Sample Poems by William Ford
Scar Therapy
After a session, I cannot put on
My own socks or sit
More than ten minutes
Without having to shift or cross legs,
Both bad for my condition
According to the physical therapist.
ItÍs no wonder the rest of me
Turns inward, congeals into this line
Right shoulder lifted,
Left dipping, every muscle
And tendon stretched or contracted
Abnormally. And what of the mind
And heart in the oriental
Oneness of everything?
IÍve demanded
The ex-cathedral judgments
Of jack boot conviction,
The broken down simpering
Of the confessional.
Three weeks old and near death
I starved from an inch of gristle
That closed off the small intestine.
My grandfather doc did it,
A sin in his profession, cut
Down the middle of my belly
And dug out the obstruction,
His knees raw from prayer.
The scar grew crookedly.
How much longer this pain?
Forget about pain, she says. ItÍs only
The bodyÍs resistance to change,
That or quit the program
For a few weeks of relief,
The old confederacy reestablished,
Followed by ten years
Of gradual debilitation
Cane, walker, wheelchair.
The scar will soften more,
She says, the more she breaks down
Old adhesions
Gently here, harder there
Until I unbend like a flower
If I, too, will settle down to the hurts
I enabled or did myself
Until the two of us have me
Standing up straighter.
August Depression,
Winter Dreams
1.
By the early month, corn reaches up
Throat high, is a thick grid
Of tobacco size leaves rivaling
Anything legend in the Carolinas.
You do little more than porch sit
Feeling the blood slow to a clot,
Your eyes worn out from counting
The neighborÍs well-worked furrows
Whereas you havenÍt enough garden
And not enough news of your wife
Far distant. You cannot get over
All those things left simmering
On the well-resolved back burners
Of the worst winter in many.
2.
Christmas brought darkness earlier.
You could see the bruise-purple glow
Of farm lights and the snowy flatness
Unrelieved for miles. You watched breath
Collecting fingerprints on the glass
As though for the local sheriff,
Your daughter still angry in her sleep
Over the family separation.
Behind you sat the torn-open ream
Of tabula rasa bond and notes
For the letters not yet written.
The air hung down, a carcinoma blue,
Forming and unforming your wifeÍs face
Among the dead fields of plenty.
To His Son in Malibu
Dawn. The coldest moment of the night,
I step out of this womanÍs breath,
My cold knees cracking as usual.
Outside, the last leaves huddle
Against what the forecast says, rain
Soon to be followed by our first snow.
I put the kettle on.
Where you are itÍs still dark.
L.A. has two seasons that bring
The nationÍs flotsam
To its half-moon shores.
There, the sand still warms the foot
After midnight and the fat-tired
John Deeres begin raking
The beach, knocking down
Sand castles and erasing
All the lines and names
Of lovers whoÍve caught
Night time phosphorous.
With those six-pack abs and curls
You fit right in except
For that hooked nose of mine
Your momÍs new man teases.
HeÍs twenty years older
Than I am, and twenty wiser,
So she says, and rich enough
To keep you both grazing young.
I hear sheÍs now a blonde.
He drives you to ball games
In his silver Porsche Spyder
And listens well at times
When you need to talk things out
If sheÍs being difficult
Or IÍm the one, distant as I am.
In a few days the snow will change
To the hard, pebbly kind that ticks
Against the windowa code
WeÍd listen to at bedtime, pretending
We were spies tapping
Into the enemyÍs plans.
Remember?
As for this woman,
SheÍs younger than your mom
But older than your guess.
Next time IÍll tell you more
If you promise to email back.
Your sisterÍs at her auntÍs
But still says to say hello.
Here is a check; fill in the amount.
Cross Country Jazz
Tonight, IÍm an odd juncture
Of family and history
Scored with a music
Best heard in the dark,
The Gulf WarÍs techno-
Brilliance still at item
Of coffee shop talk.
IÍm driving Wyoming west
In an old bi-winged German
Ford Merkur, its turbo
Whining just below redline,
The radio on from Rapid
City with Duke EllingtonÍs
Live Fargo 1940 gig.
In Seattle my mother awaits
Colon cancer surgery
Forgetful of the exact time
Or day or the doctorÍs name,
And who will love her
When her father dies,
Dead these thirty years.
The slow walk interlude
ñSepia Panoramaî plays
Followed by the eeriness
Of ñThe Mooche,î the semi-
Cartoonish ñKo-Ko,î
The downtown blues
Revery of ñMood Indigoî
Original sounds, dinks
And bad recorder wah, wahs
Not heard much now
Except in Rap.
ItÍs September back then
And the news from EuropeÍs
The Battle of Britain, today,
The fifteenth, the heaviest
Fighting ever, the sky above
London a tangle of white
Vapor trails and smoke
Growing thicker and darker
As night moves in.
I think
Of our family then and now,
The Cain and Abel war
Between two great uncles,
The jealousy of aunts
Over the one; my motherÍs
Refusal to give up money
Or my dead father as witness
To every wrong my brother
And I bring into the house,
I, with power of attorney.
Ben WebsterÍs sax takes
The lead on ñCottontail,î
The beat ongoing, riffed
Back and forth, up
And down, mellow
And ballsy, almost lost
In such curlicues of sound
Then coming back like jazz
Did then to sweet restatement,
Like the nation would
From great depression
Into the last good war.
Soon IÍll stop again
For coffee and more gas
Before the long climb through
The Bitteroots to Spokane
Then half a day more.
LÍEnvoi
When I tell her how madly
I drove and to what music
SheÍll laugh a young girlÍs laugh
At my own father in his Ford
Rushing her to the hospital
With me about to pop out
And how hard it was, then,
To findnot war news
But the Duke or the Count
On that carÍs sad radio.