Mark DuCharme
Against Life’s Course
I didn’t write a Mayday poem
I didn’t write of birth, although I’ve witnessed one
I didn’t write a New Year’s poem this year (did the one I wrote in 2020 jinx us?)
I didn’t write a State of the Union address, or a poem based on one
I didn’t write a song that speaks of the derbies of Kentucky
I didn’t write an ode to the full moon or its half-sister
I didn’t write “Sonnet: Weeping”
I didn’t write a screenplay based on Blood and Guts in High School
I didn’t write a libretto based on The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
I didn’t write a poem about the shooting at the grocery store
I didn’t write an annotated list of my grievances
I didn’t write a novel, just a novella, but not the right kind
I didn’t write a self-help book on how to write a self-help book in twelve easy steps
I didn’t write an exposé or a bad check
I didn’t write you a field guide to wallflowers of the great indoors
I didn’t write a sestina using the end-words lint, Dead Souls, plunder, schemata, hashtags & Gorgonzola
I didn’t write my poems for the bland
I didn’t write about my mother’s funeral
I didn’t write any polemics, chronologies, affidavits, hagiographies, memoirs, cookbooks or travel guides--
I only wrote the letters
That come unsealed within your dreams
I’ll Tell
The heart enflamed
You look away
I’ll tell
I’ll tell the film
I’ll tell the film in rain
I’ll tell the film in spoken particles
In light lost living
The arrangement’s not quite what we say
Abased & fancy-free--
Lean
Lean your head on me
Lean your head back all the way
There’s no use going
But to get back where
We are
No one is immune
I’ll tell
I’ll tell the film
I’ll tell the film in season
I’ll tell the film in ghosts of pain
I’ll tell the film in unspoken barriers
Where kindred spirits pause & lean
On people’s
False historical narratives
Like faint ambassadors of sky
This isn’t the moment
To misuse our awareness
In the film, go back & see
Say what you are, but don’t quite mean
No one is
Immune
When Nothing Else Is Necessary to Say
after Eileen R. Tabios,
& for her & Joel Chace
I forgot what light means
when it clings to your fingers
& the written’s gone
astray
I forgot someone being
in the background, on camera
when nowhere else is meant to be seen
I forgot what I forgot, & then
did it anyway
I forgot that this is a “little song”--
or are the proportions of architecture
written on the remains
of those who
fled
I forgot to ask whom you wanted to be--
please don’t say
I forgot that work is play
turned inversely on itself
“I forgot to remember to forget,” sang
Elvis Presley, once
I forgot who it was for a minute in Zanzibar
I forgot that crude stars etch
fake geometries at night
I forgot the words to “Da Doo Ron Ron”
on a thoroughfare in Scotland
I forgot those buildings, whose flawless
surfaces produce
reflections of such magnitude
that they have scarred the retinas
of an entire generation
of photographers
I forgot never to be forgotten never to be repeated
I forgot about wind resistance
its tail syllables whipping
I forgot the sad words, “Au revoir, Constantinople”
I forgot those who with the stealth &
grace of dancers
seemed to be laughing
as they landed on faces
of appalled tourists from Cleveland
I forgot that everything’s sound movement color sensation
even lust— its quickening
I forgot not to go away
by tragic deviance
I forgot the work that has yet to be undone
yet am I one with it? I forgot--
I forgot the remains of sparrows thirsting
even when you don’t send them any regards
I forgot “when you wake up you’re suddenly
there”
I forgot that this is now & unlike
me who did not
go
I forgot to slip out past the capacious
landscape
I forgot to be where I said I was before
I forgot jade lips of the figurine
we saw at the museum
& the ragged heads of huge trees blocks
away
I forgot rainy smoke-filled saturdays
in coffee shops which have
no colors
I forgot Gwynne used
the phrase “capitalizing on knowledge”
to describe a friend of ours. it fit like tight
underwear
I forgot the cat curled
a furry parenthesis
I forgot it is not old by now it is
barely finished & I am grinning
I forgot (almost) my upstairs neighbor’s
name
I forgot you can’t always believe everything
you’re told. Somebody told me that
once. I don’t know whether or not to
believe it
I forgot temple to what popstar
I forgot our dead— could trees be falling out of windows--
stars in the wrong positions on the
map— & we the intricate
pieces of ourselves discarded
at railway stations--
I forgot the wooden fire escape
so charming & totally
useless
I forgot to stumble into bed at dawn
with none of the fears crossed out
I forgot there came a point
I had
to break free
of everything else along the way
& whoever else it was
that I might
be
The Portent
The climate factory nudged
Newly imported drizzle
While we were still at sea.
