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Williams: The last note from the shore

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

The last note from the shore  
by Henry Williams   

‘Pardon my sore toast, nominal & blunt & let’s get on toward the sea.’

 
                                                            —John Berryman
 
                                    i.
 
When the timbers creak the ship ancient
and ever still slick as a fox swimming in oil
then Robert Johnson
                                    strummed and slid on the strings
                                    ‘you better come in my kitchen
                                    there’s gonna be rain outdoors’
 
these shanties flame sung as farewell, final
footing beat
                                                and pasted to water
my seal,
                                    loaded a barrel of fresh herring
and onions. this is where I signal there’s reefs,
yes, and all their ornamentations
 
but running the sandy waves
was all the waking sailor could manage.
 
                                                We changed the light bulb
and cursed the moon for her influence.
 
 
                                                ii.
 
 
Delta of a snaking flow
where traders tie crocs to canoes, approach the barges
 
world that started our trek.
 
From brushing jungle feathers against the rail, these
nights blanket steam kicks a drum tap of trees
                                                slapping hands to bulwark,
                                                baby carriage
bursting up stream listed and wobbly,
 
 
 
 
and this was hole-in-the-pocket excess leading
towards an ocean, this, Conrad’s river:
his jungular bulging with percussion
 
or heat or adrennial smiles cautious slant.
We at the mouth traded gasoline and steel
for wind, canvas
 
old fashion mess
our best waist coat.
 
 
 
                                                iii.
 
 
Pulse pattern madness as we
baptized the hull, darkest grain maple dressed
in pitch & tar,
                                                            we prepared each sail
like lingerie suited to seduce the wind;
                                                thrust sent us script thru white caps
                                                                        hot held bow past Truman  Ike
and camelot.  suppose we are Vikings,
this would be truth:
                                                            the sea’s cold promise digs
                                                                                                                        under all roots.
                                    To know finally why a half a century found
a peaceful us out to swagger with baton
any regular cop’s beat
 
                                                                        container myth
of missiles  airborne  &  gray painted fleet.
                                                                                                                       
we are no Bush or Cortez,
working for
 
a listless whore.
 
This is voyage.  Not sinking.
 
 
 
                                                one part
                                                     the boat
 
 
(a)
 
Welcome this party pushing craft
from Chesapeake swampland to the
cliffs emptying earth off north
 
Californian coast.  twelve existing
between pressed pulp and pen, we
move what coasting scud of our hull
 
slide this is.  Fuel, muscles own strain
as it is the only way to dream this
spiraling journey on its course.
 
Ernie Pyle,  our Delphian guide, drifts
from 1930’s articles,
travel-tips never missing.  critics
 
mention drastic changes must’ve
happened, but then how many
left the narrow confines of desk
 
or chair, much less made it their boat, dared
sail anything save thick cows tongues
from their oily rotting teethy holes.
 
Our goal:  to cruise thru 50 years
soaked wood history, warped pine of
the white house & trembling limestone
dome, the argument for this mind’s
expedition.  Not to judge but to see.
 
 
(b)
 
 
So we stompt the grapes yet smasht
the bottle, wine transmogrified,
artery split, spilt veins poured
 
thru silt and the ocean disappeared.
the American states were born in
1945 to Roosevelt
 
dying, and Truman rising.  It was D.C.
where we began pushing the boat be-
hind a horse dawn hearse;  seven
 
different steeds from the islands off
Hatteras, roped there to pull to
Arlington that last brave patriot
 
who nature kept from being Caesar.
the crew south now, sitting drunken;
shrimp boats riding swells, and how
 
do we understand this nation’s
slide sipping wine, getting high, obser-
ving the beach skint by tide.
 
Waiting for the stars to now point
mapish the roads we should skid the
craft down;  list this crew so far:
Coltraine and Idlewilt, the same
it’d seem but pushing opposite sides.
 
 
(c)
 
The picture window was 50’s
golden timed sensible timid
buyers;  American image, one meteor,
 
its century.  Butter and whole milk,
synthetic silk, Ozzy & Harriet blew
kisses cross their twin bed canyon.
 
but entering just right to exclaim
for us, squatted forty years past
the prime is a trinity more true
 
to those middle decades than Ike
or Nixon on his rotten blood rise:
Kees, Bruce and Dean, all ghosts now.
 
What better sparkling last shot
at these years than the abandoned
car on the Golden Gate Bridge west
 
entrance;  subtle as a missile silo
in Nebraska, or a broomstick to mop-
sweep glaciers spastic angles;  we
 
passed Ernie’s Indiana yesterday.
Last seventeen hours spent coating
stomachs with apple pie and vanilla
ice cream.  Heroes all choked on chicken
bone excuses, painful failing truth.
 
