Dan Easley - Chad Gusler - Jeremy Frey
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May Day and After

selected poems by dan easley
2000 - 2003

May Day

Part One

a.

Here are finches in the center of town five feet from where I sit attracted by potato chips.

Four hours to the east lies the ocean that leads to the old world. The old world is not so old anymore, nor is the new. It's all relative, as are all we. The finches bring it back to me.

This world has lasted for so long. We have all been here for a long time. Are we going soon? I don't know. Where would we go?
It's so hard, we used to say to mama. She knew it all along. It's just the road we're on.

How can we keep the tribes at peace?

Chant. Chant. Chant. I hear them - om padme hum - what else can we say it's all in the way of the way by the way it's the next day and we've got to pray for the next day it's the only way we've got to stay cause it's staying power through the final hour and the hour after that it's the same old hat it's a matter of fact it's as simple as that and we can't ever spat about it that's it there's nothing to say, the cards played that way.

Drums in the distance, clouds high overhead, I hear the voices of the trees calling to me, hey, man, how's it going? I answer when I sing, trees hear the strangest things.

Marimbas and thumb pianos and retro synthesizers and hand drums and digital drums and the steady juxtaposition of all we've known under the chime of the bell tower downtown where people walk round and I watch them with the finches.

b.

The ghosts of the dead inform our souls - I have realized this in recent times. Even chill winds will bring good news. One must know one's selves. We were all children of the plain once, running after the bison, picking berries, singing with the running stream, dreaming of great monsters that might as well have been. We were all once footmen, all once royalty, all once gamblers and priests and saints and beasts. Now we are what we now are, and what we've been, and what we will be, what will we be, what we'll be, I can't tell, you can't tell, but we do it nonetheless, in that we're blessed, you got to sort through the mess and deal with distress if you're to be prepared, armed and aware, ready for whatever's out there, up and out the stair where only the hopeful dare to tread, where some see red and some blood's shed behind the woodshed while some are led to the homestead and quenched and fed with wine and bread with honey and funny stories of their ancestors.

Next day I'll ride into town where the shrubbery needs better trimming down and I'll sit here again where the finches fly in on the benches within the circle of stone, and all fear, all depression, all loneliness and abandonment will flow from my body and I will remain human, full of life and love and death and hate and flowers growing out of shit, a worker out in the fields, singing.

Part Two

She talks through movies but I don't mind somehow - I realize now it's what she does - it makes her happy. She used foul words in the theatre and I came down on her for it, 'cause there were children sitting near us, and she told me she learned those words from her mother. She laughed too loudly at all the jokes and I wondered if I laughed too quietly.

Am I a serious person, or did I just not get the joke?

I sat in the corner and listened to the drummers playing tribal beats. Chas gave me a pitcher of beer by accident and I enjoyed half of it, while my girl drank the rest. She's not really my girl, but, you know. I danced for the first time in eight years, not counting a forced two-step at a friend's wedding, the first time in so long. All night long I was droning along with the drums, crazy-eyed open-mouthed haaaahhhing along with the drums. I don't think it was the drink, though I had drunk, but I've been a pretty sloshed wallflower before. I don't think it was the girl, though I sometimes try to impress her. I think it was the drums.

Up we danced in a circle, and I thought, cool, a circle, that's safe, and then each one danced in the middle, and I thought, my God, they'll find me out, I'm a poser, I don't belong here, I'm really very repressed, and then the lead drummer focused in on me and pulled me in with happy eyes and it's trance here we come I have no choice now he's feeding me energy and I'm spraying it back out into the crowd through my fingertips I do belong here spinning and whirling my mind is my body or is it the other way around I don't know anymore.

Told my stepmother about the girl she said "Well we'll have to meet her," and I hid my fear in a joking tone.

"(dramatic pause) What if you don't like her?" And she answers "Well, that would be our problem, wouldn't it?" I swear that answer added years to my life.

Heh. Wow, there are other people in the world. When did they get here?
Heard in a dream: "Good night, sweet prince, sweet tyrant prince, dream of vast armies under your command."
Finding love in the strangest of places, right where I'd expect.