Will you eat the drizzle, this one time
When the stars aren’t far from your feet
& The sea, & all you expected to be near?
Or is it too hard to be near?
Had you left too early, & were you far? The banjo nudged
The peripheries with hostile feet,
A unique sense of vividness that only drizzle
Could inspire. & You stood there for a time
In muddled approbation, hoping for a furtive glimpse of the sea
That never arrived, though it was your fate to dream again of the sea,
Of drowning in it, in a way that reminded you of being near
To parades & all their pomp & clutter, in the time
The red earth stood still. Who nudged
You then from your slumber, waiting for the drizzle
To resume like a minor piano concerto, while gauds were strewn about the feet
Of the blond man playing the concerto, when the audience leapt to its feet
& Ran for the door. It will linger in the memory, like a fateful sea
Voyage, like a lover’s cryptic note, full of self-reproach, while drizzle
Itself alters the tune & its resonances. Are we near
The end of the voyage, or must we be nudged
From our torpor by the concerto, which sounds like amplified drizzle, like the time
The blond man came to your cabin to inquire the time
& Whether you’d been having any bad dreams? He had blisters on his feet,
He said, & advised you to take up golfing: “On the greens you can go looking for new end-words & secretly nudged
Balls, ever closer to the mark, & to the margin of the sea
Dividing you & us from the rest of natural life.” When we are near
It, we are not fearful of the drizzle
& All that it portends, for we grew up not knowing differently— that drizzle
Is a sign of danger & of time’s
Rapid dispersion. If you were near,
Perhaps we could divide our breath & count with our feet
Or with very old conch shells, themselves portentous, which remind us of the sea
By which we stood, for a time, in supplicating grief, wondering whether fate could really be nudged
At all. But who is ever really nudged? Come forth in the drizzle
Wearing garments the color of the sea & looking to the time
Ruined feet shall wander clayey earth in danger drawing, drawing ever near.
Essay in Chalk
I commented on a reaction
You’re ignored in
Like an idiot flinging a brick
Wall he was starting to mirror
Although the proof is often less than
Full of saints, “one fine day”
We may never hide
Without the right to jaywalk
Like seabirds, once in awhile
& You don’t have to question
The answer, or answer
The question, but still
Wait for others to scold those
Who do. Somewhere, someone’s
Always speaking
English. If you don’t
Know
Our representatives will be right with you
Until you do go cold
Inside our century, our party
With bonus points & a handmade logo
That works great with focus groups.
Whose world are you still selling
With noon so far away?
Everything now is stark
Noise forgotten
Streets
Where all you have’s an emblem (element?)
Of whatever you are or were
There is no anterior.
We grow flustered, but the news isn’t always grim
Faint, with hints of clove
Cigarettes, nesting dolls, tickets
To forgotten shows, a roll
Of undeveloped film— anything, really
To call out the terror we’d call home
Again, or shrink
Back, sit
Still. Sit still.
Everything we do is out
Of tune— the cold
Eyes prying
For catches of joy or relief--
Familiar expressions, unknown
Faces— the looks of strange
Old men. Can you torch the
Visible
With a prayer for the
Indivisible? Now every-
thing we are is else-
where, subju-
gated to a lost
‘Normal’
Never nourishing at all--
Yet we engage in the mechanics of
Nostalgia, for they give us
The familiar, albeit unreal, forms of
History &
Snippets
Of forgotten memories, worn-out
Songs— the past’s disjecta.
Until all we do is finally
Who
We are— a species dangerous
At times, & for whom
The past’s a template
Of forgotten eyes— however sweet
The old sounds, played
Over & over a-
gain, ’til the grooves wear
Out--
The genesis of the accident was
Never in doubt
You went to the lab & got your
Pale aperitif
It was sundown, or it would be at
Some point
But you had forgotten your password, signaled
The auctioneer to tone it
Down
Because June was ripping your buds
Or at least you imagined it that way
At a crazy rate of great
You can’t remake
This charm-littered rag
This piece of flesh & salt
After the fire
But before the false alarm.
Water displaces night. History
Is only legible in
Voices & bodies.
Leave if you
Must
Believe idly or any
Thing bearing weight
Down
Who can
At last, prove true
Or untrue, as the market
Demands.
