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Title: The Book with the Yellow Cover

Author: John Moncure Wetterau

Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11006]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK WITH THE YELLOW COVER ***

Copyright (c) 2003 by John Moncure Wetterau

The Book With

The Yellow Cover

John Moncure Wetterau

(c) copyright 2003 by John Moncure Wetterau.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License. Essentially, anyone is free to copy, distribute, or perform this copyrighted work for non-commercial uses only, so long as the work is preserved verbatim and is attributed to the author. To view a copy of this license, visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0/ or send a letter to: Creative Commons 559 Nathan Abbott Way Stanford, California 94305, USA.

ISBN #: 0-9729587-0-3

Published by:
Fox Print Books
137 Emery Street
Portland, ME 04102

foxprintbooks@earthlink.net 207.775.6860

Some of these poems first appeared in: Poetry East-West, The Maine
Sunday Telegram, The Maine Times, Nostoc, Backwoods Broadsides,
H.O.M.E., Headcheese, Chants, Backwoods Broadsides Chaplet Series, CafĂ©
Review, and To Keep You Company.

for w.cat

I had a book of Chinese and Japanese poems that I gave to a friend on the west coast. It was a very small book with a yellow cover, stapled together. No adornments. Just the poems, alive after hundreds of years. J.M.W.

The Japanese Mason

Without haste, gathering scrape of the trowel, slap of cement, reaching for a block, setting and tapping it level, turning with the wheelbarrow, graceful, sweating, freed of every moment.

Kauai

Sweet Hawaii

Even if somebody did steal my battery, generator, oil cap, visegrips last night, I passed the test to be a taxi driver, and even if I don't have the money to buy a Charley's Taxi shirt, congratulations to me. I'll figure something out. I'll have coffee in Everybody's Bake Shop; I'll write Varve and Finn, tell them I love them, tell them sweet Hawaii going to be our new home.

Honolulu

Bus Stop

14, eyes of a deer
       in bamboo.

16, heavier, going to school
       without her books.

                  King Street
                  Honolulu

For Rob

Handsome Rob. Half the women hate you; the other half will give you anything. Deep in Nam: your buddy shot, tracheotomy. "He died happy," you told me, "he believed I was going to save him." Perhaps he knew he would lie in your arms forever.

Too Big

Listening to Schubert while Great-Aunt Hannah embroiders on the wall, and darkness closes— what have we come to? We've gone wrong, too big to find our way by song, light falling on a face and handkerchief, illumination in the manner of Rembrandt.

Peter's Answer

Little Blue Heron, young, still white, by the north causeway bridge— stick legs, too thin for the swelling body, the visual weight of feathers, stepping slowly in shallow water, long toes trailing limply, then extending, three splayed forward, one back. Brilliant neck curving, poised. Dagger beak the same gray as legs and toes. Why is nature beautiful? The lust for pattern, Peter said. The heron's head rose and twisted, circular eye, light brown, orange rimmed, ancient intelligence asking a different question. I was unmoving, not dangerous. The heron turned to hunt, brush, a cloud above the river.

       New Smyrna Beach,
       Florida

Wally's Poem

Dolphins surge up and under.
Mozart's soprano
stitches the heart together.
Washes for a watercolor.

An ant crosses my foot. Wallace Klitgaard; Epitome of Splendor— ants, sun, one's lot. He typed it himself, showed it to me on the bus 38 years ago. He was grinning, the glad no age that we become, bent to making clumsy prayer.

Morning, Maine Honolulu

Early mist breaking on low tide, mud smell. Ducks, the small birds, the rooster down the road begin to sing the air, the light, the whole enormous chance

grateful as the old people reclaiming Pauahi Street, seeing each other in doorways after the night.

I Would

In 1948 I walked all the way to 14th Street to buy a bow and arrow. It was 30 cents; I had 29.

The woman sold it to me anyway and I was free and happy on Sixth Avenue as any Indian.

If I could find her tonight,
I would keep death far away.

For Anita Bartlett,
Too Late

Why cannot blue be enough? Light in the sky, dark in the sea, the shades between. The green of fields, red clover, buttercups. Bridal white of apple blossoms, burial earth, hawk's feather, snakeskin. Monarchs, Anita, feeding on purple aster, fluttering up, sun glowing orange, brown, bronze through black edged wings, twenty joining twenty joining a hundred, down, up, over, from color to color to Mexico.

