Three poems by CHRISTOPHER DEWEESE
The River
It is a bad, bad business
to walk to the river
expecting something casually spiritual
to cast aside your skin.
Rocks tongue the bloody light
where I’ve been going,
a cheap motel on the other side
where the complimentary bibles
have expiration dates
and the Danishes reflect my face
in their glacial frosting.
We become magnificent
as they crumple,
bending in the fluorescence
our ancestors left us
to better see our cruel bodies.
Outside, the evening quickens
into a crooked line
of poorly-built fires,
as if the whole county were neck-deep
in the so-called mystery
of what anglers do
after taking off their waders.
The mosquito-bit air
darkens into night,
scuttling the distance
into many canoes between us.
Like a green villager,
I have confused the river
for my friend.
I threw starfish
into the wrong water,
mistaking what was potable
for a stronger tide.
I might as well pardon my own history
for bringing me here.
I’m sorry, darling,
but where we’ve been
is just no match
for standing on this bank
flexing our muscles
until the sun jumps up like a fish
and the angry wind
whips against the leaves,
the whole tableau
uncertainly taking note
of where the river goes
and what it means
as, beside it,
a dozen drunk survivalists
unzip their camouflage
to show us where they are
and what they have been hiding.
14 The Paris-American
It is a bad, bad business
to walk to the river
expecting something casually spiritual
to cast aside your skin.
Rocks tongue the bloody light
where I’ve been going,
a cheap motel on the other side
where the complimentary bibles
have expiration dates
and the Danishes reflect my face
in their glacial frosting.
We become magnificent
as they crumple,
bending in the fluorescence
our ancestors left us
to better see our cruel bodies.
Outside, the evening quickens
into a crooked line
of poorly-built fires,
as if the whole county were neck-deep
in the so-called mystery
of what anglers do
after taking off their waders.
The mosquito-bit air
darkens into night,
scuttling the distance
into many canoes between us.
Like a green villager,
I have confused the river
for my friend.
I threw starfish
into the wrong water,
mistaking what was potable
for a stronger tide.
I might as well pardon my own history
for bringing me here.
I’m sorry, darling,
but where we’ve been
is just no match
for standing on this bank
flexing our muscles
until the sun jumps up like a fish
and the angry wind
whips against the leaves,
the whole tableau
uncertainly taking note
of where the river goes
and what it means
as, beside it,
a dozen drunk survivalists
unzip their camouflage
to show us where they are
and what they have been hiding.
14 The Paris-American
The Cloud
The cloud is trying
to hold itself together,
and I am trying
to hold up the cloud.
Heavy and tired, I look around.
I drag myself across the rainbow,
a quiet exhibit
immediately forgotten
in the question of distance,
how many miles it is
between here and anything,
the sky a cliff
all jump and floating,
the miles just numbers
hid between my breathing
and the real light stumbling
like transparent fists
through my window.
I want to grab the cloud
and juice it down,
cut it into smaller pieces
then stuff it in a blender.
The cloud is boneless.
It’s getting closer,
vibrating like a uvula
in the handsome wind.
I breathe evenly.
For a gangster,
I’m getting pretty good at this.
It’s like breathing is a bank
I’ve robbed so often
I’ve been named its president.
The responsibility soothes me.
Orphans depend on my decisions.
I look out the window.
I walk into the white building.
15 The Paris-American
The cloud is trying
to hold itself together,
and I am trying
to hold up the cloud.
Heavy and tired, I look around.
I drag myself across the rainbow,
a quiet exhibit
immediately forgotten
in the question of distance,
how many miles it is
between here and anything,
the sky a cliff
all jump and floating,
the miles just numbers
hid between my breathing
and the real light stumbling
like transparent fists
through my window.
I want to grab the cloud
and juice it down,
cut it into smaller pieces
then stuff it in a blender.
The cloud is boneless.
It’s getting closer,
vibrating like a uvula
in the handsome wind.
I breathe evenly.
For a gangster,
I’m getting pretty good at this.
It’s like breathing is a bank
I’ve robbed so often
I’ve been named its president.
The responsibility soothes me.
Orphans depend on my decisions.
I look out the window.
I walk into the white building.
15 The Paris-American
The Island
Islands breathe themselves
through the water
as if they are plants
and the waves a season,
as if all they need
is plenty of lava
to control their industry.
Like careful ingredients
in a long imagined tragedy,
they invent their own excess,
raise their children
to bob and batter
against the dented shorelines.
I know the petrified trees,
the agony of seconds
when the wind changes,
leaving only teeth
to remember your lips by.
I brought this to the orchestra
because I hoped to sing lead,
but first I had to find
a sort of atmospheric sorrow
buried in the rushes,
left hanging on the hanging lines.
I hoped to keep my own society
in the company of those men
who refuse to be evacuated
because they believe
in a fate so complete
it needs them
to stay and feed the animals
others leave behind,
hushed in the sudden wild
of terrible statuary
a disaster soon becomes.
Along with the sky,
all my life I have been arriving
too late, empty handed
as the waves that wash away,
stashing their own ghosts
in the sound foam makes,
one hundred tiny mouths
opening yet speechless
and then those terrible, quiet echoes.
16 The Paris-American
Islands breathe themselves
through the water
as if they are plants
and the waves a season,
as if all they need
is plenty of lava
to control their industry.
Like careful ingredients
in a long imagined tragedy,
they invent their own excess,
raise their children
to bob and batter
against the dented shorelines.
I know the petrified trees,
the agony of seconds
when the wind changes,
leaving only teeth
to remember your lips by.
I brought this to the orchestra
because I hoped to sing lead,
but first I had to find
a sort of atmospheric sorrow
buried in the rushes,
left hanging on the hanging lines.
I hoped to keep my own society
in the company of those men
who refuse to be evacuated
because they believe
in a fate so complete
it needs them
to stay and feed the animals
others leave behind,
hushed in the sudden wild
of terrible statuary
a disaster soon becomes.
Along with the sky,
all my life I have been arriving
too late, empty handed
as the waves that wash away,
stashing their own ghosts
in the sound foam makes,
one hundred tiny mouths
opening yet speechless
and then those terrible, quiet echoes.
16 The Paris-American
Christopher DeWeese is the author of The Black Forest (Octopus Books, 2012). His poems have appeared in Boston Review, jubilat, and Tin House. He teaches at Smith College.