Things We Don't Do

 by Brett Rutherford

Go to church?
We don't do that.
No money to give;
nice clothes, never.
Father an atheist,
Mother afraid
of the taunts
of the church ladies
about her family,
the things they did
in that shack in the woods
when men came calling.

One summer they let

a church put on

some Bible classes

at the schoolhouse.

I was sent. Bright books

of Bible stories laid forth

Old Testament and New.

I asked too many

questions, mostly about

dinosaurs and other planets.

They sent me home,

asked that I not

come back again, ever.

Things we don't do

include bicycles,

new shoes, clothes

from a big store,

and Boy Scouts

because all that

took money.

I found a copy

of the Boy Scout manual.

Cover to cover I studied it,

envied the boys

those tent nights

and knot-tying skills.

Nowhere was where

we went all summer.

Once a museum

glimpsed from the car;

once or twice

a beautiful house

blurred in passing.

Ten aunts and uncles

never visited,

cousins unmet.

I did possess

a chemistry set,

with not much left

of its supplies.

In the dark cellar

I did my best

to create monsters.

At school,

it was assumed,

as I soared in reading,

that I must come

from the finest family,

that wealth surrounded

a seven-year-old

already reading

Faust and Hamlet.

It was my game

to let them think it so.

People Like That

by Brett Rutherford

Wednesday at noon
the sirens went off.

Miss Schreckengost
herded us down
to the musty cellar
where we were talked to
by the school nurse
one week, a soldier
the next, on what to do
if there was a flash,
a mushroom cloud.

Russia was far,
but over the Pole
the bombers might come.
Our Nike missiles
sat ready and armed,
but just in case,
we needed to know
to duck and cover,
take shelter, wait for
the Geiger counter
count, the all-clear
siren, the hope
that our teeth and hair
would not fall out,
that cows would yield
safe milk to drink
that did not glow.

Back in the class,
new maps arrived.
USSR in red
as big as Europe,
no, bigger.

Miss Schreckengost
sends us to
My Weekly Reader.

There are new words.
"Atheist" is one.
"Atheist," she said,
"does anyone know
what an atheist is?"

No one spoke.

"Anyone who doesn't
believe in God
is an Atheist,"
the teacher explained.

"That's me!" I thought.
I raised my hand
to proclaim it.

Behind me, a voice,
a fellow student,
muttered darkly,
"People like that
should be killed."

I lowered my hand.
Two lessons learned
that day.

Rhyme Not for the Sake of Rhyming

by Brett Rutherford

What can I say

about poems that rhyme?

Rhyme in mid-line,

or lines apart where least

expected, are fine:

they are like accidents

of digestion, a dash

of pepper. I like, too,

a final couplet, the way

Shakespeare tells us

a scene or speech

has reached its end.

A bow. Applause.

But as for rhyme

at ends of lines,

onward, onward,

plodding, plodding,

pendulum regular,

forced search

of dictionary

all too evident,

jack-hammering,

a thousand times,

no! English is not

a rhyming language.

Drunk monks

and college students

corrupted Latin

with rhyme; then from

Italian it leapt the channel

to infest like unwelcome

caterpillars. Be gone!

Not only has rhyme's

ship sailed, it floated

back, a rotting hulk,

seaweed and barnacles,

seagulls and slime,

fouling our pure waters.

For we who have lived

since Whitman,

rolled to the flow

of beat poetry,

inhaled long breaths

and the abrupt

leaps of improvisation,

rhyme is child's play,

the delight of idiots --

the glue that holds

a song together,

admittedly -- but not

what makes a poem

a poem. Free verse

is tightrope walking,

no net below.

Politics As Usual

by Brett Rutherford

From its dark cage

one bird goes forth.

An eagle waits

to swallow it.

Eater, eaten

share the same sky.

Night over all,

the earth forgets.

From its dark cage

one bird goes forth.

Hide in a tree!

Creep under leaves!

Construct a nest!

Do anything

except that climb

to high cloud-top!

Does it listen?

No. Up it flies!

Eagle takes all.

One feather falls.

