poems by rachel kellum
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River Rich
One would think there’d be nothing hard
to say once you’ve arrived
at the river that haunted you for years,
now the front yard of your employment.
You engage in weeding thistle
from its rocky banks, leave lanky mullein
though someone’s been breaking off the seedy head.
Inside the old steam plant, new with community,
you enact newfound ineptitudes,
no longer resident expert of an arcane field
of words and rules that never helped you
better tally night’s profit, fairly divvy tips,
sell concert tickets, juggle small town/
small office alliances.
The art of being novice is not simple.
How many times must you ask, must they repeat,
the proper string of clicks, the ratios of coffee
or powdered lemonade to water?
Undrunk, the river rolls by.
The forgotten pitcher of a hot July wedding
handed over with grace for you to refill
must be received with gratitude, humility,
with memory of every well-tipped waitress
of your short stint in middle class life
in which bills were not your 3 am,
your sunrise thought. (The old game:
you don’t know what you’ve got.)
To live in the land of the river rich
you learn to serve them, entertain.
Later, on a whim, on a day so cool
and bright that you feel rich despite
the pre-order checkbook glance—
you sit on a patio by the river. You write,
foolishly order fish, sip one martini full of honey
to celebrate the fact there are beekeepers
you will meet in the morning
for their annual gathering, their water goblets
and vats of lemonade already waiting
in the kitchen and conference rooms next door.
In black dress, near black dressed tables
you smoothed with your own palms,
you will greet them with a smile.
Eager to improve your single backyard hive,
in doorways, you will take notes
on their lovely, troubled lives.
2017
I’m From
after George Ella Lyon, with my students
I’m from TVs the size of fridges,
Atari squeals, Simon, Merlin, Intellivision.
The lazy dust cloth, the working mother’s hiss:
“Hit and miss, Rachel. Hit and miss.”
I’m from vacuum trails in plush red carpet,
A mustard house on a frontage road
And truckers’ begged highway horns—
Wah Waaaaaaaaaaah!
We kids would jump in triumph.
I’m from floral couches, floral papered walls.
It felt like home until a college peer up north
Noted, “20 years out of vogue.” Huh. It was.
Still, I am from my mother’s red geraniums,
Acrid marigolds along our walk, the peeling iron rail,
The 3-inch heels on which she perched while pulling weeds.
I’m from low sky wet on hair frizz and clean skin.
From Pepsi and popcorn family nights.
From pizza without parents and thrown-phone sister fights.
I’m from “The man sits at the head of the table”
And “Serve him first” and Troy, Rebecca and Kim,
From my mother’s pride in goulash
And hamburger cottage cheese lasagna.
I’m from ten cents per her plucked grey hair.
I’m from Granny’s hidden grudge—her flaky piecrust
Made me know a different kind of love,
Her lips turned from my kiss.
I’m from “As I have loved you, love one another”
And the rumble-belly of Fast and Testimony meetings.
From “I know this church is true” and “Cool beans! Warm corn!”
I’m from the muddy Mississippi, the cardinal of Carpenter Park,
The Sangamon and baptisms for the dead.
I’m from the buttered cob and lumpy cream of wheat,
The smell of my step-dad’s Sanka coffee.
From the father who left us on a black Kawasaki,
The mother who curled up into a claw.
I’m from her desperate call: “Go to H-E double toothpicks!”
And Dad’s lonely basement cot.
I’m from Pine Drive, the tangled woods and Tammy,
From jerky-dead pigs in the yard of an abandoned farm,
From canned goods still shelved in the half burnt house,
From straw that caught me once I dropped the rope,
From Illinois lightning risked in wet grass
And Orion blinking on a hungry dog’s pen.
I’m from the snowman I was never meant to build,
Pneumonia outrun by my dare.
I’m from back roads that throw kids from cars
Into Heavenly Father’s arms. From long prayers.
Driving fast, I’m from ever-receding rows
Of green tongued corn, horizon swallowed in the throat
And in the heart of fields. But it’s been years.
I’m from God and corn no more, but still I yield.
Walk
On the sage straddled trail, green and brown shards perform an earthen version of stained glass windows. Before the path goes black with smelting slag, I let him off leash, stuff it dangling from my back pocket. Leo, the Aussie mystery mix, free to roam, walks beside me, looks up for approval from my left, as if to say, See, I am good, until the wind pulls him by the nose here and there, and he stops to drop his drops upon the world, his yellow approval, his self assertion: I am here. Even emptied, still he tries. He weaves ahead and back a dozen times, a weft between us. I sing his name—his favorite word, followed by an even better one, the one that makes him tremble, shout in Dog his best English in the family room: Walk! Walk! Wao-aao-aaao-lk! I sing both words, for maximum effect, to see him moved: “Leo and Mama goin’ on a walk, walk walk, walk walk!” and he begins to dance, circle me, tongue-smiling, prancing, passing behind my legs. I wind him up with happy staccato, “Walk walk, walk walk,” dancing myself now, snapping my fingers. He tosses his head against the swinging leash, snatches at it with his mouth, steals it from my pocket. Something dawns. I laugh, he pauses, waits for me to hook his collar, reaches back, takes control of the leash with his teeth, yanks me holding the other end. We walk in the joy of being tied together, our mutual tether. I sing and sing our names. Our feet lift dust. We walk each other. Walk, his word for love, the leash between us worn and red.
