This week's Poet of the People is Jerred Metz. Jerred found and befriended me a decade or so ago and is my irregular lunch partner at Arabasque. We talk of poetry and prose, family and friends. He challenges me to become a better writer without losing my voice or becoming derivative of what I read; he is a gift to the poetry community of South Carolina.
Jerred Metz has had seven books of poetry, three non-fiction, and two novels published, and over one hundred poems and stories in literary journals. He taught creative writing at the University of Minnesota, Webster University, and Coker College. For fifteen years he was poetry editor for the Webster International Poetry Review. He has degrees from the University of Rhode Island (B.A., M.A., English) and the University of Minnesota (Ph.D., English and Philosophy.)
Honey, My Muse
Her wild shadow wakes, rises, and
comes toward me. I love her,
frightening as she is, her eyes
the color of water,
her wings
battering the air.
When she flies the world unfurls
like a backdrop
behind and beneath her.
Benevolent bees
fill her hollow body
with hive and honey.
She tells me,
never minding the calendar,
“In 1929 I had to leave school to marry the banker who holds the mortgage on my poor mother’s homestead since we could no longer meet the payments. Believe me, life was no picnic, me only twelve and missing all my friends and my teachers and what if the townspeople learned that the banker had a twelve-year-old wife? I learned to cook, keep house, and please my husband in bed. Believe me, that was no easy task, me only twelve and him well into his fifties, his hair and moustache still shining black. There were no sex manuals then. Those few who had them considered themselves lucky to have books of etiquette. And this banker had been around and was particular about his sex. Oh, where could I turn? Who could I ask for help?”
She brings me visions.
In return, I show her
a new place to press
or kiss,
a new position,
a fresh phrase to
utter.
Muse,
whose sacred body—
hive for queen and drone,
worker and larvae,
and honeycomb
rich with sweetness,
comes toward me
holding another poem.
____
I created these “overheard” snatches and snippets of a private detective in Newark, New Jersey in the 1890s. Accounts of incidents in his career, each hinting at a “before” and an “after.” They are from Sad Tales and Sordid Stories: Interruptions. There are about 30 of them.
What was Not Her Astonishment
Harland was a friend of Hattie's
of whom The night before Hattie had written to
Charlotte of Harland, who was a friend—
"a very fine, spirited man
whom Charlotte would like,"
she thought and believed.
What was not Charlotte’s astonishment
when she found he was nothing
like the man Hattie described.
The Air was Unusually Mild
Harland strolled out
with Charlotte before
going to the office.
The air was unusually mild
for this time of year,
such days being part of
the recent past
or far in the future.
Strange to say,
he was empty-handed.
The manuscript—
its worn wrapping
exposing some
of the contents
to public view,
which I expected
him to be carrying—
was nowhere to be seen.
I felt safe now;
I knew the lady’s name—
“Hattie the hat”—
an old schemer—
and proceeded to her boarding-place,
had her summoned,
introduced myself, mumbling
a name that sounded like that of a con
from Newark who she had heard of,
and began talking to her
about literary matters,
favoring the popular writers
over the serious ones.
Harland’s Henchmen in the Restaurant
Had they hunted her
or were they acquaintances of Harland's
who found her there by accident and
simply followed her down?
I wanted to speak with the proprietor,
but they might be customers
who always spent as much as tonight,
and clearly Charlotte was charmed by them.
I was a stranger here—
why should the owner listen
to my meagre dribble of coin
against the music of
their smiling wallets?
“She is an Angel,” or,
"Her Eyelashes are Harpstrings Angels Thrum"
In spite of all the assurances
I offered her Charlotte
would not single out
any of the men as her attacker.
She claimed not even to be sure
that any of them had been on
the trolley that morning.
But when I saw their shy glances
in Charlotte’s direction
I was certain she had made
An impression
upon their minds,
and now they wished
they were not thieves and murderers,
but pleasant young men
who might sit beside her and say,
"Your eyelashes are harpstrings
angels thrum.
Come with me to tented Elberon
and stroll the boardwalk,
sipping lemon ices,
sit in the breeze
at the edge of
the sea."
____
I call these epigramatics, by definition concise, clever, and amusing
1
Homo Sapiens
An
Invasive
Species.
2
Technology
Every day
I learn something
I wish
I didn’t
Need to know.
3
Our Quietest Meals
Are when we
eat fish.
Not that fish
makes us
more serious,
just more
careful.
4
A Simile on Free Writing
Like looking
For something
In an empty attic.
5
Catastrophe
—the Great Fuck-Up—
is Mother
and Father—
the Hermaphrodite—
of Invention.
____
Positano
Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.
John Steinbeck Harper's Bazaar, May, 1953
I
In Ancient Days
Vesuvius’ razed Pompeii and Herculaneum
A rain of burning ash buried Positano.
Before then, on westward treks Greeks and Phoenicians
traded at Positano, so history says.
Named for the Sea God,
Poseidon in quiet and wrath—
the old cosmology still alive.
Or is this what happened?
Pirates stole a thirteenth-century
Black Madonna icon from Byzantium.
When they reached the bay,
in anger at the theft, Poseidon
tore the waters in storm.
The thieves heard a shout, "Posa! Posa!”
“Put down! Put down!”
The storm-struck ship crashed,
a wreck on the shore.
Still alive, the pirates hauled
the Madonna up the steep cliff
to the village, delivered Her to
Santa Maria Assunta’s priest.
The storm stopped, the sea quieted, the sun smiled.
Good citizens of Positano ever after—the reformed pirates.
Posa. Posa. Positano
II
The Plate of Clay
Whole, then broken, buried,
unearthed, repaired with reverence.
The beauty of the broken,
The marvel of the restored,
marking its own perfection.
The border—geometry, repetition, variety,
the shapes of flowers—holds all the universe.
The border beyond, before Chaos, its own beauty.
III
Praise Invention, Praise Conception
The artificer,
whose brush followed hand,
whose hand obeyed mind,
whose mind embodied the muse.
How much beauty can a wall contain
before bursting forth in song?
IV
Seven Sisters
The single band of cloth twirling, and breeze
lifts to its own dance, tying sister to sister.
What song do they chant?
“Who are we?
Seven sisters, Pleiades
dance, dive,
divide and gather.
How are we called?
Maia,
Electra,
Alcyone,
Taygete,
Asterope,
Celaeno
Merope.
Seven daughters of father Titan Atlas, who holds up the sky,
and mother Ocean, Pleione, Mother to Sailors,
whose Fate she governs.
Zeus, Poseidon, and Ares fathered children
upon us, made us a small dipper
of stars in Taurus.
See us twinkle and nod,
sharing our songs in code.”
“Who are we? Half-sisters to the
seven Pleiades and the Hesperides.
We, the seven Hyades,
sisterhood of nymphs,
the rain-makers,
who fall as rain,
our weeping, rain.
When a wild beast killed the hunter Hyas we wept,
became a star cluster in Taurus’ head,
a dipper to hold our tears.
V
Perched Positano
Thanks to its location, Positano’s climate is mild—
winters warm, the summers long and sunny,
refreshed by sea breezes, and
by the landscape’s beauty.
Long, steep stair link the village high above
with the valley beneath, the sea beyond.
A hard walk down, a hard climb up.
Below, the happy throng at Positano, blissful,
bless the sea suspended in ecstasy,
bless the patient town,
the happy villas above which become
beckoningly real after you have gone.