jonny-bolduc - Hello Poetry

Barn A graveyard of empty whiskey bottles, curled, browned labels coated with dust. A farmer drank in this dirt basement, alone, wind chapped face illuminated by a kerosene lantern, swollen fingers forever clutching the glass neck of his half drained bottles. I drink ***** in the renovated kitchen, lit by dimmed lights, gentle shadows dancing across the glossy hardwood floor. I look out at the dark bodies of trees swaying, uneasy in the night breeze. Sometime after midnight, the farmer’s ghost stumbles up the creaking staircase behind me, to our bed.

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Nov 28, 2014

Nov 28, 2014 at 4:39 PM UTC

Barn

Barn A graveyard of empty whiskey bottles, curled, browned labels coated with dust. A farmer drank in this dirt basement, alone, wind chapped face illuminated by a kerosene lantern, swollen fingers forever clutching the glass neck of his half drained bottles. I drink ***** in the renovated kitchen, lit by dimmed lights, gentle shadows dancing across the glossy hardwood floor. I look out at the dark bodies of trees swaying, uneasy in the night breeze. Sometime after midnight, the farmer’s ghost stumbles up the creaking staircase behind me, to our bed.

16

I wonder what language you were speaking. Was it pure psycho-babble? Were the words pure? Were you reciting the words to a song? Were you singing? Could I see your beauty? Were you even cognitive, were you thinking underneath the muttering, heavy clamor of words that jail-broke from your mouth and streamed into existence, flooding the men and woman carrying bags and carts under the artificial lights and long lines Did you think that vomit-mumble-speaking all over a single Korean mother and her young child was imposing or threatening in anyway? If you’d have taken a step closer to her I would have had to step in, but she quietly left her place and dragged her shy looking boy with her as he stared at the ground- and we did our best to turn you into a ghost, clattering pipes in the empty walls- I wonder how many rugs you’ve been swept under. How many times people have tried and failed to plug up the holes in your leaky brain. How many times you’ve tried help yourself. How many times someone has failed you- how many times you’ve failed someone else. How many occasions exactly like this people ignored you as you rambled on about nothing in a Superstore like a broken record skipping unpredictable sick scratched torn

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Nov 27, 2014

Nov 27, 2014 at 6:25 PM UTC

the superstore line

I wonder what language you were speaking. Was it pure psycho-babble? Were the words pure? Were you reciting the words to a song? Were you singing? Could I see your beauty? Were you even cognitive, were you thinking underneath the muttering, heavy clamor of words that jail-broke from your mouth and streamed into existence, flooding the men and woman carrying bags and carts under the artificial lights and long lines Did you think that vomit-mumble-speaking all over a single Korean mother and her young child was imposing or threatening in anyway? If you’d have taken a step closer to her I would have had to step in, but she quietly left her place and dragged her shy looking boy with her as he stared at the ground- and we did our best to turn you into a ghost, clattering pipes in the empty walls- I wonder how many rugs you’ve been swept under. How many times people have tried and failed to plug up the holes in your leaky brain. How many times you’ve tried help yourself. How many times someone has failed you- how many times you’ve failed someone else. How many occasions exactly like this people ignored you as you rambled on about nothing in a Superstore like a broken record skipping unpredictable sick scratched torn