Part Three

Ice bound grey sanded by winter northeasterlies purging the continent ice kills organisms freezing microbiotics freezing snakes and putting bears to sleep hardening honey potato fields hard as rock sitting in stasis waiting for tilling but in effect dead in the frame in the falling down of tundra time

time sits time waits all fungal spores constrained to the internal place of society all bacterial functions all demons and virii all slowed down and isolated narrow bound tracks in the artificial warm zones channeling through the dimlit lands of woodstoves and spaceheaters and leather and tallow and sharpening stones and storybooks and fishhooks and old radiators rusting in fields and refrigerators and washing machines collecting sun warmth on the northern porch in the southern town in america in the kingdom of artificial heat in the empire of the ovens all cold and dead and dark outside the microscopic flow maintained in the engineered canals of the body and the soul, where modern man reads the paper taking speed and penicillin.

Now skies are clear for three days straight. Now the gutters are cleared and free of ice, and the house no longer holds water - the rains fall around and soak beneath to loosen the earth. Now the sun has bared itself as constant and all-moving, as the epiphany of the word, source of all power. Now the solar man stirs beneath the hills and rubs his eyes. Trees murmur and shake and bees wake. Sap stirs in veins older than nations while the globalized league of insects stretches its limbs, draining out the last of winter's coffers and recalling former glories. Ants drill in marching formation.

In the cities concrete princesses stare at the dials, readying themselves for plastic foods and alcohol on the neon beachfronts. Business men who never knew their fathers are placing personal ads in underground newspapers because commercial media has outlawed love. The quoters of prophets have retreated to an artificial gloom, for now the laws of energy are multiplied, now the great set of numbers has exponentiated, and the hooks and lines cast by millions of fishermen on psychic shores have caught their fish, the lure has set, the bait has brought, and all fish have eggs to bear: Now the leaves of last winter are rolling around on the grass once more, unfettered by snow, and the bacchanals are soon to begin, the spirit that is first to stir but last to rise is lying in bed awake, listening to the morning dove and the windchimes and pondering its dreams. Even the gods have dreams they, too, don't understand. But all follows all, as everything leads. The sun is leading now.

The neighborhood cat is sitting by me, now, on this year's first sunny Sunday. I have not seen him in three months. It is good to see him.

In a few months I will drive, with my new best friend, to the mountains, where we will climb up the rocks and the trees to the lookout point up top, and we will gaze out across the valley, the patchwork layout of man and god. Roads will be too small to see. Two eagles high above us will lock talons and tumble down, separating just above the earth. A tailfeather will blow down next to our feet. We will smile, take in the sun, and enjoy the cool wind. As we conquer a small feast of bread cheese and wine, a woodpecker will start its mining, and we will discuss our plans for next winter.

Where is it

Where is it where is it where is it in the folds of the mountain town flat in ratsholes assholes stirring in their sheets in the meat of the moment we're writhing and writing in jazz mannerism cliche to epiphany and back to cliche we're failing

we're failing again we're wasting away declining and falling declining and falling and rolling along the rocky roiling and boiling the crick-crack-creek water river, daughter back in cliches or myths myths miss miss you've got my hands my hands are tied my eyes are lazy my eyes are clumsy all I see the world reflecting back out my eyes

it wasn't me

Little Inner Voices

It came to my attention that I'd have to pay heed to all those little inner voices I'd been trying to tune out.

Interesting, I thought. Great good could come of this, or it could make me go crazy.

Fear of insanity is a dastardly thing. Then, one day, you're walking down the street, drinking a cup of coffee, smoking a cigarette, and you forget about it - all fear of it just seems to disappear, and you start just floating around. That's when you've lost it; you're nuts.
Fear can bring you back, just like it can take you there. Are apathy and anxiety opposites? I guess they could be, some of the time. I don't like fear. I like old cities and old growth forests. Yhat doesn't leave much space for fear. I guess I don't mind fear, really. It's just a bad habit, like a dirty nun wears.

Much better to go nuts, or bananas. No need to get cable tv - you're already hooked in. Just flare your nostrils and raise your ears and you can hear them all... 'course they're pretty quiet, really, but they'll let out a whisper here and there, and you should commit all that to memory, you know, just in case. I suppose you could write it down. Or make it into a song.

The Western Sky

The western sky is salmon red those are the lights of our town rising up into our mist that permeates the valley
It's rained for two days now
The rituals of the Indians my forefathers killed are still working
Thank god

That tree in our front yard, by the drive, I don't know what kind it is
I can't tell where branches start or stop, it has so many.
In our back yard, there is a garden and a stone wall
And five or six pine trees, whose reflections I watch on the kitchen window

And I praise our reliable heating and groceries, and I wonder "at whose expense?"
"My own, if I'm one with all," I answer, and I close the drapes and I lock the door.