I didn’t write a Mayday poem
I didn’t write of birth, although I’ve witnessed one
I didn’t write a New Year’s poem this year (did the one I wrote in 2020 jinx us?)
I didn’t write a State of the Union address, or a poem based on one
I didn’t write a song that speaks of the derbies of Kentucky
I didn’t write an ode to the full moon or its half-sister
I didn’t write “Sonnet: Weeping”
I didn’t write a screenplay based on Blood and Guts in High School
I didn’t write a libretto based on The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
I didn’t write a poem about the shooting at the grocery store
I didn’t write an annotated list of my grievances
I didn’t write a novel, just a novella, but not the right kind
I didn’t write a self-help book on how to write a self-help book in twelve easy steps
I didn’t write an exposé or a bad check
I didn’t write you a field guide to wallflowers of the great indoors
I didn’t write a sestina using the end-words lint, Dead Souls, plunder, schemata, hashtags & Gorgonzola
I didn’t write my poems for the bland
I didn’t write about my mother’s funeral
I didn’t write any polemics, chronologies, affidavits, hagiographies, memoirs, cookbooks or travel guides--
I only wrote the letters
That come unsealed within your dreams
I’ll Tell
The heart enflamed
You look away
I’ll tell
I’ll tell the film
I’ll tell the film in rain
I’ll tell the film in spoken particles
In light lost living
The arrangement’s not quite what we say
Abased & fancy-free--
Lean
Lean your head on me
Lean your head back all the way
There’s no use going
But to get back where
We are
No one is immune
I’ll tell
I’ll tell the film
I’ll tell the film in season
I’ll tell the film in ghosts of pain
I’ll tell the film in unspoken barriers
Where kindred spirits pause & lean
On people’s
False historical narratives
Like faint ambassadors of sky
This isn’t the moment
To misuse our awareness
In the film, go back & see
Say what you are, but don’t quite mean
No one is
Immune
When Nothing Else Is Necessary to Say
after Eileen R. Tabios,
& for her & Joel Chace
I forgot what light means
when it clings to your fingers
& the written’s gone
astray
I forgot someone being
in the background, on camera
when nowhere else is meant to be seen
I forgot what I forgot, & then
did it anyway
I forgot that this is a “little song”--
or are the proportions of architecture
written on the remains
of those who
fled
I forgot to ask whom you wanted to be--
please don’t say
I forgot that work is play
turned inversely on itself
“I forgot to remember to forget,” sang
Elvis Presley, once
I forgot who it was for a minute in Zanzibar
I forgot that crude stars etch
fake geometries at night
I forgot the words to “Da Doo Ron Ron”
on a thoroughfare in Scotland
I forgot those buildings, whose flawless
surfaces produce
reflections of such magnitude
that they have scarred the retinas
of an entire generation
of photographers
I forgot never to be forgotten never to be repeated
I forgot about wind resistance
its tail syllables whipping
I forgot the sad words, “Au revoir, Constantinople”
I forgot those who with the stealth &
grace of dancers
seemed to be laughing
as they landed on faces
of appalled tourists from Cleveland
I forgot that everything’s sound movement color sensation
even lust— its quickening
I forgot not to go away
by tragic deviance
I forgot the work that has yet to be undone
yet am I one with it? I forgot--
I forgot the remains of sparrows thirsting
even when you don’t send them any regards
I forgot “when you wake up you’re suddenly
there”
I forgot that this is now & unlike
me who did not
go
I forgot to slip out past the capacious
landscape
I forgot to be where I said I was before
I forgot jade lips of the figurine
we saw at the museum
& the ragged heads of huge trees blocks
away
I forgot rainy smoke-filled saturdays
in coffee shops which have
no colors
I forgot Gwynne used
the phrase “capitalizing on knowledge”
to describe a friend of ours. it fit like tight
underwear
I forgot the cat curled
a furry parenthesis
I forgot it is not old by now it is
barely finished & I am grinning
I forgot (almost) my upstairs neighbor’s
name
I forgot you can’t always believe everything
you’re told. Somebody told me that
once. I don’t know whether or not to
believe it
I forgot temple to what popstar
I forgot our dead— could trees be falling out of windows--
stars in the wrong positions on the
map— & we the intricate
pieces of ourselves discarded
at railway stations--
I forgot the wooden fire escape
so charming & totally
useless
I forgot to stumble into bed at dawn
with none of the fears crossed out
I forgot there came a point
I had
to break free
of everything else along the way
& whoever else it was
that I might
be
The Portent
The climate factory nudged
Newly imported drizzle
While we were still at sea.