29

Every thanksgiving, My family gets smaller. Gone to college. Gone traveling. Gone to another woman. Gone to Florida. Gone to prison. Gone to see the lord. Funerals are how I visit the lord. God is drawn to eulogies. He’s there, a fixture, almost a cliche, like a great aunt with a black veil weeping into a floral handkerchief. Today, at this funeral, a thin layer of snow and ice has frozen the ground. Black dress shoes press ridged footprints into the snow. Every funeral I’ve ever been to has been cold. Dress clothes and peacoats aren’t thick enough to keep me warm during a funeral. I keep my hands in my pockets and hunch forward, watching my breath hit the winter wind. The winter wind is an evaporated sadness, like god. During thanksgiving, the gravy boat on the counter let off hot, thin steam. While pouring it thick on my potatoes, A shadow in the corner of the room caught my eye. The days after a funeral are filled with a confused, hopeful mysticism. Every moving shadow, every unexplained noise is a visitation. So I ****** my head towards the corner of the room. Nothing. Glancing back at the table, I look at his empty seat, reminded how much I’m him. I’m quiet, like he was. I laugh like he laughed. My teeth are as bad as his were. I drink like he did when he was my age, days, nights at a time, stumbling home from dark pubs, watching, with blurred vision, my whisky breath hit the winter wind, and evaporate, almost as fast as God. After the turkey and the pie and the coffee, I go down to the basement and I pour myself a stiff *** and coke. I drink, in silence, to the gone.

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Nov 27, 2014

Nov 27, 2014 at 6:13 PM UTC

Thanksgiving

Every thanksgiving, My family gets smaller. Gone to college. Gone traveling. Gone to another woman. Gone to Florida. Gone to prison. Gone to see the lord. Funerals are how I visit the lord. God is drawn to eulogies. He’s there, a fixture, almost a cliche, like a great aunt with a black veil weeping into a floral handkerchief. Today, at this funeral, a thin layer of snow and ice has frozen the ground. Black dress shoes press ridged footprints into the snow. Every funeral I’ve ever been to has been cold. Dress clothes and peacoats aren’t thick enough to keep me warm during a funeral. I keep my hands in my pockets and hunch forward, watching my breath hit the winter wind. The winter wind is an evaporated sadness, like god. During thanksgiving, the gravy boat on the counter let off hot, thin steam. While pouring it thick on my potatoes, A shadow in the corner of the room caught my eye. The days after a funeral are filled with a confused, hopeful mysticism. Every moving shadow, every unexplained noise is a visitation. So I ****** my head towards the corner of the room. Nothing. Glancing back at the table, I look at his empty seat, reminded how much I’m him. I’m quiet, like he was. I laugh like he laughed. My teeth are as bad as his were. I drink like he did when he was my age, days, nights at a time, stumbling home from dark pubs, watching, with blurred vision, my whisky breath hit the winter wind, and evaporate, almost as fast as God. After the turkey and the pie and the coffee, I go down to the basement and I pour myself a stiff *** and coke. I drink, in silence, to the gone.

53

Last Christmas grandmother told anyone who would listen that she quit the wine. She said it once as my father cracked open a bottle of *** She said it again serving the ham; mentioned it in passing while gramps polished off a bottle of Malbec; she said that last summer in the hot-tub at Laurie’s she had a bit too much Sangria and got out and fell on the pavement, cutting up her knees real bad --- she said that she couldn’t even believe it was happening, she couldn’t believe that she drank so much. I could believe it. Gram had always been a bit of a drinker; her sober stinging words caught you good enough even when she was on her best behavior. Imagine when she was unhinged! Talking while her teeth were all red was like getting sucker punched by a kangaroo; Gramps got all loose and loud, Gram got all hot and bothered and mean. Don’t get me wrong. If I could, I’d drown in a pool of whiskey, choke on the amber stream from the tap. But I don’t lie about it! I don’t talk about it; I don’t lie about it. I’ve been sneaking sips since I was 14, and I’ve been drinking pools of the stuff since I was 17 and if you asked anyone they might not believe you. I wonder if punching people in the face and choke holding them into doing what you want them to do is a past-time. Most people drink to get nice. People like her drink to get mean.

