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Call Waiting

Carcanet Press Ltd

    June, Swoon


    Insomniacs know
    The indifferent moon
    Cares naught for you.

    But it's always there
    Just when you need it,
    The tidal pull

    At blood and heart –
    A white page, a canvas.
    My pencil. Start.


    River Run


    Sure why not? It's not like the river banks
    Are any closer after all these years. But even we
    Were surprised when the bridge packed up and left
    For parts unknown.
    Search parties were noncommittal and the trees
    looked askance
    When asked about the circumstances.
    The river hardly noticed but then it wouldn't, would it?
    Could be worse of course.
    But that's what they always say

    Those wiseacres down at City Hall with their fancy
    Ways and spats. Still the light still comes up
    Shyly delivering the news and all its portents.
    My, how the town has grown!
    The buildings all so tall.
    So blue.


    Slake


    Rest on your haunches
    At stream-side.
    Cup your hands together.
    Bow toward the further bank.
    Balanced, dip your hands;
    Let the water fill
    The bowl of your hands;
    Raise them from the water.

    Drink from your bowled hands.
    Bowing, drink again from the cup
    You hold in your hands.
    Rising, cup your face
    In your cooled hands.

    Think of where
    You have to go today.
    Go there.


    Debridement


    Simplify, simplify.
    Debride the wounds that life inflicts:
    Sluice out the debris and corrupt skin
    That infects the body and the world.
    Pick out the poisoned fabric shards
    And heal yourself naked and whole again
    In cold springs among high mountain pines.
    Give yourself over to something other
    Than yourself and let your body fall free
    In clouds of lavender that raise you up
    To live reborn and on your terms:
    Simplify, simplify.
    Embrace, embrace.


    The Absolute Sweetness of Decay


    Fragrancing ancient orchards
    Musky smell of fallen apples,
    Beauty of tumbled farmsteads, broken walls
    And sprawl of meadows hazed by late autumn
    Heat – winter's coming on.

    Learn from this. Divest yourself of illusions
    Of control. Beware of plans: plans fail.
    Do the wrong thing, well.
    And when you die, scatter your ashes
    High into the electric air.


    Still we pretend at modesty


    These days, dreams of modest heroism
    cloud even the smallest tyrant's mind.
    Who is exempt from self-effacing grandeur?
    No one is an erratic driver or a bad lover
    when history is behind the wheel of fate.
    We can't kid ourselves: we all acquiesce.
    Everything is in play now, even quiet
    moments down by the old mill pond
    are a product placement opportunity.
    But still we play at modesty even as we rise
    like trout to plaudits which sting our mouths
    with ashes of electronic funds. Rinse, repeat:
    was any complex civilization ever founded
    on such a simple formulation?

         So Katy, bar the door,
    and if you're doing nothing tonight, please drop by?
    We'll each keep a foot on the floor, like pool players,
    and keep company for a while. You won't stay.
    Who does these days? One (notice the distancing
    pronoun) gets used to it. Yet alone or not, sometimes
    in the waking dream of night, cutting the electronic
    clutter that now hums our synapses, I smell white water
    and follow the tracery of rivers among cold pines.


    No Place


    With no more news from nowhere
    it's hard to fathom any more.
    Nostalgia's a frail reed to justify
    lives lived to the rhythm of TV dinners
    and traffic reports. The verities of
    weather trouble us only on video while
    our lives seal us up with air-borne mites
    and molds. Where did all these lung
    ailments come from anyway? The pinescented
    fresheners don't work and
    wearied by the ersatz sublime desperate
    measures are required, at least by some.

    Poor heart: no more Aeolian string humming the
    hyperbolic ether, a dynamo gorgeously
    electrifying us in all our struggles and up against
    which we were fierce in losing. Now the thrum is
    all inside while our internal air crusts up channels,
    rimes tear ducts shut with salt. A recurring dream
    keeps breaking into halcyon day nights of sleep:
    a river shimmers just beyond that near-distant line of trees.
    So close, we could almost walk there if we would.


