“Gleditsia triacanthos”

On: 18 September 2019

Gleditsia triacanthos

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)

“The Rain”

By: Brian

On: 5 September 2019

With: 0 Comments

The Rain

I’m still waiting outside for rain,
hoping for sudden downpours from cloudless skies.
I’m wondering if she’ll join me when the first drops
start to fall and the birds fall silent.
She’s been delayed, I’ve told myself again,
or the rain hasn’t been enough.
It has never been enough
I’ve summoned more and more rain,
for over a year I’ve coaxed it from the air,
the ground sometimes swelling, saturated and marshy.

Brush Creek has filled to overflowing,
washing out parts of the road and clearing out
the debris of our distractions.
It has not been enough.
The Cimarron & Arkansas Rivers have been flooded,
swallowing homes and memories,
lives lost and inconvenienced.
Still she has not arrived.
I continue my incantations, calling for more clouds,
more rain — great hurricanes that try to find me,
creeping along the coasts, tied to the oceans.
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, The Bahamas, Puerto Rico,
they may all need to be sacrificed in my efforts,
and it will be worth the loss because I will
no longer feel like I am alone.
I am listening for those first signs, the drips on the tin roof
and I am ready to throw open the windows,
clench my fists, and try to push my dreams into reality.
I know she will join me if I keep trying,
and we will sit together on the covered porch,
resuming what should still be.

Notes

Written 5 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

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

“Cercis canadensis”

By: Brian

On: 19 April 2019

With: 0 Comments

Cercis canadensis

When we had tried
putting ourselves together again
we’d used the wrong parts,
made effigies of ourselves
with the piles of distorted junk,
left behind scraps of a once-full life.
We went through the motions of people
spoke like them, practicing their accents,
but did not understand our own words.
We got the phrases wrong,
the tones, the memories.
Periodically, we’d erupt into full color
flowers growing from every part
and our days seemed alive with joy.
But we would catch ourselves lost in time,
eyes fixed on a long-abandoned walker,
a long-absent bed,
a long-neglected garden,
at the things we find so important now
and the flowers would fall from our bodies.
I gave up on trying to find the parts
of myself I missed most,
stopped looking for who I had been before.I’ve been more comfortable with discomfort,
waiting for others to finally leave the safety
of their beds, the safety of their tears.
And we’ve started to share ourselves again,
imagining Spring, redbuds flushed fuchsia,
grief removed from our shoulders,
sadness washed from our faces
by the showers of April and storms of May.
We will remember how to be happy
and how to be sad and how to be,
and we’ll see the long-forgotten remnants
and we will understand who we are.

Notes

Written 19 April 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma. Rewritten 5 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

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

Cercis canadensis

When we had tried
putting ourselves together again
we’d used the wrong parts,
made effigies of ourselves
with the piles of distorted junk,
left behind scraps of a once-full life.
We went through the motions of people
spoke like them, practicing their accents,
but did not understand our own words.
We got the phrases wrong,
the tones, the memories.
Periodically, we’d erupt into full color
flowers growing from every part
and our days seemed alive with joy.
But we would catch ourselves lost in time,
eyes fixed on a long-abandoned walker,
a long-absent bed,
a long-neglected garden,
at the things we find so important now
and the flowers would fall from our bodies.
I gave up on trying to find the parts
of myself I missed most,
stopped looking for who I had been before.
I’ve been more comfortable with discomfort,
waiting for others to finally leave the safety
of their beds, the safety of their tears.
And we’ve started to share ourselves again,
imagining Spring, redbuds flushed fuchsia,
grief removed from our shoulders,
sadness washed from our faces
by the showers of April and storms of May.
We will remember how to be happy
and how to be sad and how to be,
and we’ll see the long-forgotten remnants
and we will understand who we are.

“David Eugene, look at me when I’m thinking about you!”

By: Brian

On: 7 September 2018

With: 0 Comments

David Eugene, look at me when I’m thinking about you!