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Nov 25, 2014

Nov 25, 2014 at 1:42 PM UTC

Untitled

Last Christmas grandmother told anyone who would listen that she quit the wine. She said it once as my father cracked open a bottle of *** She said it again serving the ham; mentioned it in passing while gramps polished off a bottle of Malbec; she said that last summer in the hot-tub at Laurie’s she had a bit too much Sangria and got out and fell on the pavement, cutting up her knees real bad --- she said that she couldn’t even believe it was happening, she couldn’t believe that she drank so much. I could believe it. Gram had always been a bit of a drinker; her sober stinging words caught you good enough even when she was on her best behavior. Imagine when she was unhinged! Talking while her teeth were all red was like getting sucker punched by a kangaroo; Gramps got all loose and loud, Gram got all hot and bothered and mean. Don’t get me wrong. If I could, I’d drown in a pool of whiskey, choke on the amber stream from the tap. But I don’t lie about it! I don’t talk about it; I don’t lie about it. I’ve been sneaking sips since I was 14, and I’ve been drinking pools of the stuff since I was 17 and if you asked anyone they might not believe you. I wonder if punching people in the face and choke holding them into doing what you want them to do is a past-time. Most people drink to get nice. People like her drink to get mean.

10

My alone, and the alone you have in your heart are the same. Sometimes, alone doesn't make any noise, it just sits watching, deep, silent. But sometimes, alone is on fire, and alone is screaming, and alone is bent, beaten -- and I wish my alone could fly out of my mouth and become fog-- but the fog has an alone, everything has an alone, and everyone has an alone. I can’t throw my alone away. It belongs to me. Sometimes, my alone sings into the gently dropping sun, and sometimes, my alone floats up with water, in the verdant trees, the high birds, and I know that my resting alone is also resting in the heart of the world. My alone, the only alone thrashing in my heart, is always thrashing in the heart of the everything… we all want silence, we want to say , ‘my alone can be only this loud,’ ‘my alone can only ache this much’ ‘my fire, it must be stomped out,’ but our alone knows every secret. We can’t throw it away. Once the fire of alone sets we break mirrors, and sleep all day, and smash body against body; but we can’t hate our alone. We can hate the fire, we can hate the pain, but we can’t hate our alone.

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Sep 17, 2014

Sep 17, 2014 at 10:42 PM UTC

alone

My alone, and the alone you have in your heart are the same. Sometimes, alone doesn't make any noise, it just sits watching, deep, silent. But sometimes, alone is on fire, and alone is screaming, and alone is bent, beaten -- and I wish my alone could fly out of my mouth and become fog-- but the fog has an alone, everything has an alone, and everyone has an alone. I can’t throw my alone away. It belongs to me. Sometimes, my alone sings into the gently dropping sun, and sometimes, my alone floats up with water, in the verdant trees, the high birds, and I know that my resting alone is also resting in the heart of the world. My alone, the only alone thrashing in my heart, is always thrashing in the heart of the everything… we all want silence, we want to say , ‘my alone can be only this loud,’ ‘my alone can only ache this much’ ‘my fire, it must be stomped out,’ but our alone knows every secret. We can’t throw it away. Once the fire of alone sets we break mirrors, and sleep all day, and smash body against body; but we can’t hate our alone. We can hate the fire, we can hate the pain, but we can’t hate our alone.

38

Let’s look together, in the tight, dark corners. Look in the tough, raw twilight-- Once, I thought I found a bed, under a dome of stars. I tried to sleep. The world is always fresh. Everyone is always looking for somewhere to sleep. Sleep is a sort of end, and the stars are a high, steady beginning. If you find our new bed, or even a pile of straw hay, tell me. We’ll find a bed, make it, and lie in it. A nest is a new beginning, and dust is the worn down end. Let’s look high, in the open, bright wings. No-- We don’t have to find dust. It’s right here. Don’t cough. We’ll nest in the sky. Sunrise is a beginning, and sunset is an end. Eventually, both lose meaning. We’ll forget to look, once we find our bed-- Once we find it, we can rest.