The western sky is salmon red, those are the lights of our town.

Rx

linoleum
fevers
nerve pills
youths with earrings
distracting shadows
paranoia
cup of coffee
tobacco
idle talk
plasticene
small animals
promotional flyers
turning lanes
ghetto talk
false airs
they failed me again
it's not my fault
they don't understand me
it's you they want
all I want is a cheeseburger
a beer in a glass
a real friend I do not doubt
a clean mirror
a countertop
a sack of beans
a scalpel
a mormon's suit
a stetson
a brake shoe
a mystery book
a board game
a patriot
a mousetrap
my little yellow basket
my remote control

Roadside Suite

Part One

Downtown rocktown
walking down
main street
good to know
the layout of
the thoroughfares
the postings on
the courthouse door
the newlyweds
and coffeecakes
resting in the sun
out on the streetside

when at night
with the wind no longer warm
no neckties, no attaches
no schoolchildren
on middle-aged sidewalks
chess-mad poets
and graduate students
waltz for supremacy
two-step for place
jig for grace
but night is not yet
we've hours to get

it's still afternoon
with much light left
and I sit
in my car
and watch the road signs
for changes
in the weather

Part Two

no codewords here
only rough hewn stone
sitting as time sits
crosslegged on the sidewalk
eating salt

no fear of early death
just static existence
leaves still green
though air is cooler
than a month ago

cheeseburgers and malteds
for the hypermodern poet
with his hand on the wheel
of a mechanize carriage
who used to process words
but now is content
just to write them

Part Three

history and culture
are valuable even
when dead
and one does not stumble
on well-laid brick

if I had a pipe
I'd set it in my chair
and climb onto the mantle
so it could see me at rest

Part Four

not accepting packages
not taking phone calls
not meeting appointments
not attending classes
not showing up for work
not making expectations
not planning for my future
not knowing for sure
enjoying my freedom
taking a sick day
mental health
in communicado
unbound and open
out and away

The Body

The body, if left to its own devices, wishes to twitch uncontrollably in a secret code known only to the wise few.

I am not one of those few - I receive no teachings, and can only observe.

How does the mind twitch?

I felt ill, briefly, and then you turned the corner into my narrow field of vision and I felt heavenly bliss in the presence of demons and I'd no idea just what to do.

I hear a Shakedown with sirens in the background; distorted love songs looming large in the small apartment; I'm up above the storefronts, and I wonder:

Is honesty always cold?

And I love it. I love it for all its instrinsic absurdities and proper place in Pandora's little red box. I hold fear, I hold rage, and I hold unabashed love.

You drew my blood, and I love you for that.

So pack us off to the asylum, baby, 'cause I'm in it for the long haul.

I'll Keep Her Picture

I'll keep her picture around for thirty years to remind myself of the deep felt love we shared before we really got to know each other.

No Soundtrack

Concrete meets brick beneath your feet, round here, that's what it's like, on the edge of the present backspinning into the past. I see this tiny pigeon, must've been a descendant of some big city pigeon, learned at an early age to hang out at a coffeehouse our little city just learned it wanted.

College-aged cats feeding it bits of their muffins, chatting in banter and burble and bicker and blinking into bad english accents and rednecks and russians and none of them get it quite right. Cosmopolitans.

So I'm reading this book and I've got to the rats but that's nothing quite yet from what I've heard tell and there's girlfriends all over chatting at the table on the side and there's boyfriends all over laughing and cracking asides.

Friends are coming soon a change in the pace a brand new face but the grace of a stranger is dangerous unless you're one of us brave and adventurous charging through fire and mumbling mire but that's all ridiculous all sounds like the others and their mothers' brothers so cast it aside.

Acceptance Speech

Well I'm here to write my acceptance speech feet nailed to the floor behind the podium and I'm giving it to you in tongue because I can do no other than what my mother no my other mother did but that was long before I knew her.

Now I'm sitting on the corner tried to warn her bout Jack Horner bout to floor her on the corner back in circles run up the window here we go oh what a mirror what a sheer and scary cliffwall hide the spliff doll what was that you were saying?