I’m a disciple, a child of your narcissism.
an inadequate acolyte of your worst impulses,
treasonous and suspicious, even in my reverence.
Love is wrapped in sarcasm, in mocking and making-fun.
I pray these are truths, and that you are as transparent as you seem.

I only see the Davids for who they are,
blind to who they want me to see, who they wish they were.
I only see you for who you are,
but I feel the person you want me to be
growing cynically inside.
Oh David, do you not recognize the idolatry in my loyalty?
Does my face not give away my desire to be looking at my own face
when I am looking at you?

The tears stay close, pooling in eyelids, fighting their impulse
to race down my cheek toward knowing I am fully myself,
and not who I am trying to be.
I am trying to be bold in the ways you expect,
no longer cowering in the corners where you found me.
I remember the safety of home, and the emptiness.
I felt safe in my denial, but I am liberated by your sacred teachings.

I grovel, prostrate myself before you,
foolishly and joyously feeding your need for attention.
David, you have shown me that you are more important than I am.
You are more than I am. You are existence.
I meant to steal the hearts of those around you,
meant to show them how much I had learned at your feet.
They exist, you exist, and I have revealed myself to be fragments.
You have reassured me, patted my head like a Lhasa apso,
my head cocked to one side as I attentively await praise.

Oh David, I have not been enough!
The fragments have betrayed me and revealed that I am not whole.
I’ve tried holding them together with glues and tape,
but the picture never seems real;
the other congregants have moved on, my failings insurmountable.
They have found me lacking and are uncomfortable in my presence.
Selfishness is a difficult lesson to learn; I am trying.

I’m still dwelling on my heartache, trying to release it,
unchaining my tongue and allowing bravery to escape,
to become the person I see in you, David,
or to at least to become someone whole, beautiful and brazen,
someone rewarded with love, sex, warmth.
I humbly bow, giving thanks for even a chance
to be blessed by your acceptance.

Notes

Brian Fuchs, “David Eugene, look at me when I’m thinking about you” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)

Written 17 March 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska & 7 September 2018 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

Original version posted 17 March 2008

and also and so and so and also

By: Brian

On: 17 August 2018

With: 0 Comments

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)

A few days ago, while organizing paperwork and whatnot, I came across my writing journals from college. It’s interesting to revisit oneself after 20 years. It felt familiar, but not so much that I recognized the author. I could remember writing the words, but the fact that I had done so struck me as bizarre. For the most part, I didn’t like the person who had written those poems and fragments and notes. He seemed silly, immature, and at times overly serious. I wish I could go back and tell him the things I have learned on my journey.

That said, I haven’t been writing much lately. I haven’t even journaled this summer for obvious reasons. But I’m very much feeling the words gathering into lines in my head, and I am eager to write more poetry. I’d been in a dry spell on poetry, but mostly that was due to the lack of quiet I had been dealing with. Quiet seems easier to achieve recently. That should help.

When I was studying literature, it was easy to fall for specific authors who I just connected with. It wasn’t always clear why those connections happened, but it was this that introduced me to Galway Kinnell, Sylvia Plath, Frank O’Hara, Geoffrey Chaucer, & Tim O’Brien. I latched on to these, and to others, quickly and they helped guide the type of writer I would be. I was also discovering contemporary authors at that time in my life and their words would guide me as well — Jim Grimsley, Bob Smith, Gary Reed. Gertrude Stein was one of the authors I discovered in class, having been aware of her for most of my life. It’s odd how little one can know about someone who has such a well-known name.

Gertrude Stein wrote in several different styles, but all of it was filled with her characteristic repetition and rhythm. I was especially interested in added that to my own work, and I gave it a try many times. It’s something that still comes up. A nod to Stein is a very common practice for me, and I thank her for being one of my muses.

