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Aaron McCollough

Knoxville Blues
Vernacular Poem [Painted with feathers]
Vernacular Poem [Light / shade]

 

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Knoxville Blues

 

 

Which was the fantasia

 

 

 

 

        as the preservation of the world is wildness

            and what is wild 

            has no use for sympathetic stories

 

and all we want and don’t want of us

is in the singing

 

 

          wandering to

            preserve

the singing    that has no use

 

 

strawberry jam and all the dif’rent varieties

 

            in knoxville I first saw a girl

            in knoxville I first touched her

 

for wildness wilderness and innocence

are inconsistent notions        there’s only trauma and

                                                            help  or  harm

                                                                        in it

                                                                            the black sap rotten knot

 

to clean song (two house sparrows sing at one another)

 

    and what lies behind their singing is

    a metaphor for wildness in domesticity (passer domesticus,

    or HOSP, sometimes called the English Sparrow)

 

 

we’ve been through this garden

superfluous branches / we lop away, that bearing bows may live

 

 

Which was the fantasia

 

…

 

 

in knoxville my father (a brave man) had as his friend

a brave man (like an uncle to me) and they both lived themselves

for preservations    one against the plow    the other against the saw

 

            hard and full of trauma    like the old christians, Lord

            who I never meet        except in books

            they asked for a beating

 

    the blues    the persecutory imagination    to preservation engine

 

puritan blues

 

    mourning without special interest

    mourning without special pleading

 

mourning and pleading most mild

                                                            so mild as a fever always

 

an even ferocity                        the grass coming in

 

the fever of tuning

 

…

 

 

 

I picked a stick up off the ground

and knocked that fair girl down

 

 

 

this even ferocity of nature

 

 

…

 

 

promiscuous butchery

garden

by the river that runs through knoxville town

to live in a house     promiscuous butchery

to live                      promiscuous butchery

 

what kind of creation

 

the kind that interrupts

 

                        river interrupted

                        river flood

                        measures the river

                        love not love

                        the river mark

                        line of mold

                        mould of make

                        edge and fold

river interrupted

                        river flood

                        measures the river

                        love not love

 

 

 

not help not harm not not not

I said I would not say no

help me with my disbelief

 

            a hero perish    a sparrow fall

 

…

 

 

thought every degree of creation

              a degree of evil thought and every

            thought degree of evil a degree of unbeing

 

    coming through these degrees

    flying the finale we at a crux in the world

            (extracted from an x

                                    reading The Sorrows of Priapus

 

            watching Land of the Dead)

 

                straining to hear    murder song hosannas

 

 crept up on the new from original

intrinsic from authentic

 

sparrow

hero

 

where knoxville once stood, a basket of strawberries

 

a cactus in a green plastic planter

 

a model of kennedy at his desk

 

dogwoods    violins

 

 

the horsehead cornucopia spilling

fish    frog    turtle    a “no swimming” sign

 

for Oh, to some / Not to be Martyrs, is a martyrdome

 

 

in the crackling groove flying where

digitized and coded again    a shadow of a shadow of

 

the blues unhooked and floating in the

future

 

even as I was yanking the sparrow’s nest

from the gutter pipe a metaphor for help and harm

was up there and the thunder rushing me

 

                                    pass domicile

                                    pestering as you must be

                                    terminal tearing

 

 

 

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Vernacular Poem

 

 

Painted with feathers

The box in the saltbox house

In the town called Old Economy

Before it was dry

With feathers

When weather could cross

Your contents

 

I mean when all your ventures

Might suddenly go ruined

My love is like a flower

It is painted with

 

 

 

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Vernacular Poem

 

 

Light / shade

I cannot control this flower

Or light and shade

 

I do not touch these

They don’t touch me

 

We say of our time ‘out of control’

But we could mean ‘in love’

 

Moisture on the bathroom wall

Running water

 

We could say ‘irresistible’

Of this flower, Lily

 

And our time / light / shade

The idea of nothing

 

Nothing cruel

Which cannot be thought

 

Touching things

Touching terms

 

Things terms Lily like love

Outside grasp    inside reach

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Aaron McCullough was born in Columbus Ohio, and raised in Knoxville and Chattanooga Tennessee. His first book of poetry, Welkin, was chosen for the first Sawtooth Prize and was published by Ahsahta Press. Double Venus was published by Salt Books in 2003. Little Ease is forthcoming from Ahsahta Press this year.

 

Poems copyright ©2006 by Aaron McCullough.