Mirror NorthWest

Dennis Held

CHARISMATIC HACKY-SACKERS

        Implacable, impeccably bereft of even the trace
of ambition and dressed in rare buffoon pantaloons
        here they come, feet free-wheeling the bean-filled
sack, dozens of dreadlocked white guys from Sheol,
        incubi of pure pachydermal insouciance drunk
on testosterone and heisted microbrew, eyes
        a bit greazy from Idaho ditch weed and lack
of sleep, numb from the knees up and grinning
        the gap-toothed leer of adolescent fascists,
the rampant extension of a cracked democracy,
        hootenanny masochists elastic in their convictions
and damned glad to be here, coiling down Main Street
        in packs of six, spilling off the sidewalks
and placidly tying up traffic for miles
        grateful as always for deadening gridlock—
kick, kick, the nervous flickering inflections
        of ankles and hip-glancing pok, then past,
Beelzebub’s bad clowns caterwauling out of town
        content this time to scare the curtains
off the windows of responsible fathers
        behind which, trembling, the thunderstruck
daughters won’t get along with their business
        thrislled to the toes by the graceful,
hate-filled spectacle of change.

VAN GOGH IN MONTANA

He polkas a two-step flop out the boxcar door
of the four o'clock freight from Butte
and Bill, the yard bull, says watch your step
so he does, all the way into town, careful
to tramp down the puddle ice that barks
like a circus seal. Across one rail, eyes
wide open, an orange and black tabby
sliced in two, still surprised at the light.
But Vince knows he can't save anybody,
least of all himself. Hell's already too full
of heroes. There's one now: a doughboy
who's only lobbing a snowball, not
a grenade, stranded on a pedestal before
the county courthouse that rings four-thirty.
Smudges of woodsmoke usher in the dusk.
He pulls down his watchcap over an ear
and sets out west for color, where two yellow
hills succumb to the slow-moving ploy
of a deeper huckleberry light, where
outside of town a long field of solemn
grain stacks drift off, set loose
like cattle seen running in fever dreams.
If he's not careful, he'll be gone as soon
as the sun, and the moon's already up,
betting on the night.
II
Finally, for winter's sake, he had come
to trust the undiluted cold, to absorb the many
intricate and particular pains of gray ice,
but now this changling wind---"chinook"---
that strips the hides from snowbanks and sends
the pale light everywhere shimmering.
Tough-minded song sparrows gloat
in vaporous trills above stray hounds that run
the tracksides, growl and tussle over
bones and gristle of doe and fawn.
Vince shivers, works a trick of light to help
shuck off the regular tug toward the sure,
laborious weight of loss that courses
through the damp air that is just now dense
with the unqualified love of decay.
III
Someone will name a child for him today.
He scrabbles along a scalloped jawbone
of ice that juts deep into the clotted river.
He follows. Back toward town, the grain
elevator's gunmetal blue rhymes with the sky.
Even the church steeple is pointless, domed
as any bullet: Fog brings down the cross.
A packet of geese cobbles over, pushing a klaxon
lament as they head for the mountains that break
in whitecaps, churlish waves braiding away
to the scar of horizon, the only seam, only border
of this tossed-off land. The pigeons assemble
for stray chaff, and night sets up its final picnic:
tablecloth of stars, one bright tea cup.

CONTRIBUTOR

Dennis Held takes a size 12 triple-E shoe, sometimes a 13 in the boot. This poem appeared in his book, Betting on the Night (Lost Horse Press, 2001).