Night over all,

the earth forgets.

Epigrams on Prophets and Such

by Brett Rutherford

1.

Beware the bearded men

who say they know

Everything.

2.

The headless chicken

has found the ax.

3.

Who knows more

about purity

than an unwashed monk?

4.

Who takes your tithe,

touches your ten-year-old.

5.

Two in the bush

is the root of all evil.

6.

An egg

requires no catechism.

7.

Would you teach a tree

geometry?

Literary Epigrams

 by Brett Rutherford

1.

A lonely bear

took in Jayne Eyre.

Reader, she married him.

2.

Your grandmother was eaten

by one Virginia Woolf,

and now she waits for you.

3.

Ed Poe is lonely

in Asbury Park.

His TV is dark,

nothing to see

with Snookie gone.

A crow drops by

(his only friend).

"Is she alive, or what?"

he moans, bereft.

The bird replies,

"Fuggedaboutit."

Roadside Encounter

 by Brett Rutherford

Two strangers sought

in friendly jest

to topple me.

The first I fought,

a trial hard won.

I left him staggering.

Upon me came

the second one.

Strong he, I fell.

"Well have you done

in honor's way

and strength of arms.

"Sex," then, he said,

"you must endure.

This have I earned."

At it we went.

As he was fair,

it pleasant was.

Upright again

he laughed and said,

"Home must we go,

"a round to drink

in Mother's house

not far from here."

"Her name?" I asked.

"Hela she is,

the dead her realm."

"Cold fare, dim light,

struggles by night,

grim brotherhood.

"Queen of cold wastes,

she waits for thee.

We brothers two

shall now be three."

Written While Dying

 

by Brett Rutherford

     Emperor Li Yu (937 – 978 CE)

Now I am dead.
There is no other way
to write this poem
except backwards.

Because Taizong
resented my last poems
(who would not yearn
for what he has lost?) —
because I am said to be
all things considered,
a better poet.

Because I cared less
with each day’s passing,
wife torn from me,
a weeping shell of herself,
since she was raped
by the Song Emperor.

Because I will not address
that personage correctly,
because I am now called,
not former Emperor, not King,
not as Li Congjia, the name
my father gave me,
the name to which
all people and foreigners
knelt and kow-towed,
but by an epithet:
Marquis of Wei Wing
(Lord of Edicts Disobeyed). 

Now I am dead,
because my generals came
with warlike strategy,
and I dismissed them,
preferring my evenings
in the Poets’ Pavilion,
with painters and artists
who fled to me from
every other kingdom.

Now I am dead,
because my captive brother
summoned, implored,
my travel to Song’s capital,
and I went not. Instead
I sent poems and art,
the best ambassadors
of peace and accord.

Now I am dead.
No armor did I don,
no chariot ascend
when the invaders came.
I was in the temple,
composing a poem,
surrounded by monks,
incense, and prayer wheels,
when they broke in
and seized me. Where
was the magic, then?

Now I am dead,
because wise counselors
wanted me strict, cruel
and cunning, like those
who raced to crush
our borders. Refusing,
I sent them home.
Some killed themselves
in honor’s name.
It was I who killed them!

Now I am dead,
who tried to have
one woman as wife,
and her younger sister, too.
As for the two women,
one died, and then I married
the other. Is that not honorable?
Did I not carve,
with my own hand
two thousand characters
on the Empress’s tombstone?

Those who forbade my love,
and my second marriage,
I sent home to their villages
to live until their beards
touched ground.
Now their ghosts haunt me.

Now I am dead,
because I drank a cup,
an overflowing cup
of heart-warm wine,
best of the southern
vineyards, I was told.

Because my dishonored wife
put her pale hand
upon the celadon vessel
to taste it first,
and a soldier pushed
her aside and said,

“This wine is for one,
from the Emperor’s table.
The Marquis only must drink.” 

“I am not thirsty,” I said.

“The Marquis must drink.
I must say at his table
that you have tasted it,
and in full proof of pleasure,
have drained it to the dregs.”