    Self-Reliance


    In the books, old-time private eyes
    Worked alone, keeping to a solitary code.
    These days, the 'eye'
    Has a sidekick who reads the signs,
    Watches his back and kills the someone
    Who needs killing
    When the hero scruples. He's always laconically
    Amused, ready with a quip after the showdown
    Cordite clears – justice balanced out.

    I've discovered
    Life's nothing like it says in books:
    You have to do the dirty work yourself.


    Any Questions?


    Just between you, me and the electronic ether,
    Doesn't everything these days seem out of kilter?
    Streets are out of tune and every passing car
    Shifts the axis further out of true. Buildings sway
    Slightly in the light but their shadows end up always
    Somehow 'off' in ways that are perplexing. Days slide
    By unnoticed, anniversaries come and go
    Like blank pages in my diary. Time's up!

    Meanwhile, remote ice floes following clouds
    Chip their way south, sea birds wheel
    To a rhythm we can't fathom. Time to go,
    Going someplace else. I think a boat
    Leaves at 10 o'clock tonight. I'm on it.


    Another Birthday


    Curiously enough, experience was a hard master
    but like likes like and things evened out
    in the end. Subway cars rattled past
    on opposite tracks while the whoosh of air
    left coattails flying. If your destination is the park,
    Madam, you're going the wrong way. But perhaps
    you'll get there anyway – things balance out keeping
    things from becoming too fraught.

    We've learned to ride our luck.
    Word on the street is that summer will be late
    this year but meteorologically speaking,
    what's the difference? Buildings keep getting taller,
    elevators faster, and all the while the murmur of
    distanced voices remind us of the missing.


    These Days


    So that's all right then, the ends do justify
    The beginnings, but it's hard to know where we stand
    Right now. Smoke rings are verboten
    But advertisements have a pornographic allure
    As if airbrushed clean of avarice. 'The thing in itself'?
    I don't think so. Only a philosopher would know for sure.
    Boy howdy! I sure don't. But that's to be expected:
    These years childhood doesn't prepare us much

    For understanding anything. Youthful promise
    Fades fast these days against the tarnishing of all that glitz
    And chrome. Eternal verities, indeed,
    Turn out not to be so long-lasting in the end.
    You might as well start over for all you've learned.
    Another false start, another clock ringing somewhere else.


    Anything special


    going on? Me neither so set a spell.
    No need to say anything, just enjoy the view,
    it always changes without ever seeming to.
    A trick of the light perhaps, so the painters said.
    I have my doubts.
    Why doesn't matter dematerialize
    before our very eyes? Should we really trust
    our senses to something so important?
    Anyway, I like the idea of far-off vistas
    floating away like clouds, trees becoming less
    than whole, branches and leaves quietly
    exploding, the trunk unsolid
    in the wavering air. Why think the whole
    is merely the sum of its parts? Look closer.


    Pole Star


    Perhaps you didn't hear me correctly:
    the moss grows always on the north side
    of trees. And so the trackless wilderness extends
    endless into space leaving us bereft of any
    sense of where we are. Delirium ...
    Leaving home is disorienting enough
    without forgetting the lexicon of woodlore
    assembled by our ancestors and left for us
    to follow. Credulous, we believe only in ourselves,
    paying the price in false starts or voyages
    to places we didn't want to go. Make the best of it!
    But above all, remember what you've learned
    from those who've gone before. The principles
    are easy enough to follow if you're of a mind.


    Say again? I didn't catch that


    No, I distinctly remember putting the payment in the mailbox
    Down the end of the street. It was a gray day, the sun came out later,
    When the waitress arrived with refreshments. Not that day –
    The other one. You know the one I mean: when the streets disappeared
    Somewhere out in country fields and all connections were cut off.
    Kind of nice really, the sense of calm – the quiet that is the cliché
    Of evenings passing through the entire day. The something
    Hush of something sacrifice – something like that anyway.
    You know what I mean. It will come to me.

    Later on, of course, the circuits
    Sparked on line again and generators thrummed back into life.
    The life we know anyway, the one we've grown familiar in.
    Funny to think of how it was before. Hills, the line of trees
    Picked out against the blue-black dawn-lit sky, the Morning Star –
    The sense of falling into fresh-mown meadows: so fast, so far.