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Sep 7, 2014

Sep 7, 2014 at 3:00 PM UTC

Nest

Let’s look together, in the tight, dark corners. Look in the tough, raw twilight-- Once, I thought I found a bed, under a dome of stars. I tried to sleep. The world is always fresh. Everyone is always looking for somewhere to sleep. Sleep is a sort of end, and the stars are a high, steady beginning. If you find our new bed, or even a pile of straw hay, tell me. We’ll find a bed, make it, and lie in it. A nest is a new beginning, and dust is the worn down end. Let’s look high, in the open, bright wings. No-- We don’t have to find dust. It’s right here. Don’t cough. We’ll nest in the sky. Sunrise is a beginning, and sunset is an end. Eventually, both lose meaning. We’ll forget to look, once we find our bed-- Once we find it, we can rest.

18

To be awake, to be blind, I’ve never understood the difference. On a parkbench, on a streetcorner, silent, idle, waiting for sadness, or the lack of it, waiting for the excess of it; to be awake, to not know is there a difference? In the water, submerged floating, sinking, drowning in sadness, or the lack of it, smothered by the excess of it; When I awake, I am blind, When I awake, I do not know, When I wait for the bus, on the street corner, I am blind. When I am sinking, baptized, or drowning, I am dumb. I am always drowning in sadness, or the absence of it. I am always drowning in sadness, or the excess of it. I am always floating in the not knowing, always smothered by the dumbness of it all. Do you feel the same? Choked to death by melancholy? Does some thick smoke cloud up your lungs? Is it the melancholy? Is it the sadness?

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Apr 7, 2014

Apr 7, 2014 at 4:35 AM UTC

To Be Awake

To be awake, to be blind, I’ve never understood the difference. On a parkbench, on a streetcorner, silent, idle, waiting for sadness, or the lack of it, waiting for the excess of it; to be awake, to not know is there a difference? In the water, submerged floating, sinking, drowning in sadness, or the lack of it, smothered by the excess of it; When I awake, I am blind, When I awake, I do not know, When I wait for the bus, on the street corner, I am blind. When I am sinking, baptized, or drowning, I am dumb. I am always drowning in sadness, or the absence of it. I am always drowning in sadness, or the excess of it. I am always floating in the not knowing, always smothered by the dumbness of it all. Do you feel the same? Choked to death by melancholy? Does some thick smoke cloud up your lungs? Is it the melancholy? Is it the sadness?

38

FISHTHOUGHTBLOOD JON BOLDUC When I was a boy, Father taught me to ice-fish. Here’s a memory; Father drills a hole, the auger bounces, vibrates, roars, shaving ice– soon the blade connects with winter water, –the engine fades off. I fish floating ice chunks from the hole with a skimmer while Father sets the trap, ties the sinker, and hooks the minnow thru its side. He lowers the line gently into the fishhole; the bait plunges to the lakebed. Father reels up the slack, pitches the three legged trap above the exposed black water and we wait for a trout, or a snarled toothed pickerel. Father, I have learned to fish for thoughts with an ice–trap. When the flag springs up, I reel slippery ideas up from deep darkness. As they flop, I pull the hook out from their lips, knock them in the head, throw them in a pail; gut them, I spill fishthoughtblood on the white snow. After the low sun sets, My friends and I fry caught fishthoughts in my dim cabin. Hughes, Plath, Ginsberg, and Eliot talk around the fireplace as the pan sizzles, as the oil jumps. Soon we feast on flakey poemfillets; we talk about the dark english rain, the crowded zoos, electroshock therapy, bald mediocrity. After we have eaten and finished the wine, and all my friends have gone home I look down at empty plates and somehow, “the page is printed.”

