By John Popielaski
And all the creatures that jug-band in the shade
have to find a new shade to hide in at dawn.
–Ed Skoog, “Canzoniere of Late July”
I’ll address the epigraph directly,
but I should confess I wasn’t blown away
by Ed Skoog’s ten-page poem that contained it,
a deflation of the spirit by the time I reached
the fourth page, set like all the others in Sabon, a font
designed by Jan Tschichold in 1964.
Confession two: I stinkeye anyone
for whom a page or two is not enough to flesh
a poem out in this initialed, acronymic age.
I LOL at you Americans who use Italian forms
(except the sonnet) and, in laughing, need
to know what country made your cars
before I go ballistic at your readings,
screaming, “Where is your allegiance? Whence your capital!”
But I’ve been drinking, and I’ve wandered
from the narrow path, the straight way
by which we may skip still toward salvation.
The world is wide, I know, so let me show you
how two lines from Ed can spin a person
prone to error in a promising direction.
Reading Mister Skylight by a fire dying
to be fed, I wondered why so many books I read
did not deliver what they advertised.
Was something seriously wrong with me?
Was there a dumbing going down?
The hooded monks I’ve pictured hunched, inscribing
in my brain whatever I have read have been
the victims of a genocide since I began
the drinking as a boy. How many could be left?
What powers could they have to render what’s been read
retained? I worried that way, but I brightened
when I read the two lines I’ve included
as an epigraph, brightened despite the fact
that what they mean is we, the people, when we need
an oak tree to become a door, will harden,
bluster, “Stub the inchworms, spray the lady bugs,
and crush the jug bands of the world! We need
a door!” I spent the waning evening, book closed,
with the magnifying glass I use to read
my compact OED and spared the wakened woodlice
from the fire, watched them scurry from my mercy
as I did my version of the downward-facing dog.
Posted by Mel.
View all posts by Mel
Friday, July 1st, 2011 7:56 am
Categories: Issue 5.1, Poetry