2017
Post Impression of a Barmaid
Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882
My hands could not decide
how to rest on the bar.
Arms at my sides—aloof, unmoored.
Arms crossed, holding one wrist—on guard.
Fingers interlaced look like teeth.
One hand resting on the other—maybe lazy.
Arms wide, each hand clutching the nearest edge,
wrists out—an open beckoning.
Ready to serve.
Watching the kindly crowd,
something flickered, overlaid.
Somehow I became her, remembered
many years of serving bored, weary students
the image of the barmaid of Folies-Bergère*.
Her stance denies the welling vacant eyes.
Object of the bourgeois gaze, see
how she looks upon us, her patrons?
Ever awaiting the empty whim, our tip,
next to a stemmed dish of tangerines,
Manet’s sign of fille de joie**.
Ever pouring the public what they think
will finally satisfy:
a drink, Degas, degrees, desire.
I can’t be sure if the reflection
behind, leaning toward
the moneyed man, is hers or mine.
The angle wrong, reflected bottles
missing or mismatched with actual ones.
Perhaps there is no mirror at all,
no skewed perspective, or all is skewed.
I face forward looking
for your eyes, quiet in the bright
din of artists everywhere, most retired.
Before me, behind me, up in the corner, there!
A woman’s green slippered feet,
perched bodiless on trapeze!
I don’t need to see her face
to know why she prefers the air.
*Folies-Bergère: FUH-lee Bear-zhare: a famous cabaret music hall, located in Paris, France
**fille de joie: FEE-de zhwa: literally, “girl of joy,” euphemism for sex worker
Join Us in Evergreen Tomorrow Afternoon...
This, from Evergreen bookstore, Where the Books Go:
Join us on Sunday at 4pm for the celebration of the performing arts with featured presentation by Writers Rachel Kellum & Peter Anderson. Following their performances will be an open mic session for writers, poets, musicians, comedians, or even magicians! Whatever your performing art is, we’d love for you to share it with us. BYOB!
Dear Me
This can’t be said with elegance: you were wrong about this place. No, that’s not right. I was wrong. I’ve lost track of our front range, where either of us end, but we’ve been on the plains for most of eighteen years, arguing like sisters sharing only two legs. You the dusty light inside, bent on wiping boredom out. Listen here. Ignore yourself. Isn’t this your life? Eat, eat! Even if you don’t, I’ll say you did. I taught you love of chickens, feathered ones. To sprinkle salt on the living dish. Despite yourself, despite the wealth of butter out of reach, you have eaten Brush’s roadside honey, shucked her yellow corn, planted Art’s red spuds. Better, you gave bees a home in garden sage, grew ears and eyes in your own plot and they were good. Take the prairie with you. She is not the pale flat-chested sister no one notices. You’ve looked into her eyes. Take her plain face into the bosom mountains. Draw her furrows with your toes. Drop new seed. This wide valley nothing but the mountains’ prairie dream. Your flat green heart.
Burning Books with Jack on Trickster Ridge
When he threw Amor Fati
into flames, friends and poets gasped.
White book! Heads shook.
I ran to find mine bubble wrapped
in briefcase, amateur sky
with all the colors in it.
ah jumped in after Jack like a sigh,
after Danny’s hurled script, wanting nothing
more than for words to say nothing,
burn, be nothing with his.
Daiva turned his glowing pages with a stick.
We acolytes of Jack-spent light!
Unreadable ash
made of us and especially
Jack gibbering joy-scat
to the earless moon, hands
grasping at the halo like a drowning man,
fingers coming up empty and fool.
This is a revision of the poem I posted on Feb. 20, 2017, in loving memory of Jack Mueller who died yesterday on April 27, 2017. He lives on and on in the Word.
The Dangerous Life of Free Range Chickens
Of sixteen since last spring:
Four chickens remain.
Six killed for fun by two Great Pyrenees,
A mother and pup
Who ran across the prairie in April rain,
Left birds limp necked,
Scattered in dripping weeds.
Then gone the oldest in the flock:
DJ Cluck dragged off northwest.
Next, the Leghorn, white,
Easy target from above.
Not a feather left. I theorize
About light colored hens,
Imagine startling talons, sudden height.
But then went Speck.
Her camouflage no help.
Still, I should have known.
Predators have a taste for the sweet.
Next, in one morning, we are missing three.
Goodbye, Elsa. Goodbye, Fawkes and friend.
There will be no more green eggs
Once the cartons are empty.
I blame the watching hawk,
Dorell suspects the local owls,
Their early morning duet.
He suggests we take a walk
To the base of their favorite tree
To look for bones. Suddenly I think
Of owl pellets I used to collect,
Full of mouse skulls, still whole.
2017
Clerihew for You Know Who
Counting sound in limerick
Bursting with the ego’s trick:
Scholar poet doggerel
Makes the female bosom swell.
2017