Now I am dead,
because the willows of home
have wept two years for me;
twice have I left unswept
the tombs of my fathers;
twice have I failed to lift
up in the dead’s honor
a flagon of chrysanthemum;
and twice has the Lunar Year
come and gone in a place
that no longer has my name.

Peace be to you, Song Emperor,
and to all peoples. I am still
King of leaves and petals, Lord
of moonlight and sudden breezes.
Who will they read
a thousand years from now?

Now I —

  

What Kind of Poet?

 by Brett Rutherford

      after Li Yu, Poem 39

What kind of poet am I
    who cannot bear spring flowers
     or the flush of autumn?

What kind of poet am I
     who shuns the moon’s
          beckoning,
when all I can do
     is to ask it,
“Do you see my lost kingdom?”

What kind of poet am I
     who no longer retells
     the exploits of his father,
     the daring of ancestors,
     the courage of mothers?
Having no seal, I shall
     soon enough be nameless.

What kind of poet am I
     who can no longer adorn
     a painting with calligraphy,
     or compel a painter
     to illustrate his words?

Who cares what I think,
     or what I have suffered?
No one.

Without me, the carved
jade balcony and winding stairs
may still be there, but those
who walked them
    will be less than ghosts
if no one writes of them.

Do some back home
     still read my lines
and ask of one another
the measure of Li Yu’s pain?

How many pieces can one
be sliced into?

How many drops flow
into the Qinhuai River,
and the Yangtse too?

Those numbers ought to be
just about right.

Empty Is the Past

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 38

Does some persistent bumblebee
come to my fluttering eyes
expecting dream-nectar?

How disappointed
     he must be!
I am a sour well,
    a soap-work,
    an iron forge,
    a leather tannery.

I haven’t a good word
    or thought or prayer
    for anyone.

Sorrow I cannot escape,
     except in the dreams
that make me even more
     miserable.

What wakes me up?
What forces me
    to greet another day?

There is a thread
     that pulls my eyelids open,
made from dried tears
    that stick to my face
from cheek to beard.

O to stand atop
    an autumn terrace
with someone, anyone,
     beside me!

Of Trysts Gone By

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 37

Now that I know too much
I am almost embarrassed
to watch the Spring unfold.

Flowers doing what flowers do
remind me of trysts gone by,
of acting without rhyme or reason.

The trusty willow trees shelter me.
My confidants, they have seen it all,
and they do not trouble themselves
with random love affairs.

Their green-and-gray shagginess
brushes against my weary head.
In their cool indifferent shade
I could sleep all day.

Places and Names

by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu, Poem 36 

Best are the names
the places themselves tell you.
Like candles that gutter
     up and out,
or weeds borne randomly
     on errant waves,
one dream recurs.

I see the land my fathers won,
but in it are men unfamiliar,
costumes and accents wrong.
I try to introduce myself,
but I am waved away
    as a madman.

Heaven has set me adrift,
not to be known,
                        but still to know
the reason for each place’s
naming. This little wood —
can it be anything except
the "Bower Awaiting Moon"?
This westward-facing spot
is nothing if it is not
"The Shading-Flower Terrace."

Will all of Tang be truly gone
when all the names are lost?

  

Am I Awake?

 by Brett Rutherford

     after Li Yu Poem 35

Endless rain falls
     in waves and ripples.
Spring is finally retiring.

Yet I shiver beneath
     the silken coverlet,
wary of braving cold air
     before the sun’s warming.

Am I awake? Exile
     no longer,
I long for old pleasures.
As sudden as it was morn
it is evening. I lean
against the parapet,
my mountains, my rivers
clear in view.

All too easy
     was the departure in haste,
     not a moment to spare
     in backward-looking —
yet how it ached to see the sights
    coming, one by one,
as the old places returned to view.

Beyond the hill, the flood waters
     gather up all the refugee
     petals, rushing them away
as Spring invades and conquers.

Where does Spring die, I wonder —
on Earth, or in the Heavens?

Then up I sit, and rub my eyes.
This is no house of mine.

No scrolls, no paintings, no wall
filled top to bottom with poetry!
Again and forever, those dreams of home!