“Armadillo”

By: Brian

On: 30 April 2018

With: 0 Comments

Armadillo

I squish through
henbit and moist soil
under moonlight, slowly
taking the usual path,
intriguing cats who think
they might soon be fed
and startling an armadillo
digging for grubs or worms
in the yard, ensuring that
it will continue being soft
and moist.
She’s a frequent visitor,
nearly at times earning
a name, an honor not
even given to the cats I feed.
The distance increases,
nightly pulling, stretching.
The air is cold and heavy,
the armadillo a distraction
from the fear and frustration
I find myself falling toward.
I’m anxious to see Mom,
the path has turned to gravel
and the house seems further
than it was last night,
when the armadillo was on
the other side of the yard,
making a racket through
last year’s dry leaves
still undisturbed where
they fell, spilling out
around the trunks of trees.
One day, the nights
will be for sleeping
and everyone will be whole.

Notes

Written April 2018 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

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

International Postcard Week 2017

By: Brian

On: 28 September 2017

With: 1 Comment

Next week is International Postcard Week. Check out the website for info. It’s a bit late, but it’s good info if you are interested in doing it in the future. In March there is a “National Postcard Week” as well, so get your designs ready!

So, I haven’t been very quick to join these sorts of events, but I don’t have a good excuse. This time I did join, along with my mom, LaDonna Fuchs, and friend Justin Ward. Here are our cards for this year. Once the event is over, I will have the cards available from here to send for free. Stay tuned….

“Dale”

By: Brian

On: 25 July 2015

With: 0 Comments

Dale

I sought the council of trees, Dale’s name lingering in my head,
hoping to glean wisdom from the aged assembly,
hoping to hear God through the woody branches.
I studied the structure of oak leaves, how each attached to a branch;
watched sunlight fall through the new growth on cedars;
made note of the greenbriar’s leafy fingers wrapping around the trunks of pecans.
The world was still and hot and dotted with tiny white butterflies
emerging from the thickets to enjoy a field of nectar-filled flowers in the afternoon sun.
My mind had been typically cluttered, with family dramas,
thirteen years of grief, first loves, comedy routines,
and parts of a jingle from a TV commercial I remembered from childhood.
Sitting in the surrounding quiet, I waited for the ancient botanical knowledge,
letting those thoughts drop away, heavy and viscous,
and leaving behind a calm in which I could almost hear the butterflies landing on petals.
The wind came gently then, in small bursts that the oaks seem to enjoy,
allowing the trees to flit thousands of leaves about merrily.
A rustle, a calm and relaxing rustle accompanied by silent mimics,
of a host of lesser plants vying for the favor of the post oaks,
standing as the monarchs of this dry woodland.
A slightly stronger breeze, a creaking sound as older specimens swayed,
some long dead, the bony outer branches moaning hauntingly in the current.
The tranquility was broken, butterflies scattered unceremoniously into the air,
having been blown off their perches by a strong wind that moved through the grasses,
flattening it in waves as it moved across the expanses.
When the wind reached the sentinels of trees standing bravely against it,
they found themselves unprepared and leaves and branches erupted into chaos.
Dale had died.
He had been my namesake, the hero and villain of his own stories,
his name lingered, attached to mine as a reminder of who he no longer was
and as a reminder of who he had been capable of being,
a reminder of who we all had been, of what we wanted to say we had been.
And now he was gone. As the gust moved on in the distance,
stillness returned to the trees and I still faced them, waiting for answers.
We were all there, waiting for different pieces, prostrating ourselves before them.
The instructions were lost, the knowledge never passed on,
the person whose position had been placed so highly seeming to fade
with great distances, separated by different trees, grasses, weeds.
His name lingered, attached to mine as a reminder that we should hold on,
hold him up as he fell, his wings revealed to be a mirage.
It was not always enough, we were not always enough,
and we allowed Dale to slip into humanness.
The trees had again become silent. The distances now as close as they would ever be,
as far somehow as they had felt before when inscribed books would
arrive by mail, wrapped in symbols of birthdays or holidays or plainly
when a book had piqued Dale’s desire to share it with me,
a boy he barely knew, but to whom his name was attached.
And there were songs and great conversations, which are things
of which plants know little. And things that had defined him
so importantly that it felt proper to discuss them now, with God or the trees.
The heat had started to intensify; beads of sweat formed on my neck and face.
Still I waited, knowing that lives had become altered, knowing that we had reached
both the beginning and the end of everything.
And I thought about whittled walking sticks, carefully crafted from the new growth.
His name lingered in my mind, attached to the trees, I now realized, a part of it.
The presence of butterflies had increased in my focused state;
they now seemed to be everywhere, clustered on flowers
and dancing through the space between the trees.
I turned and went back to the house, knowing and not knowing,
melding now with the air and grass, with the trees.
And I thought about Dale, his name lingering there, attached to mine,
attached to the moment and those memories,
attached to the wings of hundreds of tiny butterflies
And I smiled because I had known him.