Now I'm watching the roof for birds heard them back in the far lot struggling for words for the upper edge of the cityscape and the free motion above gliding over society and the travails of the earth but that's birds for you darling they just go over our heads.

untitled 2003-09-07

just when i think
i'm back from the brink
out of hell
i've fashioned a whole
the lines between the parts appear
delineate the bits of soul
i take a step back
and out of the frame
to appreciate and expedite
the situation
sit back and count
all the connections
from here to there
from this to that
there runs a line
that path is mine
i stand and walk
i watch myself
moving through the hall
opening doors
all down the line
noticing possible exits
possible entrances
room to room to room
a rose is a rose
a man is a man
a thought is a thing
a thing is a feeling
a feeling is rising
to the crest of the hill
a feeling is cruising
in my foriegn car
between the trees
stand straight up
in the river valley
between the peaks
to the man-made lake
from which we draw
our drinking water
standing up
in the middle
on top of the dam
standing beside
the commemorative plaque
read by hippy hikers
and drunken rednecks
and forest rangers
and probably one single
high ranking local official
back in 1976
when they dedicated the thing
and let it start
backing things up
for the sake of
showers, and green leaves
and automatic coin-op
car washes and
swimming pools (why bother? swim in a high creek 'neath the falls)
and flushing the radiator in the gravel drive
out beneath the oak tree
in the side yard
and it's 1956 again
20 years before the dam
before the interstates hit it big
and (in collusion with television and hidden enemies)
standardized american culture
and began extending itself through
secret exit ramps
bringing the armies of the gods
straight into our homes
mass media has reinstituted
the quartering act
but in 1956
this danger was still latent
still sleeping in our daughters unaware
hiding in our future fathers' wild ways
confusion undermines everything
uncertainty of self
causes reality to elude the eye
and attack the back
of the head instead
as a hand drill to a block of pine
in the garage out back
building workbench number four
which will be used exclusively
towards the task
of building workbench five,
after a lengthy exposition
upon the nature of a good sawhorse.
--
before the information age
all could be redeemed
or reconciled
(whichever fit)
by the simple act
of tangible creation
now, though,
we are caught in a storm
of conflicting interests
brought back face to face
with primeval entities
intent on our land
intent on our hearts
intent on our wills
and we must get to know them
a perverse and beautiful chore
the opportunity of a lifetime
forced upon one under threat of life
or even greater
for one to live
one must be one
for one to be one
much must be known
which is as yet not
but is only still
just knowable
just
in this cloud
float seeds of rain
which flows like compassion
and like love
when unlocked
by love
as in this art
so in this world
so up above
and deep down
where god lies waiting
for the magic word
which is easily found
in any childhood joke
or passion play
or exotic story
or erotic food
or music of two drummers
in conversation
or the sound of the wind
coming down the rivulets
of rock and mud
in the hollow
and down the creekbed
following the curves and veins
of the earth
informing the ley lines
of news from across the ocean
demographic statistics
as in
the formation of a new ant colony
in deep subsahara
the election of a new leader
among the pumas
a moratorium
on calling a duck a duck
until the geese have cast their vote
now dispersing
off the water's surface
invigorated by the sweat and surf
breaking off the rocks
as the rapids descend
the wind ascends
and spreads
out into the trees
brushing leaf to leaf
to twig to branch to limb to
trunk to root to soil to worm
to soil again from tree to tree
to blackberry bush to bluebird
to badger to burrow to blackness
to bugs and grubs and back to
birds to soil to grow to fruit
to return to grains of dust
kicking along the surface
of the mountainside
kicked up and off and out
by the wind picking up speed
picking the sound of rushing
streams and rushing cars and
rushing heartbeats drifting in
the brushing leaves stirring up
brushfires and pulling down
communication wires
and power lines
as nature's way
holds precedence
over the ways of men
until men choose not
to deny but to extend
to inform and be informed
affect and be affected
the wind returns and folds
back into one strong gale
pushing down the drop
of the creek from mountain
to lake up and over the dam
following the spaces in the hills
carved out by millions of years
of flow
the breath of the earth
follows the path of our water supply
down into the towns
that dot our fertile valley
with cattle ranches and meth labs
warm springs and nightclubs
churches and liquor stores
universities and government offices
this breath and this blood
will inform all
running out of the rocks and woods
that surround on all sides
flow
this flow will keep all
in the proper direction
this balance
of order and entropy
hanging in the air
floating upstream
back up to the source
makes it easy to see

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These pages last updated 2008.02.24 by Ralph J. Murray.				Copyright 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 The Burnt Possum Poets (Dan Easley, Jeremy Frey, Chad Gusler).