You swim in the biggest one
of a chain
of lakes. Don’t fear
the consequences. There your head goes
popping through the surface
then bubbling back under. You
were adamant—you don’t
like the tone of Kerouac’s poems. So there you go
through water without salt,
through muck
seen and unseen. I could not be
so brave. I’d rather splash
through an ocean without narrative,
would rather let sound
carry me
than the other way around.
At their best, these
poems are little love affairs—fireflies
bursting on a night
scene to guide one solo walker
to another for a single
turn around the park
and pause before
the old iron footbridge
to witness
whatever the marsh north
and pond south
might offer up.
She can’t talk
to nature the way nature
talks to her
through intersection
traffic lights—take this
turn, now that. Come home
this route tonight. She can’t
guess how a howling
wind would translate
on a mountainside
but predicts her accent
would never do.
“I also have all space
And St Louis too
Light follows rivers
I do too
Light fades, I pass.”
—Jack Kerouac, from the 55th Chorus of “San Francisco Blues” (Book of Blues)
If this were a poker game,
I would be out
by now. I would be
reflecting on the morning
heron in the stream
between little lake
and wetland infill. Would be
a reflection
of myself on tip toes
hoping to see over
the Hennepin Avenue Bridge
rail to the pull
of the big river
as it takes all the space
it needs to spread
these northern myths
down Saint Louis way.
I would be out and free
to gamble away
another sunset.
When streaks of white
light death (instead
of frenzied fireflies)
interrupt the night
sky, who can say
which way the sun might
set in a hundred years.
Who can say this
is it, or it isn’t
the last chance
to change my mind
about those benefits offered
when only darkness remains.
I like to correspond with the dead:
Tell Emily what it’s like to be
a woman alone
in a room
in the 21st.
Ask Walt what he thinks
of the Brooklyn Bridge
127 years after
the fact. The fact is
I can write to anyone. I could
even choose to write
a letter
to you who still breathe.
* from Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”
“The guitar’s a-started
Playing by itself.”
—Jack Kerouac, from the 50th Chorus to “San Francisco Blues” (Book of Blues)
Hot wind and time
to be
alone converge
at an intersection
I won’t remember
tomorrow morning
when light breaks open
that hill behind me.
The spillage will be automatic,
will startle longing
in shades of red.
Don’t ask
how I know. These are the split
movements beyond control.
A pair of roof prism
binoculars to spy on
the ivy-covered brick
across the alley, a scoop
back black
dress she might buy for one
night of swooning
over the Pacific, she’s not looking
to rekindle
any illusions
that sparks did fly
high above the liars pit,
not mailing that letter
with too many
stamps to start a bonfire
on the site
where a round building
came down. (Was it
because of the architect,
Sandy?) She’s just adjusting
the tiny barrels
to get a closer look
at the way those leaves press
against a wall.
Hours the color of quarry
beds, a walk that gets extended because of a need to stitch
the river
to her breath, she calculates how long
it will take
for the fragrance of rose
water to reach the bottom. She wishes it would stay longer
on her skin—might as well get
the dive over with.
Kerouac sees punks
in his 20th chorus—
all those who would fit
on a page of a breast
pocket notebook. Leftover
ones dancing on the head
of a pin, I’ll get over this
disdain. I’ll listen again
when amphitheaters begin
to accommodate sleeping
drunks. I was one
when the longing for nothing
I knew singed the soles
of my feet. The pain made me
sleepy. Howl that one
at a guitar pick
moon—I dare you.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 