#118: Two Poems by Ace Boggess

~This poem first appeared in The Bryant Literary Review (2003).

“Prefer Slick, Feverish Grooves Over Funky Backbeats?”

                                                                                [seen in an advertisement]

blessed rock’n’roll R & B funk folk acid jazz

blessed Beatles carnival barkers calling the modern era

blessed Doors Who Grateful Dead immortal

noodling licks on vinyl persistent as the low note

in my college neighbor’s busy buzzing radiator

blessed Sam playing along

“there’s a B-flat in my headboard”

blessed Joshua Redman

saxophone a second tongue whispering sweetest words in bed

blessed Rusted Root rhythmic re-animators of jam-band jam

blessing the crowd with dance shake mystery vibe

blessed locals Jeff Roy Tyler Kat Mike Speedy John Shawn

Annie leaving to return

savor diverse notes catchy refrains

heavy metal blaring

moaning blues

frayed like an old man’s movement into night tonight

a Celtic quintet whistling bullets through

silk armor of a woman’s voice

blessed Shenanigans classic Irish sweetness

melancholia groove & bounce

blessed Van Morrison soulful tone suffering slings & arrows

blessed techno Moby reggae Marley

ska la la da da de da de

blessed Freddie Mercury coy erotic reaching

“March of the Black Queen”

blessed sultry Shirley Manson “happy when it rains” &

sad to be in song blessed blessed blessed

pipers in the summer heat

center stage at Calamity Cafe

vanished-bar nostalgia welcome as the word ‘welcome’

blessed release

in chords chorus tensing cadence

tribal as a movie about the white man’s dream

of Africa

blessed background score to my climax falling action

end blessed end that hasn’t found me yet

Sartre’s silence punctuates a symphony

defines as much as first chords

solos arpeggios harmony

blue notes blessed blue notes &

violence in the interlude anticipating quiet

for the blessed listener’s blessed blessed ear

  

~This poem first appeared in Poetry East (2003).

“So What Is the Line Between Memory and Hallucination?”

                                                 —William S. Burroughs, The Adding Machine

We were in love; we weren’t in love.

Our bodies focused a frequency channeling the Divine.

How ugly we were, & how beautiful, man

over woman, & woman man. Our nights

lit up with candles, jacks-o-lantern,

overhead lamps cleansing the darkening pain.

She came in a wilting anger; I held back with ecstasy.

It was the beast of times, the washed of times,

scented in orange blossoms, jasmine & vanilla.

Hands read the braille on her skin,

lips drew blood from a turnip. We were

in love; we weren’t. Our eyes never saw &

never see the truth, a phantom limb

recalled like a novel read in youth.

*****

THE STORY BEHIND THE POEMS

In 2002, I began working on a series of Q&A poems in which a question (with credit to the person asking) served as the title and a jumping-off point into whatever world my brain wandered.  The questions at first came from people I knew, and then from poems or novels I read, from spam e-mails and medical questionnaires, overheard conversations, and the occasional billboard or religious leaflet.  Any time I heard or read a question that struck me as interesting, I jotted it down until I could find my way into the answer.  The results often surprised me, taking me places I could not expect and often pulling memories from me I had forgotten or language I seldom used.  I have played with many forms in the years since, but I always return to the questions.  They have some sort of lien on the best parts of my subconscious.

*****

ABOUT ACE BOGGESS

Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poems: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003).  His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Notre Dame Review, Mid-American Review, Atlanta Review, River Styx, and many other journals.  He currently resides in Charleston, West Virginia.  His two poems included here are from a third collection, tentatively titled, The Dreaming Grocer, which remains in search of a publisher.