highway
had been a passage to a great
underground city, I’d still be there
living among the mole people,
still listening to your sister’s cassettes.
It was always over as soon as it started,
and I longed for you for years after.
The gas station stopped selling gas;
it’s just as well. I don’t drive that way
anymore and I don’t want the salty chips
we used to get before spending afternoons
listening to music at your house.
You’ve grown too great for me to see
and I’ve started shrinking into the cracks,
barely leaving a mark behind to find.
I’ll see you at the next protest
on the steps of the state capital.
I wonder if I’ll still be visible by then.
Written 15 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “New Kids on the Block” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“Cakewalk”
2020-02-15
Cakewalk
The mint’s taken over
and we just watched it,
eating sandwiches, piled
with fresh tomatoes picked
from the garden.
Love is letting a plant take
over a meticulously tended
bed for a child’s whim.
The tomatoes are gone,
and the mint reminds me
that things used to be
full of everything good.
Written 15 February 2020
Brian Fuchs, “Cakewalk” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“Legg-Calvé-Perthes Cocoon”
2020-02-07
Legg-Calvé-Perthes Cocoon
I’m more reptilian than Russian.
My parts have grown back,
and I’ve shed myself so many times,
expecting somehow to find smaller
versions of myself.
I haven’t grown smaller.
I test my legs often,
waiting for cracks to form
and for the new leg beneath
to emerge, emaciated and pale,
like it was the last time.
I thought I was a butterfly once,
and I fantasized about emerging
beautiful like the people I’m not.
I haven’t emerged beautiful.
Reinvention is either a myth
or a luxury of youth.
I tried so many times,
but I am more like myself now
than I ever was before.
It’s been thirty-five years
since the casts fixed my form
and my legs were allowed
to regrow.
I’m still waiting for it
to happen again,
knowing it won’t,
wishing it would.
I’m not so filled with new versions
as I was before,
and I’ve given up on beauty.
It was alway a lie anyway.
I long to know where
the beautiful people’s cracks form,
and what they expected to become.
Written 7 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “Legg-Calvé-Perthes Cocoon” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
“Quentin Clingerman Has Died”
2019-09-21
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.
Written 21 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “Quentin Clingerman Has Died” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)
“Triticum aestivum”
2019-09-20
Triticum aestivum
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.
Written 20 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma
Brian Fuchs, “Triticum aestivum” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)