Clouds booming over the washed woods, blue sun, Finn eats chop suey from a pot while I shave. Six months to dismantle the dead rooms of a marriage, down to a borrowed tent, patches of snow, and invisibly, all around us, sap rising in its own sweet time.

April, Maine

Alexis

Icons, coal mines, Ten Mile Creek, the Monongahela, a long way to this house by the Kennebec, sitting erect, brushing your hair, fire and peace in your cheeks, preparing for the further steppes of feeling.

Back In Town

Billy Frailly's got a new shirt, shaved and walking down the road ready for anything. When I was in fifth grade Billy powered his bike up Church Hill (black Stetson, yellow kerchief). I helped him shovel out Mrs. Cowell's parking place. He did most of the work, but he split the money fifty-fifty. He's an outcast now; no frontier he can reach. But he's not crying, and we know there is no virtue, only consequence and the sometimes music of a new shirt.

Woodstock

Bluejay Feather

Bluejay feather in the grass. Something was here once, A flash of color, a harsh cry, and it was gone. The feather remains: tough, precise, useful

               For Sylvester
               On his 40th

Talking To Myself

Early dark blue, one jet trail arching past Venus, snow coming tomorrow. My mother, unable to move. Hit it down the road, seven hours, stand by her bed, acknowledge the bond of blood, the sensitivity she could never handle, that I have ridden to beauty beyond all expectation.

Wilson Street

Low gray sky. Cold. Still. Christmas tree upside down, tinsel on dirty snow. A yellow balloon bounces slowly across Wilson Street. A black cat glides three steps up, turns in a doorway.

Portland

On Looking At A Mediocre Painting

Thin paint. No passion. We would agree, I know, although we met only once— some things are in the blood. Mustard, orange, navy blue around a fake significance.

The loss of Ireland, the 19th century, what were you to do?

Fuck the beautiful, the gifted (my mother before she went crazy); leave the clanging cockroach cold behind (Bobby); find the best (Pollock, Kline, Noguchi, Nakian), live uptown (Kevin); die finally.

Well, ashes to ashes then.

But the three of us—your sons, scattered to separate lives— one way or another we carry you on, this eye, this fist within.

Sean

Every Moment

Sun warms one side of the alley. A young woman smiles at me, surprised by her new beauty. Sex, tenderness, cobblestones. Once I was a Venetian with my last gold coin. Once I broke my vows and left the Order. Arms around her legs, the blue milk crate on which she sits, the kitchen door propped open with a mop—every moment like this.

Portland

For Tamey

Drove over the bridge today, saw the water far below and once again imagined your last jump— desperation, pain, relief, a twist of gallantry across your face, your final bow to the truth you always told me to tell. You sure as hell saved my life. Tamey, I could never say goodbye. I miss you. I wish you could have played with Finnegan.

Rough cloth, the gathering of giant ferns woven together, supple, bending, energy moving up your spine, mind dancing in the night, Palm Tree Exercise.

Kailua

The Early Ones

Black night turns dark blue, a wedge of lighter blue, dim gray. Outposts on the beach become aware of each other: narrow stones aligned to the east, grouped around a driftwood stick sixteen inches high. In an hour— sheltered by grass, overhanging edge of the continent— they will cast long thin shadows; they will be first, brave against the day.

For an anonymous sculptor,
Crescent Beach, Maine

Warm Sake

Warm sake, sashimi maguro, blood red slices on a wooden block, light green chicory, pickled ginger. Outside: harbor ice rocking in the tide, translucent, thin dark edges swirling in black water.

                           Shiki
                           Portland

Leaving Finn

Las Cruces at dusk, necklace on the desert. Back in Tucson, Finn recovering from surgery, sweat on his nose, trying to smile, whispering, "Have a good trip, Dad."

Late Breakfast

Red nails, gold cigarette, young pampered mouth, hair drawn back, a sense of having reached her limits, a perfect twenty-two. There was a moment when she chose all this.

I must begin again, without shame.

             Wailana Coffee Shop
             Honolulu

Spring Dream of SueSue

Perfectly quiet a trout lets me hold him.

You surface laughing, dark hair, blue shirt unbuttoned.

March

Lament For Paul

Scratching your beard, excited, "Fantastic," you said about the Beatles' new record. The next night you played your own shy songs, surprising us. You were crushed beneath your car, but your songs, Paul, I heard them. We all heard them.

