Jeff Spahr-Summers,
US
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Free Verse
After Afrika
(a letter to Jerald Dietz)
At fourteen we never knew
gut-thrashing fear or passion.
Passion was the dying young lover
who courted dragons with fire,
and melted curious petting
into anxious raging desire.
We unearthed a photograph once,
and it was passion alright shur-as-shit
paradise, ripe with virgin beauties
who teased our eyes from cool blue waters.
Coconuts even frolicked in the sun.
It was terrifying!
We could scarcely imagine such adventure.
It was not the same adventure
who shared breakfast at our table
breathing bronze, lithe and dangerous.
He seldom matched our stamina...
flying free down mountain faces
hurdling fear as it lunged for our necks,
probing death with fearless toes.
For you, fear was the lurking Bantu friend
labeled MONSTER by liquor, neglect
and Dad's hot KAFFIR nights—
like the night we felt the earth belch,
and the Zulu woman shattered her husband's teeth
with one swift kick.
For good measure, we cowered in the shadows of my room,
where only Night Adders could penetrate
like poisonous turds, strutting on the slate floor.
I learned fear from birds,
the debonair and cocky ones who spit on you
and picked at your brain for years. The ones
who tore you in two and drilled your mind with terror.
Every day I saw it...
the same helpless terror I breathed the morning
a squirrel leaped boldly from the curb—
he flew through a maze of squealing tires
though better of his chances,
flipped on the yellow line and shot back.
He died under the wheels of a drowsy motorist
who couldn't see for the finger up his nose.
Every day I saw it...
as I waded through pools of sweat
to where you bled, nailed to the floor
by heretics who chewed aluminum
and gathered anxiously while you rotted,
unable to speak,
desperately scrawling warnings of alien invaders.
I learned fear from you.
When hunger died dark beside you
I learned to drink fast and cool in bars,
thrusting my bottle bravely overhead.
Sometimes the bastards followed me
flaunting red assholes and charred beaks,
menacing pricks sucking on bottles.
They would hiss, and fling shit at each other.
When they challenged my right to passion
I cringed wielding my pen frantically
and singed their eyes with fits of poetry.
After Afrika I met passion.
She tripped me hard in Oklahoma, face down
on the street where Geronimo fell.
I imagined once, that he was gunned down
in his Cadillac by some bible-belting cavalry
who came-to-town-a-preaching one Saturday night.
Actually, passion snatched him from the sidewalk
(it was her car anyway) and whisked him away.
His body was never found.
For years I wrestled passion
pinned in the back seat (it's a Toyota now),
and she demanded answers to questions I never fathomed.
She loved me.
I escaped once heaving desire aside
and for four years I galloped around America,
shaving mountains and vaulting from airplanes.
This year, my pen stopped sucking on my hand
and fear suddenly up and died in Tulsa
at ten, looking twice his age.
I found him broken and pasted to trees
bleeding exhaustion and booze.
He looked like you, and like me.
He smelled like dead poems.
After fear I sleep content on passion's plate.
We make love at breakfast, chew anger
and slap vultures crowding our door.
Occasionally a leather face crashes in,
drooling flesh and twisted raw pain.
We laugh at him and gnaw on his throat.
(from ... Fear of Heights 1984)
Concerning Desire
Desire is the young woman
who slaps you from a deafening sleep
and floods the lonesome bed.
She drinks the warmth of moonlight
and ponders love.
She breathes the crack of thunder.
When denied, she is anger
driving hard down country highways.
Watch her choke restless hearts
with a brush of her lips,
drag them screaming
frightened and sore,
And thrusts them to her breasts.
When in doubt, she sits demure
and dons her air of mystery.
(from ... Fear of Heights 1984)
Age is the color of your eyes
when pain invites anger
they penetrate fear.
They pierce
like cold-blue steel of a knife
as it thrusts home each year.
They regret
when I ask you to stay,
like the child deep inside you.
(from ... Fear of Heights 1984)
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