THE OLD COUNTRY

in memory of Nat Adderley

 All the old countries we freeze and thaw--
your Germany, my South, your Cuba, Vermont.
You talk about diminishing returns, the law
that governs Texas. What is it we want,
or need to haul or lug like Motorolas
of the blood? Beep! The mileage we squander
on these jumps from mayonnaise Minnesotas
to curry Calcuttas, from Tokyos you could wander
like spy-quality surveillance snapshots. Half
of you dwells in your dreaded origins. Beep!
Is this the constant wake-up call we laugh
about, then reconsider when we need to sleep?
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, drunk
on memory-- the way your mother scrubbed a fish,
the way your father cried over the crusty trunk
jammed with photos all jumbled up, a swish
a gurgle; the pond and river-like wash of romance-
you freeze. You shiver through the old countries:
your Michigans, Ohios, Indianas, Lagos, France.
You draw lines, you push, the spongy boundaries
squeeze until they bleed. Beep! Old country fuzz;
its sad clarity; the sanctity of what is, what was.

-- by Al Young

FAITH

Like a clear stream that forever runs,
like the highway, freeways, main arteries
which are in truth rivers, faith flows.
What's there to think about? Click.
At the flip of a switch, the tap of a button,
lights come on, whole global engines gyrate
almost noiselessly; electrons move and point
in perfectly correct directions--faith.

Mash on a floor and there's the rug, the earth,
that rolling river again underneath, intimate
as blood, which flows as breath, which flows,
as everything alive must ebb and flow.
Whom should we think the flowing has to stop?
Knowing knows it knows. Or better: Faith trusts
and needs itself more than anything faith thinks
it needs to believe to stay alive.

But when faith thinks or, worse, when faith explains,
watch out. To move out of the rain, but run
heels over head into the sea -- then what's the point?
To know exactly when to fall asleep
without a single hint from anyone-faith.
If that's the way it works, it works.
With living surety, time moves in time
and out of time through time zones so fluently
we barely know to catch more than a moment.

Faith knows how to imagine what's timeless
by what is timed. Faith carries the sun
inside itself and shines it out in the dark.

-- by Al Young

 

THE GOLD RUSH REVISITED, REVISED

The gold rush as the panacea, a way; the DNA
to wind and wrap around the dream. Mummified,
you ask: "How is the dream connected to real life?"
Driving it home this morning, freeway-locked,
high winds blew me this way and that and made it hard
to navigate. I had to pull off to the side (I did so
twice) and rest there, waiting for the Grapes
of Wrath effects to simmer down. Love, where whenever
I need you do you flee? Don't tell me young parents,
bright, intelligent can't make ends meet without stock
options, initial public offerings, a monster house, a Lexus,
$20 mil. Entitlement and world survival do not mesh
with suitcase dreams of cash and rocket stock.
Where aerospace once made the deals unreel;
now it's all aerospace, all up for grabs, all silly con.
That we no longer sell a good or service we can touch
but spin, inflate and pump and float and digitize,
then dump, go public, and leap before we look
must mean: Put everything you got into death.
Life doesn't pay off. The rush to be rich is what counts.

-- by Al Young

THE BLUES AD INFINITUM
(SAY AMEN)

The positively thrilling look of you
sometimes, like now, this very afternoon,
where Pittsburgh shimmers on the brink of fall,
where trees in clumps and copses (from the air)
look almost blue and swollen with the red
and gold of you; cerulean and ochre,
magenta, all those colors in between
the ones we grew and knew and drew before
Miss Raskin said, "Your basic yellows, greens
and reds and blues you've got to really learn.
Your browns and blacks and whites, your orange, your pink
all this is basic. You don't need the rest.
How many things around you look chartreuse?
Primary colors make up all the rest."

You heard her say that, didn't you? You were there;
invisible except for sneaky winks
you'd give me when I looked across the lake
for colors hip Miss Raskin wouldn't have known
if they'd sneaked up and bit her on the neck.
To school a bunch of hoodlums what a gig
that must've been. New forms of lunacy
were getting off the ground around that time:
Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, bebop jokes,
atomic bomb tests, witch hunts, Bird with Strings.

Attachments weren't our schtick; we aimed to please
ourselves, so when we drew, we'd draw her way
and then we'd switch; go back to what we liked.
Miss Raskin's color theories slid past us;
implosive, blue, they felt too close to home.
Whatever brown would warm, white might wash out;
whatever black denoted could blow up
right in our faces, detonate. The trick
(we learned it well) was just to chill.
Nobody said that then; we said, "Be cool."
But chill was what we meant, and what we did
until I learned from drawing that the page
exists as an extension of the world.

The world, as drawn by you, cartoons itself;
we color and re-color it the way
this town took back the red and iron rust
the hard Ohio River used to drag.
Once factory-smoked and steel-worked, Pittsburgh breaths.
Without you, without flame or thrill or light,
where would a lonesome traveler go to rest?
But time has never meant a thing to you,
or has it in some way helped you keep score?
You look so good, you make me feel all right.

-- by Al Young

 

SUNDAYS IN DEMOCRACIES
for Peter Zimmels

Republicans: You're poor because
you're ignorant of all the laws
our Congress passed to cut the costs
of schooling children who get tossed,
nay, dumped upon society.
While we do view with piety
the right to life, we draw the line.
Clean up your act. To wine or dine
the loser class does not make sense.
Let's get this straight. We never winced
at taking public time to quarrel
with victims, thugs, the huge immoral
segment of the population
in our great, God-blessed, rich, free nation.

The Democrats: There was a time
the GOP and all its crime
got barely covered by the news,
which only aired our sins and blues.
What have they done for you, my friends?
Does making do or making ends
meet any measure of success?
We back the same Big Business mess
they do, but when we tighten your belt
we dig up Franklin Roosevelt.
We've given you prosperity
without their stark severity.
The only thing we have to fear? --
REPUBLICANS. Now, is that clear?

A Citizen: More parties, please,
more Sundays in democracies!
Each party dances, each side sings;
one great Big Bird with two right wings.
They'll boogie with you in the streets,
then drag you down to dark defeats.
Democracy? Look at our heroes:
CEO's billions, labor's zeroes --
pure DNA, unspliced and spliced.
If you think oil is over-priced,
consider what we're going to pay
for giving frequencies away ­
the broadcast band. I say let's vote.
Let's kick some butt, let's rock some boat.

-- by Al Young