When I lived in smoke heat on the Clearwater of
Idaho I knew that the river would exhale
into my late-evening rooms if I opened them
but now I am in the dog days on the Red of
North Dakota and the water will be hot as
afternoon all night
why do I walk out along
the bike and inline-skating path when I could have
oak shade
I am thinking about
American
poetry
of
Harold Bloom
Garrison Keillor
a pharisee and a puritan antholo-
gizing it into the human future of a
world that does not have one
not about my grandchild
or
Hawaii
cannot stand to do that
I turn
around where men have made a heap of boulders that
have no right home in the drought-cracked mud flats here and
amid them an only sunflower is working
toward tall and I hear the clamant young voice of
a crow on the woody other bank
why do I
get hello a smile
every young brown woman
of them I meet
not one afoot however
they
go wheeling
away from the last elm in the world
maybe
they know that I have nothing on under
my skin or maybe it is my old Yuma hat
I am looking ahead and not yet back
no matter
I shall be
to the start of ember week and its end though I am not planning
to fast or contemplate and to the temporary misregnum
of the bean king though I do not need a certain period in
which to act the geck and gull or an Illyria
am looking
ahead and not yet back
no matter
I shall be
to all of the
knavery and japery in heated lit rooms though I am not
intending to drink or fuck with the worst of anyone and to
the groans on the morning after twelfth night when every and each
drop off the whirligig of man not time
looking ahead and not
yet back
no matter
I shall be
to walking out alone on the
final morrow that man shall see into a plain of snow and no
wind and having not a word to echo the cold with anymore
A lifelong nonacademic, Rodney Nelson has worked as licensed psychiatric technician, copy editor, and librarian. His poems and narratives have seen print often enough. He made a cameo appearance in the fifty-fourth edition of Who's Who in America. Now Nelson seems to be finding new life in the ezines.
Comments (closed)
Lisa P. Morrison
2008-07-11 14:53:00
Rodney – I sent this to another couple of addresses, (mamelund@hotmail.com and fastmail.fm) but didn’t know how current those were. Just found this email for you, and so, have copied previous e-mail here:
Hello there!
This is Gene Pinkney’s daughter, Lisa. (I’m “grown up/(and out!)but I still remember you from when I was a skinny kid and you visited us when we lived on 8th St. in Wahpeton with your wife and small daughter. (I also remember visiting you at a neat little cottage in the country somewhere a couple of times.) Your name and fame are still invoked from time to time in the Pinkney household.
My Dad would like to get in touch with you. I was recently home for a visit and he expressed a desire to locate you.
If you would like, please let me know your information and I’ll pass it along to him. He doesn’t have e-mail or internet access at home yet.
He retired in 2000 from teaching at NDSCS. He’s 70 and he and my mom still live in Wahpeton. I’ve lived in MD since graduating from MSU in ‘83 and my bro lives in California with his wife and two kids.
I’ve printed off some of your poetry to send to Dad. He was re-reading one of your books when I was home. I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve been in touch with each other.
Hope you are well!
Thanks!
Lisa (P.) Morrison