    Time and Tide


    Maybe there's nothing to it
    but the moon does exert its tidal pull
    even on crowded streets.
    People look upwards and then hurry off
    to sites unseen, appointments half-remembered.
    There's a point to all this
    I think but meaning is obscure
    when all you carry is a compass
    along with your vague aspiration to end up
    somewhere else. Someplace safe?
    Or just someplace different from where
    you started. Streams quicken at their source
    but meander with time and distance.
    Lucky old moon, pushing things along.


    Berkshire Spring, False Dawn


    That spring we resolved to wait, not to be fooled
    By early warmings, the melt of the ice and snow.
    We resisted ecstasy, avoided the Dionysian tendency,
    Looked askance at all temptations promised by a joyful
    Sense of new beginnings. We knew the Puritan divines,
    Our forebears, had always gotten nature right:
    Graveyard of hope – trust only in the severity of God
    And what He has in store for us – playthings in His hands.

    Still ... the hesitant appearance of green shoots along the roads
    Upthrust through grimy ice, the trickle flow of meltwater
    Down the mountain to swell the streams and river washed
    Our best resolved intentions away. Our veins pulsed
    Faster with the promise of annual renewal.
    The result was swift: Easter blizzard, two feet on the ground.


    Climate Change


    After the War, everyone bought cars and traffic jams moved
    West, along roads flung out willy-nilly across the rolling
    Hills of what was once prairie land. Jimcrackery flourished
    And neon lights burned out the stars. The moon lingered
    Watchfully on the horizon and frequently fell from view,
    Thinking things over for a while. In sudden wind
    Hats blew off and vanished for good. People felt more comfortable
    In groups, especially in movie houses which saw a boom
    In double bills and popped corn. Double-sealed window glass
    And air conditioning created the climate of the future – now!
    Everything was affordable and even possible with just a small
    Down payment, made today. A minority kept a wary eye
    Out for changes but weather forecasts were, as always, mixed.
    Those 'in the know' promised things would never change
    As the rivers overflowed and geese flew south in June.


    'Warning! Cliff Edge! Danger!!'


    I see you have no fear of heights. Not me,
    I've never been one for the high escarpment,
    The windy bluff overlooking ... nothing at all
    Except the temptation to let go, and fall
    Spinning into what's unknown, drawn on by the air.
    Better to keep quiet, risk nothing, stay
    Close held, at home. Or else why say
    That home is where you hang your heart?
    Proverbs are a useful guide, I've found, to safe

    Conduct through life's risky crossings.
    Read the paper by the fire, venture nothing, gain
    Nothing. Where's loss? Nothing but a life –
    The one thing we can all afford to lose.
    The pathway's clearly marked! Don't stray too far!


    Drowning Narcissus


    No, you're not in any especial danger.
    Know you're not the center of the pool.
    Realize that the blue-gold blueness of the sky
    is always racing indifferently away,
    uncaring of whatever you're up to today
    or any other day. Tear your gaze away
    and follow on. Consider the orange.
    Avoid old ventures requiring new shoes.
    Learn how to shrug – eloquently –
    while watching where you walk, not how.
    But use a plumb bob to fix your posture
    and since fecklessness is the other side
    of the old coin, keep a weather eye.
    For good luck, tattoo a hex sign over
    your heart. But above all else, cut
    the chatter, especially to yourself.
    Prune vigorously, blending a new masque
    from last year's gleanings. Cultivate
    a different diction but don't expect results
    in less than a lifetime. So take time
    to fallow for a little while or a while longer.
    Flow your sense of touch over the world's skin.
    Unstop your years. Try listening
    through your eyes and turn down the light
    level of the noise. Consider yourself as
    a net that gives back its takings –
    know which is which and stay off the median.
    Separate your body from yourself,
    like skin from fruit from pith from zest.

    Peel the orange.

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Excerpted from Call Waiting by David C. Ward. Copyright © 2014 David C. Ward. Excerpted by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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