Notes

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

Written 25 July 2015 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

«Quercus shumardii»

By: Brian

On: 7 June 2014

With: 0 Comments

Quercus shumardii

for Papa

A great tree has uprooted,
exposing the branching mass
caked in the red soil of the Western Plains.
What was parched had been made rich and loamy
by the giants that fell before,
pioneering specimens that germinated and made
a home under the endless horizon of Oklahoma.
The water that made those plants flourish
had come from England and Ireland,
from Galilee and Missouri.
The roots of those ancestors fed the saplings
of the new generation.
Entwined, two young trees grew close together,
feeding on one another,
strengthening each other’s roots.
Acorns became a thicket and then a forest,
spreading out in all directions.
The flaming red soil has changed over time,
fertilized, nurtured, enriched.
The acorns have been found scattered,
rooting in Texas and Colorado,
in Alaska and Kentucky.
A tradition of strength and serenity
tested in new soils, clays and sands,
ultisols, entisols, crider and port silt loam.
Lightning took out the second tree,
ripped away what had been life,
forcing the survivor to stretch out new branches
to cover the fallen companion,
to show strength in the face of tragedy,
to learn to love when love seemed to disappear.
The branches, sprawling out massively,
became only sparsely covered with leaves, but
never lost their majesty, their humility, kindness, dignity.
Now the great tree has joined its long-fallen partner,
stretched at the base among those it had given life to,
cradled by the thick trunks of trees
that have become mighty themselves.
They stretch impressively toward Heaven,
mimicking the once proud figures
now so apparently absent in the canopy.
The sun can once again burst through,
but this is no longer the harsh and arid place
it was when ancestors first arrived.
In the clearing a small field of flowers
will spring up in memorial,
attracting the beauty of birds and insects
until new saplings join the congregation.
That great tree is now one of the ancestors,
enriching the soils for future generations.

6.7.2014

Notes

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

Written 7 June 2014 in Glencoe, Oklahoma

HANDOUTS FROM FUNERAL (Poem included as “The Tree”)

Posted 7 June 2014

“Meeting Skylar & Wesleyan at the Grey Gardens Disco”

By: Brian

On: 2 December 2012

With: 0 Comments

Meeting Skylar & Wesleyan at the Grey Gardens Disco

Secrets feel more like friends than flesh,

written on the tightly rolled scrolls and tied loosely with a scrap of string.
These are the days when life is slipping past so quickly that I cannot seem to find a way back to it, a way to engage. I want to write my own secrets on tiny scrolls, but their contents would drive away even those I’m barely clinging to and they’d slip further into the torrent
away from me.

Time has been cruel, much more than I could have expected.

Mine will be the story that goes untold, unrecorded, unremembered.
Inaction fuels inaction and so I do not move, do not move, do not move. There are lives happening, I’ve been told, beyond the threshold I’m so afraid to cross. The moments I should’ve had hold me back, keep me wondering, force me into the safety of my empty bed
where the quiet loneliness can comfort me.