 
(d)
 
it is September, a falling mouth, a
dispatched smell that will land over
the pushcart clouds, atop a dead
 
rain damaged or bug eaten leaf.
The force transforms, the frozen
concentrate about to be whipped
 
to these august swirls conclusive
off rumbling astropheric burps.
Actually watching football in Veterans’
 
stadium, saints and eagles on fake
green short grass.  Irregular, yes,
all those cars arranged around the boat’s
 
splintered hull–
                                                            but September
brings us here.  The coliseum drawn
like a well bucket from the metropolis.
 
ache the age, this era of game
that came sometime after manifest destiny
ended:  to help control the emptiness
 
which emerged.  So said the hobo
who found a ten spot and a free ticket;
collecting cans for nickels,
he dropt the aluminum, fixed his coat,
stretcht then strutted to play.
 
 
 
(e)
 
Entertainment’s moral concern,
the fair way to hit and score tuckt
into mediocre spirits with cash.
 
A sour rebellion, escape, no soothing
the throaty sand when struck pitches
curl human milk.  Confused, we slapt
 
the boat wood hull with our hands to
check reality.  Assuring grind of grain
on asphalt, we merged on I-40
 
west.  Yes mates, slipt the whole crew &
craft over Texas.  Kees, hand tight
on his bow hold, laught until he cought,
 
gagged senseless by the thought of San
Francisco.  The hills, he said, and
triumphs, but I’d like to till
 
this soul once more thru bay & mist.
What a bridge!  And silence again save
wooden scrape & splinter, a sorry
 
dusty choice shotglass next to his
voice.  Ruined pueblos, carved cliff,
haunted whistling behind us.  Fire
gradually follows sun, whispers
and snores greet wilderness’s black.
 
 
(f)
 
 
There have been trials:  ragged & hunted,
forced to disappear, twelve men go
these rocky gaps with us.  Black listed
 
by pork bulbous hungry hams in
ties.  & this Ike’s grand ole fiesta,
a wake, or more crazed funeral
 
for already thin individual
rights.  Stalin laughed at suburbs,
Levittown, a land for his heart.
 
Plums gone, and she couldn’t find
a corner grocer.  no choice since Ozzy
had the Plymouth but walking miles
 
for Wal-mart:  then only got apples.
Not a clear day to be bought, these hills
crackt chocolate, frost clawed edges
 
trimming the road.  Entourage rimmed near
the snake river, campt:  we knew Joe McCarthy
would dive into some sourmash pit.
 
This crucible (where spanning orange cliffs
cataract canyon) spun blindness
in a winding-scape, crevices tying us.
Words stopped as Jimmy Dean ran hand
thru hair with the usual tragic flair.
 
 
(g)
 
‘now sleeps he with that old whore death’
                                                                                    -Hemingway
 
 
In Idaho, bluffs & black streams shadowed
by retiring sun, we saw Hemingway
smoking a butt, scowled he;  the condos
 
spread;  civilized porno windows
looked on water dying.  Vital flow
stunk of tapeworm & ham:  not a trout
 
to fin thru slick rocks.  He spit thick
with lung & foul discharge.  Coltraine askt
if he still retained a ship swagger.
 
Torn hunting jacket hung on ghost,
Remington repeater twelve gauge
leaned on a tree stump, he spoke a tuba
 
hump. Short bass hums of tongue on
rotted cheek & teeth.  I’d gladly
sail tomorrow but this land is mine:
 
to leave, to pass these white tips for
a new Havana.  Those bars that ruin gut
and brain, the ease of companions.
 
He grabbed Coltraine’s corduroy coat.
Paris & poverty, that’s salvation m’boy!
Then burnt another lucky, slumpt on
a snow drift, hardened ice:  his smoke
a swimmer fading to sea, far past waves…
 
(h)
 
In a hotel room (Irving, Texas), the
All Star Inn, 14 of us cover up
the floor & two beds.  Boris Karloff is
 
weaving a story.  Face pasty as the tale
unfolds,
                                    —the scientists’ creation
somehow turned & haunted the humanity
 
it meant to lift.  Twisted then, when
the scientists sought to fix their poem
or pass its floating truth elsewhere:
 
they got hung.  The words weren’t exactly
unknown, more just a proper setting involved
for surprise application on earth.
                                                    He
sat & addressed his glass;  Boris drank
some rose to his cheeks.  Tom Idlewilt
pushed Bill from bed to rug, no doubt
 
stoned & stuffed.  By the intersection
and across from the west most acre of
truck farms was a Waffle House.  Tom ate
 
his self sludgy.  The 3.99
special for all of anything sunk right thru
stomach;  loaded with grease and slothy
complex carbohydrates, Tom said
what good would come smashing atoms.
 

 

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