Effigy Waltz

I was so lonely

            I made me a man.

Grabbing the sewing box from the utility porch, I stitched dungaree to old work-shirt. Exceedingly careful about the seams I created, fastened wool sock to pant leg, garden glove to cuff. I had to stem bean flow. I made a head from a gunny sack to suit my new companion. Hair, an unused mop.

I filled my man

            full of beans,

and it took on girth,

            became complete.

I dragged it from the house,

 slumped it against the clothesline pole

  with a huff of dried August.

   Its head tilt conveyed emotion,

  woven jute ennui seemed a crooked grin.

 Faceless, I thought it resembled my dad,

so I named it Bean-Gene.

I went to the porch swing

for tea and cake.

What are you thinking over there?

            Silence and willow sway.

Bean-Gene leaned heavy on the pole, puppet so forlorn. I downed my tea and a few leaves, and went to the shed for rope. I looped an end where jute met shirt, knotted tight, and heaved rope over clothesline arm. I took of the slack and pullied. Bean-Gene stirred, cocked his head to one side. Slowly he rose.

His feet barely touching the ground, I tethered.

            Willows draped and late-day sun

warmed shed, house and barn.

            We danced hand in glove.

Father, your hair is candied yarn. 

*                            *                         *                          *

I wrote "Effigy Waltz" sometime after my father passed away. His name was indeed Gene, though he didn't have a look of woven jute ennui. My father grew up on a farm in northern Wisconsin, and even though I never lived on a farm myself, the imagery seems to exist for me as part of a collective history that I share with him. My relationship with Gene was not always a positive one, probably where the image of hanging an effigy comes from, but yet the speaker in the poem is embracing the man's memory, building and giving life to an effigy to have him around again, and dancing with the "death puppet," an image that could make Ingmar Bergman rise up from his nest. 

An interesting note: As I wrote the poem, the speaker was male and more or less a stand-in for the writer, James. Early readers of the poem observed that the speaker seems to be a woman, possibly due to the sewing, the tea, the waltz with her(?) father. Now when I read it, being much more removed from the time and emotions, it does sound like a female voice to me, though I must point out that in my house I do most of the sewing. The pink sewing box full of notions and such belongs to me, though the box itself comes from the long-lost Jody. (More on that later.) I'd be happy to waltz with Gene if I could see him again.

First published in:

THE FULCRUM: LITERATURE AND ARTS JOURNAL, Volume 8 Spring 2005

and on the website http://www.fulcrumonline.org

Fruit to a Funeral

     This carriage balks of fumed oak, she complains,

but there’s rain and her home is on my way,

so she accepts and climbs in.

Wet driver ‘crops on horsehinds and we roll.

My fingers, fresh from orange peel, press

acid etched glass and just beyond,

the cloud glaze makes clay paste of the road.

I fill my mouth with fruit; she’s hungry,

I know, but in a vague way

and without pain. We can go all the way

[to the funerals] my dear lady,

or you can  just wait on the carriage benchseat

in your clingy  skirt with the corduroy

cushion cutting treads down your backside,

but she declines. The horse team pounds slipsod,

mounting the jut, while to each roadside,

the dead sing whitelipped, craggle and sligh.

I pull on the window, tossing orange peels out.

I’m pumped in my fingersuit, primed

to eat the plums, jam be damned.

I’d even consider offering one,

but here she’s buttonhooked, tied like luck

and looking only to puddle leap home.

She’s quail and tummy rumbles;

I’m knocking tooth to pit

as we pound around the bend.

Here’s the family estate now: stonework and ivy,

maze of hedgerows, while inside,

the housemaid pulls large loaves from a  cast iron.

The smell of bread is heaven.

     Let me come inside.

Funerary bells are ringing in the village;

the horses are restless, but I don’t want to leave.

It’s been raining a while.

My fruit’s all gone

and you’re cute as a hat.

*          *          *           *           *

I wrote "Fruit to a Funeral" quite a few years ago. At the time, I was in a small writing group that tried to meet every week or two around Minneapolis and St. Paul. The group had already gone on for some time at the point when I brought "Fruit to a Funeral" for critique. I felt like I was opening a new door in my writing, as though I was beginning to access a more subconscious or intuitive approach to writing. There are images in this poem that don't make sense, images that seem to say one thing while suggesting another interpretation. This was also an early example of me making up words, or using real words incorrectly to imply a certain meaning. Since the writing of this poem, these things have become much more dominant in my work. My writing group, as I recall, liked the cinematic imagery, but had some trouble with the made-up words, with needing to make sense of the fruit, and with the italicized lines. When I was at the Vermont Studio Center in January 2007, I shared this poem with the other writers doing residencies at that time. One writer read the poem and commented, "You're one weird dude." I was delighted.

Here's the story as I see it:

A wealthy man in a horse drawn carriage offers a lift to a woman who is walking along the road on a drizzly day. He's eating fruit. He travels along with the woman, and he's attracted to her, not so much in a physical sense, but more in a sense of home, security, fitting in. these things he implicitly lacks despite his wealth (and power?). The man longs for these things. At the end, he implores her to take him into her "home" and feed him the warm and fresh bread that's so close he can smell it. He's acutely aware of his age, the "rain" that has been falling for some time now, and the closeness of death represented by the tolling of the bells in the village. He's taken a slight diversion from his journey toward the funeral, and more than anything, he wants to hold onto the fleeting moment of respite. Does she take him in? I don't know. What do you think?

First published in:

THE FULCRUM: LITERATURE AND ARTS JOURNAL, Volume 8 Spring 2005

and on the website: http://www.fulcrumonline.org