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Duncan, Oklahoma

His fingers skip over piano keys,
his eyes close to take in the moment
or to imagine me more handsome.
He takes me to a dark restaurant
and I preoccupy my mind with
the notion that he is trying to hide me,
ashamed that he has made such an error.
I cannot enjoy the food or the conversation,
worried about returning to his house,
which he keeps too clean.
Why is it so clean?
Does he see me?
Does he know what I’m thinking?
The music he played seemed sad
when I thought about it later,
sitting in a car still scented with newness.
Am I messing this up? What is this?
The car is too clean and I don’t know
where to put my words.
He’s speaking with an accent of anticipation,
using phrases that clarify his disappointment
to me, even though I am not listening.
His eyes were closed as he played the piano.
Was he thinking about how much he wanted me?
Was he thinking about older men? Younger?
I don’t know how to be what he was expecting; I try.
I talk about my youth, my immaturity,
the words exposing the distance between us.
He’s thirty-six years old, twice my age.
We return to the sterile house, the gaps widening.
I stay, unclear why I have come here.
The night is uncomfortably quiet and cold,
I sleep in his house, in a guest room.
I drive three hours back to my own home in the morning,
back to a house that is never clean,
back to a life that isn’t filled with unspoken longing.
For weeks, the emails stop. I was not enough,
I didn’t know how to be enough,
did not understand what enough meant.
I regret being me when I arrived at his house,
convince myself that I have orchestrated a deceit.
He plays his piano at home alone, he closes his eyes
and thinks only about the music.

Notes

Written 1 October 2018 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

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

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Dempsey, Oklahoma

Squash vines coiled
in and around, spilling &
tumbling over each other,
exploding with fruit,
filled with more water
than this place had seen
since May.
Those vines grew wild
alongside bindweed
in the garden that once
fed a whole family,
the jars lined up in the
dugout cellar —
apricots, potatoes, beans.
We used to play in those
places as they turned to ruins,
our historic homeland.
We’d take watermelon rind,
or cantaloupe halves out
for the overheated cows,
leave the fruit near the salt lick.
Our socks would be filled
with sand burs,
our teeth with dust,
and often my mouth would
still show the traces of chocolate
from a clandestine visit
at my grandma’s parents’ house.
The cows were traded in,
eventually the whole lot
retired to the comfort of town,
to the neighbors
with their cat stories,
and a garden bursting
with cucumbers,
a mowed lawn,
tiger-lilies.
I’d miss Dempsey then,
resigned to sit in hushed rooms,
watching my grandma’s mom
eat cornbread & milk.
She’d tell me stories,
talk about her daddy,
but I always wondered
about the cows
and about the apricot trees.

Written 29 January 2000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma & 23 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.

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

NotesContinue Reading

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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.Continue Reading

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Luctus Herbarium

I’m counting the blooms,
tagging and cataloguing each one,
memorializing the specimens in photos.
I’m waiting for patterns,
counting petals and leaves to make sense of the passing months.
Routines form in my distractions, order.
This must be a sign.
On hot days like this, I sit in the heat,
water hose set to mist.
I watch the tiny drops of water float by,
dancing in the shifting breeze
while I clutch the trigger tightly.
I switch the settings,
long streams shoot into the sky,
pattering like hard rain on the metal roof of the porch.
I pulse the trigger,
tight, loose, tight, loose.
I’m wet from the water dripping down my arm,
and by the drifts of mist.
The hot sun dries my clothes,
nozzle retired to the floor of the porch.
Thoreau wanted to live simply and deliberately,
to test himself against nature,
to love it, to record it, tame it or be tamed by it.
I just want to get through the day,
to bury my head in my collection of information.
I can’t index my life in values and harvests;
my gardens are not for sale,
nor are they planted with very useful.
Maybe they should be.
Maybe they should be.
Maybe…
Soon I’m returning to my work,
counting the dead blooms as I prune
and noting which ones wilted first.
So many flowers remain beautiful without petals;
that seems important enough to note, so I do.
I’m still slightly damp,
enough to forget about Mom’s absence,
but she is even more present
in the sorted flora, the journals of growth,
in the fountains of sun-warmed water.

26 August 2018

Written 26 August 2018 in Payne County, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “Luctus Herbarium” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)

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This has been a wonderful week.  Once again, Justin and Conner were impressive workers and we made some excellent progress with the yard.  We did get a little rain this week, but nothing like we had been getting.  This next week looks warm and dry, which is both good and bad.  I also won’t be at all surprised if there is unexpected rain.  Why not!?

I’ve started to assemble things with the goal of creating a book of my poetry.  It’s really crazy that I have never done that, but it’s going to happen this year.  I’m trying to decide if I want to do short books focused on a theme, or if I should just chuck everything in together and have a slightly longer book.  I can see the value in both.

Senator John McCain died.  Whatever one thinks of his politics, I think we can agree that he deserves our respect as a veteran and POW.  I also really do believe he always fought for what he thought was right.  I didn’t always agree with what he thought was right, but what I’ve seen in the past decade has been the rise of Republican obstructionism, senators and congressmen who are no longer striving to move us forward as a country.  Instead, they try to gum up the machine, fight to keep people down, and cheat to retain power.  They are unAmerican.  I’m reminded of McCain’s town hall during which a woman asked about Obama, disparaging him.  McCain, being a fundamentally good person, defended his colleague.  It was about advancing their ideas, not about tearing one another down.  That election would include some less honorable moments, and arguably was the unintentionally handing of the Republican party that John McCain was a member of to the Tea Party obstructionists like his running mate.  He had a long career and was a well-loved patriot; my thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time.

This has been the third week in a row when I lacked focus on the blog, but I’ve got plenty to write about.  I just need to get with it!

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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.Continue Reading

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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)