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Feb 24, 2014

Feb 24, 2014 at 10:10 AM UTC

FISHTHOUGHTBLOOD

FISHTHOUGHTBLOOD JON BOLDUC When I was a boy, Father taught me to ice-fish. Here’s a memory; Father drills a hole, the auger bounces, vibrates, roars, shaving ice– soon the blade connects with winter water, –the engine fades off. I fish floating ice chunks from the hole with a skimmer while Father sets the trap, ties the sinker, and hooks the minnow thru its side. He lowers the line gently into the fishhole; the bait plunges to the lakebed. Father reels up the slack, pitches the three legged trap above the exposed black water and we wait for a trout, or a snarled toothed pickerel. Father, I have learned to fish for thoughts with an ice–trap. When the flag springs up, I reel slippery ideas up from deep darkness. As they flop, I pull the hook out from their lips, knock them in the head, throw them in a pail; gut them, I spill fishthoughtblood on the white snow. After the low sun sets, My friends and I fry caught fishthoughts in my dim cabin. Hughes, Plath, Ginsberg, and Eliot talk around the fireplace as the pan sizzles, as the oil jumps. Soon we feast on flakey poemfillets; we talk about the dark english rain, the crowded zoos, electroshock therapy, bald mediocrity. After we have eaten and finished the wine, and all my friends have gone home I look down at empty plates and somehow, “the page is printed.”

42

Lovers as Places There’s a place inside of me saved for lovers, a space to be filled– sometimes a parking space, lovers, like traffic, zip out, zoom–rush hour. Sometimes a vacant lot lovers, like weeds, peek up from broken glass. sometimes a perch on a hill sometimes a rocky island the places change as lovers come and go– I’ve always asked, in silence, “What place is your heart?” “Will you stay?” But you, lover you are the most beautiful place I’ve been

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Feb 24, 2014

Feb 24, 2014 at 5:22 AM UTC

Lovers As Places

Lovers as Places There’s a place inside of me saved for lovers, a space to be filled– sometimes a parking space, lovers, like traffic, zip out, zoom–rush hour. Sometimes a vacant lot lovers, like weeds, peek up from broken glass. sometimes a perch on a hill sometimes a rocky island the places change as lovers come and go– I’ve always asked, in silence, “What place is your heart?” “Will you stay?” But you, lover you are the most beautiful place I’ve been

17

I have friends who went, to Bethlehem, to Paris, to Spain. Left for London, Beachy Head. Those friends came back, back to Halifax, Portland, Bangor– My friends go. They go to the bar for a pint. They go to the South for the summer. They go to plant trees in Alberta– The friends who go are the friends who went. But I have friends who are gone. Friends who are gone cannot go to the bar, to the South, or to Alberta. Some friends have left– through some door, in the night, in the day, in a car, on a bed, on a stretcher, in the street– and yes, they are gone. Where will I go when I am gone? Will I be with my friends? Perpetually traveling to the South, to Alberta, to the bar for a pint? No. I will not go. I cannot go, once I am gone. When I go, I will be gone. I could go anytime, night or day, In a car, on a bed, a stretcher, or street– Yes, I could go. And when I go, when I leave– I will be gone. So, Friends who have gone where I cannot go, they must know– that we all will go, we all leave– soon, yes, soon. Now, in the pause between moments, in the quiet space of a last breath– we all are gone.

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Jan 28, 2014

Jan 28, 2014 at 11:01 AM UTC

Gone

I have friends who went, to Bethlehem, to Paris, to Spain. Left for London, Beachy Head. Those friends came back, back to Halifax, Portland, Bangor– My friends go. They go to the bar for a pint. They go to the South for the summer. They go to plant trees in Alberta– The friends who go are the friends who went. But I have friends who are gone. Friends who are gone cannot go to the bar, to the South, or to Alberta. Some friends have left– through some door, in the night, in the day, in a car, on a bed, on a stretcher, in the street– and yes, they are gone. Where will I go when I am gone? Will I be with my friends? Perpetually traveling to the South, to Alberta, to the bar for a pint? No. I will not go. I cannot go, once I am gone. When I go, I will be gone. I could go anytime, night or day, In a car, on a bed, a stretcher, or street– Yes, I could go. And when I go, when I leave– I will be gone. So, Friends who have gone where I cannot go, they must know– that we all will go, we all leave– soon, yes, soon. Now, in the pause between moments, in the quiet space of a last breath– we all are gone.

63