I’m happy to announce that my first poetry collection, The Blackened Blues, is available wherever you buy books (yes, *wherever*, so you don’t have to put more money in Rocket Man’s pocket; you can go directly to my publisher, Finishing Line Press, or support my pals (and 1455 partners) at D.C.’s The Potter’s House).
THE BLACKENED BLUES is part of a large and ongoing project that discusses (and celebrates) some of the author’s personal heroes who remain far less celebrated than they deserve to be. As it happens, many of them are musicians, hampered in various ways by discrimination, ranging from old fashioned racism to institutional and cultural indifference. Though there’s an elegiac sadness suffusing these poems, there’s also acknowledgment of defiant genius: they fought their battles bravely, in their art and in their lives. This collection seeks to capture something (or, hopefully, more than a few things) essential about their lives, bearing witness while also paying homage.
I’d like to introduce the collection, one poem at a time (in the order they appear in the book), and tell a little bit about the inspiration for each, by way of explanation and in tribute.
Next up is “Chef’s Second Chance,” which is (of course) in tribute to the character from Apocalypse Now (but also –and I’ll keep the editorializing brief– a commentary on veterans of America’s wars and how, for the last half century, they’ve been asked for much and provided very little. More, this poem represents, for me, what creative writing can do that even the best political non-fiction can’t; too many people are simply tuned out to opinion, or are set in their views so that even the most compelling insights can’t get past the carefully constructed shell; with a poem you have a chance to make points without preaching, inhabit other realities without presuming, and exhibit empathy that might, one prays, be contagious).
Chef’s Second Chance
“Never get out of the boat.”
–Chef, Apocalypse Now
It never sat well that Chef, who endured so much
in the service of a suicide mission, found himself
smuggled as he slept, then sacrificed like a lamb shank—
collateral damage to the apocalyptic designs of Col Kurtz,
exterminating men with the carelessness of cooks, stewing
marbled meat until it sluggishly turns the color of steel pots.
So let’s suppose, in a slightly less insane sort of world,
Chef gets a second chance. Stateside, run through the jungle
and back in his kitchen, taking orders even he can understand.
Ponytail in place, primed gently by grill grease and sweat,
a different cauldron altogether, head counts & tickets clocked
one plate at a time: straight wages for sensible work.
Except something is off: he can’t break away from this place.
Not the job, but that unconquered country and the things he carries.
It couldn’t break his will but it’s slowly sucking on his soul,
his brain boiling with all he saw and can never not see.
The more he scrubs the less he shines (Mistah Clean—he dead).
Darkness stalking his heart, murdered babies beneath his boots.
Too many jobs lost to count, he’s changed but nothing else did.
A survivor but nobody warned him about no shit like this:
His sins can’t be forgiven. Fortunate sons smirk when he stands
at the bus stop, nowhere to go, no way to pay, so of course
cops come when he breaks down inside that bank, not trying
to hurt anyone, there’s no gooks here and the gun’s not even loaded.
(Over there I could empty a clip and get myself a medal;
ain’t this a motherfuck! Five-to-ten for unlawful entry?)
So here you are. Came all this way and you finally get it.
Maybe you should have gotten your ass out of that boat.
The tiger was God trying to tell you a thing or two—too late,
you’ll never know now—or else on a mission of its own:
finding you, afraid but still on your feet, some instinct
sending it up river to put you, at last, out of your misery.
Some additional thoughts on Vietnam, war, and how much we ask of (and how little we do for) veterans here, and here.