Will you eat the drizzle, this one time
When the stars aren’t far from your feet
& The sea, & all you expected to be near?
Or is it too hard to be near?
Had you left too early, & were you far? The banjo nudged
The peripheries with hostile feet,
A unique sense of vividness that only drizzle
Could inspire. & You stood there for a time
In muddled approbation, hoping for a furtive glimpse of the sea
That never arrived, though it was your fate to dream again of the sea,
Of drowning in it, in a way that reminded you of being near
To parades & all their pomp & clutter, in the time
The red earth stood still. Who nudged
You then from your slumber, waiting for the drizzle
To resume like a minor piano concerto, while gauds were strewn about the feet
Of the blond man playing the concerto, when the audience leapt to its feet
& Ran for the door. It will linger in the memory, like a fateful sea
Voyage, like a lover’s cryptic note, full of self-reproach, while drizzle
Itself alters the tune & its resonances. Are we near
The end of the voyage, or must we be nudged
From our torpor by the concerto, which sounds like amplified drizzle, like the time
The blond man came to your cabin to inquire the time
& Whether you’d been having any bad dreams? He had blisters on his feet,
He said, & advised you to take up golfing: “On the greens you can go looking for new end-words & secretly nudged
Balls, ever closer to the mark, & to the margin of the sea
Dividing you & us from the rest of natural life.” When we are near
It, we are not fearful of the drizzle
& All that it portends, for we grew up not knowing differently— that drizzle
Is a sign of danger & of time’s
Rapid dispersion. If you were near,
Perhaps we could divide our breath & count with our feet
Or with very old conch shells, themselves portentous, which remind us of the sea
By which we stood, for a time, in supplicating grief, wondering whether fate could really be nudged
At all. But who is ever really nudged? Come forth in the drizzle
Wearing garments the color of the sea & looking to the time
Ruined feet shall wander clayey earth in danger drawing, drawing ever near.
Essay in Chalk
I commented on a reaction
You’re ignored in
Like an idiot flinging a brick
Wall he was starting to mirror
Although the proof is often less than
Full of saints, “one fine day”
We may never hide
Without the right to jaywalk
Like seabirds, once in awhile
& You don’t have to question
The answer, or answer
The question, but still
Wait for others to scold those
Who do. Somewhere, someone’s
Always speaking
English. If you don’t
Know
Our representatives will be right with you
Until you do go cold
Inside our century, our party
With bonus points & a handmade logo
That works great with focus groups.
Whose world are you still selling
With noon so far away?
Everything now is stark
Noise forgotten
Streets
Where all you have’s an emblem (element?)
Of whatever you are or were
There is no anterior.
We grow flustered, but the news isn’t always grim
Faint, with hints of clove
Cigarettes, nesting dolls, tickets
To forgotten shows, a roll
Of undeveloped film— anything, really
To call out the terror we’d call home
Again, or shrink
Back, sit
Still. Sit still.
Everything we do is out
Of tune— the cold
Eyes prying
For catches of joy or relief--
Familiar expressions, unknown
Faces— the looks of strange
Old men. Can you torch the
Visible
With a prayer for the
Indivisible? Now every-
thing we are is else-
where, subju-
gated to a lost
‘Normal’
Never nourishing at all--
Yet we engage in the mechanics of
Nostalgia, for they give us
The familiar, albeit unreal, forms of
History &
Snippets
Of forgotten memories, worn-out
Songs— the past’s disjecta.
Until all we do is finally
Who
We are— a species dangerous
At times, & for whom
The past’s a template
Of forgotten eyes— however sweet
The old sounds, played
Over & over a-
gain, ’til the grooves wear
Out--
The genesis of the accident was
Never in doubt
You went to the lab & got your
Pale aperitif
It was sundown, or it would be at
Some point
But you had forgotten your password, signaled
The auctioneer to tone it
Down
Because June was ripping your buds
Or at least you imagined it that way
At a crazy rate of great
You can’t remake
This charm-littered rag
This piece of flesh & salt
After the fire
But before the false alarm.
Water displaces night. History
Is only legible in
Voices & bodies.
Leave if you
Must
Believe idly or any
Thing bearing weight
Down
Who can
At last, prove true
Or untrue, as the market
Demands.