Charles Fort: Six poems

American Poetry Review, The, Jul 1995 by Fort, Charles

How had they lived among thieves

born with singed wings and webbed teeth

gifts and ornaments from the family pit

raised above their beds as they swallowed

a glint of whiskey out of the holster.

What had they learned of their lives

from the crippled host who warned

not to set our waking eyes

down on the bay's charred face

or to call out his birth name?

How had they lived content

without laughter in the wilderness

as the children raked the red clay

and cornmeal into the river

to feed the devil's fire?

What had they known of our lives

with only the love on these lines

left in your hands to sing.

They had caught a glimpse of your beauty

as the locust landed on your shoulder like a psalm.

Work for Life in the City

for Ben Cocoa

After the factory blade cut off Ben's right hand

the company doctor ordered a pink left hand

wired and attached to the nub of his wrist

from the inside elbow to the base of the brain.

He became the shoe shine boy for life

at the Blue Mirror Bar and after homemade grits

retold the story of the bride and groom

burned nude and upside down in a. convertible.

Ben snapped out rhythm and blues from a rag

kicked into a coma by a penny loafer.

The mayor's son wore his charmed hooves

to march in the Ugly Town Labour Day parade.

Until he shoot death's keen and opulent arms

Ben remained a black man with two left hands.

Poe's Daughter

The beggar's daughter was raised in Hell proper

on hog head cheese and rabid claw

with a sword in her tongue and rack of teeth

buried in a meadow by her angelic hand.

There was everything in heaven tonight

until the town crier tossed white coals

into the rumble seat of death's carriage

stalled at the curb and burned to a whistle.

What had the crowned surveyor of night's crescent fall

known of love and the rising boy virus

before the news spread and ignited the world

and his wooden arm snapped into holy dust?

They found him face down in shallow water

under the wreckage of the moon's grace

and nothing much left of a family or man

born on hollow ground whose first sight was fire.

Honey Child

There was one man left in town

able to call you scavenger,

high yellow, or the macaroon woman.

There was one man at your birthday party

who rode into Alabama on a wild horse

and placed a bullet on his tongue

drank blue tequila until the worm

settled in his throat and he bellowed your name.

Was this the one man who foretold

your two brown daughters and a son

drove the automobile without a floorboard

into the green mountains like a helmsman

tossed into fog and ruin?

This man meant what he said:

built a stone house out of water

took a rainbow into his mouth

and from the Petrified :Forest

pulled the arrowhead that circled the earth

tore the ground and landed at your feet.

This was the same man who wed

his science to your volcanic eyes

read death poems in broad daylight

boiled red clay and raw honey

until the smoke signals spelled out your name

and nearly placed your heart into his hands.

Understudy

for Wendy

What happened on stage for years

almost happened to our life:

the eight year old farmer's daughter

born to clear the fields and sing.

In summer you placed small jars

filled with fireflies and clover

under each window of the house.

You were the oldest of two daughters

raised to keep the devil's laugh away.

At the family gathering you lifted

the gray Polaroid's box of light

and held steady against a thunder crown.

You slept well as the holy ghost

walked into your room and lifted

the knots of light off your body

and wept, nearly human, next to your bed.

You left the stage alone under borrowed light

shaking inside a body not your own.

Black Cat

The truck backs into the green swamp

to unload a black cat and red ass monkey

fence drag and drug in a midnight chase.

Cat eyes skim the minister's iron gate

tap the cellophane mesh of knuckle and honey.

The animal arrives at your door alive.

You fear this brown October night

knowing the lotus flower can settle a war.

You gather stones for the temple of corn

skullcap winter and soup in a can

tame recipients for a two bitch man.

Charles Fort's books include: The Town Clock Burning, Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporaries, 1991; and Darvil, St. Andrew's Press, 1993. He received the 1990 Mary Carolyn Davies Award from the Poetry Society of America, and is currently professor of English at Southern Connecticut State University.