Chad Reynolds
4 poems
**
First __________
Before just now or a moment ago, before
the mercurial morning and the evening
with its covers down for night’s
impudent decay, before the lines
in a face said the wound became body,
before the fanfaronade and resolution
and the delicate work to release me,
before there was before, it happened.
I remember it so clearly. So suddenly.
So adverbially. It happened, and then
like the great arctic shelf splitting
there were two, and there were two
like a loaf of bread cut down the middle.
Before there was no before, and now
there was a before and after, a now
and then, either or. A choice.
The sides rose up, horrible and magnificent,
like Titans or skyscrapers. In the street
I try to take it one brick at a time,
aware first of curb, then hydrant.
Meter. Lobby. I’ve learned to stare straight
ahead. My eyes work independently.
**
Fishing __________
I’m casting one out I tied myself
with bits of string I pulled from a sock
and if it doesn’t catch something big,
I’ll reel it back and try again.
The water ripples like a greasy potato chip
and when the fly lands to take a bite
and the fish rises to take a bite,
that’s when I do my thing
and pull to set the hook:
fish, fly, and chip all stuck
in one place, and the sun,
that radiant coke bottle bottom,
shining in confirmation and warning:
fetch the net, this one’s a whopper,
a trophy—don’t blow it, shit head.
I drink another beer and contemplate
jumping into the bag of chips
to wade through the grease
to meet my arch nemeses.
Near the bottom the fly and fish
are having a heart-to-heart: it seems
they’ve decided to release me.
**
Bottom __________
So this is it. The deepest point. Nadir.
Here. Where oil settles in its drums
and mud has nowhere left to slide.
Where water turns in on itself
and heavy air holds its breath.
Where there’s no railing to hold
and the stairs become ramps
and the ramps cover in mold.
The line on survival is dim,
someone on a bullhorn declares
to no one but me, and I’m not listening.
I’m fishing change out of my pocket
to feed the wishing well of sighs
over which hangs the sign:
abandon hope, all ye who
etc.
And then et cetera begins to unfold
to reveal some living thing
whose eyes are just opening
and I’m the first one it sees—
what experts call imprinting.
Now I’ll never leave.
**
Battle __________
They are drawn and redrawn and drawn out
until no one’s sure where the fight’s on,
or for what. When the engineers spread the map
upon the rock to chart good guy/bad guy
movements in exes and ohs—the cycles
and epicycles, ambushes and doubles-back,
parlays all traced in mechanical lead—
they create a document that speaks
to our future about our now in a code
called Palimpsest: beneath one surface
lies another that buries another—
faint layers erased into the past
but not oblivion: still hanging around
to remind the future that the future’s
as dim as the past: vestigiality’s
a myth: violence is a force that lasts.
So my grandmother says. She lived
through two world wars (and the minor
skirmishes): she’s full of brawn and advice.
She says, if something goes amiss,
look for sympathy. It’s in the dictionary
between shit and syphilis.
**
return to sawbuck 1.9
**
Chad Reynolds was born in Oklahoma and lives near Boston. These poems come from a project he calls Lines, and poems of their ilk have been published on RealPoetik, Verse Daily, and in Redivider. His poetry has also appeared in Swink, Washington Square, Meridian, Puerto del Sol, Amherst Review, California Quarterly, and Kennesaw Review. Forthcoming work can be found in Diagram and Open Letters Monthly.
**
First __________
Before just now or a moment ago, before
the mercurial morning and the evening
with its covers down for night’s
impudent decay, before the lines
in a face said the wound became body,
before the fanfaronade and resolution
and the delicate work to release me,
before there was before, it happened.
I remember it so clearly. So suddenly.
So adverbially. It happened, and then
like the great arctic shelf splitting
there were two, and there were two
like a loaf of bread cut down the middle.
Before there was no before, and now
there was a before and after, a now
and then, either or. A choice.
The sides rose up, horrible and magnificent,
like Titans or skyscrapers. In the street
I try to take it one brick at a time,
aware first of curb, then hydrant.
Meter. Lobby. I’ve learned to stare straight
ahead. My eyes work independently.
**
Fishing __________
I’m casting one out I tied myself
with bits of string I pulled from a sock
and if it doesn’t catch something big,
I’ll reel it back and try again.
The water ripples like a greasy potato chip
and when the fly lands to take a bite
and the fish rises to take a bite,
that’s when I do my thing
and pull to set the hook:
fish, fly, and chip all stuck
in one place, and the sun,
that radiant coke bottle bottom,
shining in confirmation and warning:
fetch the net, this one’s a whopper,
a trophy—don’t blow it, shit head.
I drink another beer and contemplate
jumping into the bag of chips
to wade through the grease
to meet my arch nemeses.
Near the bottom the fly and fish
are having a heart-to-heart: it seems
they’ve decided to release me.
**
Bottom __________
So this is it. The deepest point. Nadir.
Here. Where oil settles in its drums
and mud has nowhere left to slide.
Where water turns in on itself
and heavy air holds its breath.
Where there’s no railing to hold
and the stairs become ramps
and the ramps cover in mold.
The line on survival is dim,
someone on a bullhorn declares
to no one but me, and I’m not listening.
I’m fishing change out of my pocket
to feed the wishing well of sighs
over which hangs the sign:
abandon hope, all ye who
etc.
And then et cetera begins to unfold
to reveal some living thing
whose eyes are just opening
and I’m the first one it sees—
what experts call imprinting.
Now I’ll never leave.
**
Battle __________
They are drawn and redrawn and drawn out
until no one’s sure where the fight’s on,
or for what. When the engineers spread the map
upon the rock to chart good guy/bad guy
movements in exes and ohs—the cycles
and epicycles, ambushes and doubles-back,
parlays all traced in mechanical lead—
they create a document that speaks
to our future about our now in a code
called Palimpsest: beneath one surface
lies another that buries another—
faint layers erased into the past
but not oblivion: still hanging around
to remind the future that the future’s
as dim as the past: vestigiality’s
a myth: violence is a force that lasts.
So my grandmother says. She lived
through two world wars (and the minor
skirmishes): she’s full of brawn and advice.
She says, if something goes amiss,
look for sympathy. It’s in the dictionary
between shit and syphilis.
**
return to sawbuck 1.9
**
Chad Reynolds was born in Oklahoma and lives near Boston. These poems come from a project he calls Lines, and poems of their ilk have been published on RealPoetik, Verse Daily, and in Redivider. His poetry has also appeared in Swink, Washington Square, Meridian, Puerto del Sol, Amherst Review, California Quarterly, and Kennesaw Review. Forthcoming work can be found in Diagram and Open Letters Monthly.