Woodstock

For Coyote

I think of you drinking, dancing, unable to sleep, reading until first light, a blanket drawn around your shoulders, afternoons, working your wheel until the time to mingle with true hearts, raise glasses, hug, laugh, help as you can. We are all dying, slower or faster, but it hurts to watch. And out of the numb exuberant wreckage of your days come these raku pots— graceful open shapes, lines freely scratched into the clay, deep turquoise, copper glazes, extravagant, surprised, too beautiful for tears.

After Months

Shifting unstable air, patches of light, raindrops standing on the candy red gas tank of a Kawasaki 750. Coming down harder, bouncing off the seat, dripping from the tips of black rubber handgrips, tach speedometer needles resting on their zero pegs, twin mirrors focused back.

                  October,
                  Maine

Fortune Cookie

Almond lemon gritty on the tongue, —TIMES LONG AGO WILL PRESENT A SPECIAL TREASURE TO YOU— A moment whole again? To see more clearly, Trudi, 17, washing in the Woodland Valley stream. Tamey, giving me another nickel to play pinball. Barbara's smile, wanting a child. My grandfather's arm, levering a floor board, skin hanging from his biceps cord, holding while I nailed. So many treasures I can't quite see.

Wrecking Ball, Commercial Street

Salmon streaks of pulverized brick, white pigment, tar, nicked and scarred in every direction, patina of blows on a mute obdurate interior. Six weeks I carried it until the beautiful surface cast off, weightless. The iron opened from the inside out and like a new bell began to sing.

For Elena

The Polynesian Navigator

Swells current, sky rimmed, shell on a stick chart promise of land, alone and singing.

Kahuna's Way

Twisting through high cane, silver green, tossing in the trade winds, toward the mountain wall dark green jagged, deep shadows where a warrior prayed, ancient silence, Kahuna's way, beyond King Sugar and the city that is coming.

                        Hulemalu Road
                        Kauai

41, In The Honolulu Public Library

Like beautiful fish moving slowly through coral, they eddy through the library, dark hair, bright dark eyes, the wisdom of their mothers lying gravely on their faces; ready to love, to stay, they flick away on currents deep and proper.

For Catherine, someday in a quiet hour, wondering what is possible

When I hold your mother while she holds me, all that was, is; the future comes moment to moment, complete. For this, salmon swim their river, elephants remember, wild geese call out at dusk. I fought and risked, trusted and betrayed. How can you find another before you find yourself, traveling the heart's way, alone, unsure, knowing only that you must?

Rage's Place

Put your forehead on the ground and pound your fists. Curl on your side, close your eyes, scream silently. You will not be answered. No. But your cries— your cries will be clothes and flowers, honor for the journey.

for David and Louisa

The Purkinje Shift

All day, snow, now turning gray, trees darker in the fading light, violet peace before the night, slowly drifting toward the solstice.

December

Bee Fantasy

Reaching, high on the shoulders of thinner air, rising with the Queen, the view! the view! mating falling and falling back to meadow, the warm dark, first light, dancing out the maps.

The American Way

F18's screaming down wing tip to wing tip, brave, lethal, steady nerve. Johnny Copeland's lead guitar ripping through the air, taking us faster, inverting, 6 G's, dark forehead, sweat, hot and loose. Face at the bar, arched eyebrows, black hair back, wide mouth, brooding, sensual, slightly battered. Fighters, blues man, beauty, power at the edge, the American way.

Maine

The Sculptor's Trade

On white stands: azure/turquoise branches, flow and knuckle taken by poured bronze— bent, welded, gripped, held, colored— artifacts, works in progress, ship's ribs, basketry, child's play. Hands dream as they fashion, remember what they feel (her thin shoulder, a 9/16 inch wrench). Let go. Follow the sculptor's trade. Find and shape what is not known until it's made.

For John von Bergen

Elegy For Simenon

Fresh air, faintly salty, smell of bark and fallen apples, small pond, lily pads, dark water. White blossoms tinged with ruby, floating, heavy with light. You enter one, still searching. Slowly, petals fold around you.

Deer Isle, Maine

Unfinished

Your hands for clothes. Your legs, home. We

For w.cat

Married twice, once in a church, once in City Hall, each good in its way. Now I choose the shade of a live oak tree, veils of Spanish moss, a hundred cicadas singing in the branches. You are in the north, but still we join beneath this green and raucous dome Mated. Complete. Mindful of those alone.

        New Smyrna Beach,
        Florida

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