After the house has filled with leaves and dust and snow,

beyond the carefully orchestrated solitude, celebrations go on without me.
The most beautiful hear the music within themselves, gaily swinging auburn hair and laughing at their own unfunny puns. Merriment and giddiness come on like migraines and I find myself waving a flag and dancing joyously, still unable to coax myself from my home.
Happiness feels so foreign.

Ugliness greets me in every mirror, an old addictive friend

and the voids I’ve created have grown to feel comfortable on my miserable soul.
I’ve failed to learn the steps, and I am terrified that the dance will go on with out me. I look at the hollowness of the collected things around me, dismayed that I’ve become this me. This is the me that will keep happiness in its place
far away.

Nothing excuses knowing about leopard print,

a secret that seems to have allowed me to let go of ill-advised longings.
How incredibly sad it is to not find me so alluring that you can see past my plentiful flaws. I have known for quite some time that if I live my life alone, dying before I know love, that it is not me who is to blame, although I understand the temptation. It is others
who fail to see how happy I would make them.

Could these children have caused my empty world’s destruction?

set in motion events that will cause this tomb around me to collapse.
It’s too soon to know, but I welcome the crumbling. My stacks of nonsense are poised to fall into a blissful abyss. Oh, what exquisite joy I know I will feel when the rooms are all empty and there is just me to fill the space.
And someone to help me fill it, I hope.

Hope, indeed. It is all that keeps me from dropping into the crevasse myself,

cementing my loneliness forever with my inability to change.
I’ve begun to remember who I used to be and have found people who make me hate myself less and less every moment. But not even their patience can be endless, so if I am not to miss out on the Brian I’ve been trying to become again, I need to ask fast
and meet my friends for a drink.

We struggle for life, gasp for water
and we die, wriggling and contorting into position.
Our dried carcasses serve as amusement.
Fifty years we’ve been on display,
dust gathering in our rigid and bony structures,
souvenirs for those whose lives were more exciting.
They pull us out to reminisce about their wild youth,
our magic now stripped by time,
and they talk to each other about us and how they miss us.

Some of them forget about us,
about how we thrived in the waters before being rescued,
collected as memorials.
They don’t know about the vibrant reefs like we do,
about the others who didn’t make it or we carried back
to other grey places where they too would be forgotten.
Many of us are labeled for easy identification,
classified and sorted so onlookers can gaze at our husks
in wonderment or disgust… or a bit of both.
Our tiny bodies have become too numerous,
too many have been broken or discarded,
but most of us will fade into the dark obscurity, lost.

The new fashion has been to provide a tank,
to adopt a bit of our habitat and collect several specimens,
lives lived with names and memorialized
as members of families, temporary and disposable.
We exist as novelty, and still a part of their youth,
a part of that colorful past they will talk about one day,
sharing the photos with their children and grandchildren.
They’ll talk about us, about how much they love us,
pulling us from the drawers and boxes to prove themselves,
they’ll show videos they took of the tanks filled with water,
convinced that they are showing great love for us.
But when they are no longer beings asked to show off
their specimens, their carefully curated collections,
they’ll put us away again and go back to their real lives.

We will keep wishing that our dried bodies would stop
finding their way into souvenir shops of those who
do not want to dip into the water and experience our lives.
We don’t want to live in tanks either, playthings of people
who do not understand that our beauty has not been for them,
that our magic was meant for ourselves.

The sun is coming up on the horizon,
Christopher Street is quieter than it used to be,
and I wonder if a generation is coming
who will realize the world that was fought for,
and I wonder if they will long for the days
when they were precious trinkets of other people’s youth.

Notes

Written 1 July 2009 in Anchorage, Alaska & 5 September 2019 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

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

Original version

poet (Page 3)

Gleditsia triacanthos

The Rain

Cercis canadensis

Cercis canadensis

David Eugene, look at me when I’m thinking about you!

Armadillo

Dale

Quercus shumardii

Meeting Skylar & Wesleyan at the Grey Gardens Disco

12:07 am 4.14.12

Earthquake Season

Daniel Naranjo

Geneva

Seahorses