Tim Staley was born in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1975. He
completed a Poetry MFA from New Mexico State University in 2004. He serves as
publisher of Grandma Moses Press. His first full-length poetry collection, Lost On My Own Street, is forthcoming
from Pski’s Porch Publishing. His newest chapbook, The Most Honest Syllable Is Shhh, is forthcoming from Night Ballet
Press. Journal publications include
Border Senses, Cacti Fur, Canary, Chiron Review, Circumference, and RHINO: The Poetry Forum. His hobbies
include thinking, taquitos, and waiting. Actually, just taquitos. He lives with his wife and daughter in Las
Cruces, New Mexico. Find him online at www.poetstaley.com
On the Cusp of Snow and Thaw
I tell myself I’m home out here
alone in the cold
a half mile from the road
beside Sapillo Creek
where silence broods
on the nail head
of the moon
without budging.
Each night the freeze
stretches out the earth’s pores
and leaves them worn out
and satisfied in the morning.
Tonight Old Forester sloshes
in my blue aluminum cup
while Willie Nelson sings
from a tiny speaker:
One night of love
can’t make up
for six nights
alone. I romanticize
man versus wild while
hundreds of miles
away on our crappy futon
there’s a wilderness
in my wife’s eyes
I can’t face.
Late at night the air ticks
in shafts of moonlight
with ice crystals
and sparkles crackle
like the fire.
I’m drunk enough now
to appreciate anywhere
there’s water in the air.
A hound dog
with a transmitter collar
trots through my camp
on a mission.
He goes deeper
into the wilderness
than I care to.
Maybe
I’m not ready
for so much quiet.
Daddy Daughter Campout
It’s 2:31 PM.
She’s playing airplane in the van.
This air traffic controller
sips a Budweiser.
I don’t feel too tired.
She’s done playing airplane.
It’s 2:32 PM.
Every path we walk down:
pine trees, property lines,
broken glass, shotgun shells,
dead fall, beer bottles, cans,
car campers and another man’s
screaming kids, and best of all
these bones: elk, mule deer, bear.
Spines with rib cages and necks,
fur still clinging to hooves and shins.
Listen close, hear the insects mining.
A blue tarp under us both,
Miles Davis, ESP, on a weak speaker,
bones of the chorus flesh out the verse.
A fleece vest of mine and a jacket of Suzanne’s
wrapped around her. Planes
and satellites blink between the stars.
In the firelight she’s finally asleep…
How many lifetimes did it take to get here?
Folk Rock Flophouse
I’m in
a band with 7 guitar players
you
know guitars players
with
those long wooden shafts
that
jut out from their torsos.
They
play seven of my songs
extremely well
if
they remember
or
once they’ve found the sheet
with
all the chords.
At
practice they’re not grounded
they
buzz literally:
Pleased
to introduce…
Thrilled to introduce…
etcetera
until
we’re one trashed phantasm
in
speculative harmony.
Tell them, tell them
Helen
begs tell them
kick the feral out the band
and I
tell her I can’t
and
Helen doesn’t say tell them
for
awhile.
Then
there’s the drugs.
Damn
the drugs that work
in
tidal waves. A gateway hug,
a bump
or two, then came Jessica,
my
yogi’s daughter
home
from Naropa, she found an antique
poster
of me for her bedroom. I tack it
by tiny
hammer and drag
my
palms across her tiny chest. I kiss
with
my tongue her tiny mouth. She cries behind bangs
and
maybe we’re in love and Helen knows
not to
squelch it
though
for her these arrangements
map a
narrow corner.
Accidents
are chronic,
they curl
and hammer the fingerboard.
Even
the guests
on my
list
don’t
show.
Don’t
they know
how
lucky they are, my notes all
strung
out before them?
Oh
fuck their failsafe guitar lick--
that clipped
chiffon
phrase.
You see
Helen’s a seamstress, her fingers
draw
my torn crotch
through
the Singer, she dreamt up spangled
saxes
for my lapels, initials
in
deep last week by her needle
and of the vinegar aroma
in her
sewing room,
of the
acetic taste in her mouth
well,
it’s not as bad as it seems.
Taste
is not the question, neither
is the
sweaty marble upstairs.
Desire
comes from the neck
stamps
the reed , jumps the first
piece
of brass it can find. Yes
I stole
rocks spray painted gold and
I made
Jessica take back the poster.
I’m
starting to take this band seriously:
No
dope during practice
No smoke break after every song
No tambourine with no god damn plan.
Choreographers
show you
when to move
where to move
in relation to a mood
cause when you move
cause when you move
did you make the new move?
the old move? the
right move?
My
band’s only question
is
who’s following who?
Of
self improvement they lied.
At
last I tell them
I’m the gig czar now!
and I
hadn’t meant
to
exonerate them wholly
but
four guitars fall flat
as
guitarists single file
are
drawn by toes
beneath
the dusty rug, so easy
they
sink in the foundation’s crack.
The
rhythm section follows suit
as
usual a second behind.
Now,
by God, if you stand to leave
I’ll
take it
as an ovation.
I find
Helen reading in bed
and I
approach like a hair
sluicing
downstream, unsure
which
branch to wrap.
Options
crescendo with rock
in no
short supply.
It’s
her I curl beside.
~Tim Staley
