21 POEMS - Edwin Forrest Ward

21 POEMS - Edwin Forrest Ward

NIGHTS WITHOUT LOVE

nights without love

I looted unlocked

cars, drunk

stumbled I upon

lookin’ for

a bride tossed garter

I’d lost long ago or a

bow for my broken arrow

in my ransacking ways

I was an indian angel

among the trinkets

of glove box and floor

here a condom, there some gum

aglow on the dashboard

saint someone protects

the plunder from me

I take little, just read signs

recycle debris

these nights without love

make a barbarian of me

COUNTERMEASURES

aside water pools and water

falls, stone beneath four feet

in places such as this

we pile rocks

scribe names

to make tomorrow weep

carved intaglio, ancient pine

will fall in time upon

assembled spelling stones

eras leave no bone unturned

mountains tremble

chasms yawn

years from now

arrives too soon

love like ours

nights like this

the only countermeasures

A SERIOUS ADVENTURE

longing

risk

the undress of a waitress

in morning

coffee black and cigarettes

the silkiest lounging attire

TIME IS A PLACE

it ain’t easy

to quiet the world

it ain’t easy

to set the stage right

it’s a tease to look me in the eyes

it’s a tease

to stand in such light

a bureau of cosmetics

a nightstand of books

the lamp off now

the window outside

a dawn bed of flowers

time is a place

a bouquet of earthly locations

HEADSTONE

death is the dilemma

an epitaph cures

write yours now

THEY BURY IN PAIRS WHERE I COME FROM

it is always morning

flesh against flesh upon

lush carpet in a poem to promises kept

Away Forever Swept

SIMPLY SAID

simply said

sun enlightens earth

even the moon needs

sunlight to ride

white across the night

is this not apparent to all?

I wonder

 in these days of art

when upon the face of it

they paint a woman’s flirt

as if the sun were flower

come on! I know

the anatomy of

orchid and fire

who brings light

who is flower

POEM FOR PASSION

all right, kid

put this in your pocket

with the house keys

she will always be younger

than you

with your ability

to woo

even in the city

where quantity obscures

you’ll find her

smooth face, bright

shiver of light, cupped

flesh in your hands

another key:

what to do with it

her youth and willingness

TRUST

trust

it wasn’t easy

to give up the many

for monogamy’s one.

I’d slide my eyes along the lie

of every passing female thigh

every woman met, undressed

for what attire conceals

the toss of eye

the hair reveals.

some say the face. some say

the verb of bending. must

needs be unending, the

tangle of reasons for love.

PUPPET POEM

you need no ESP

to sense the strings

we’ve tangled

the physics of the world

strings the astronomical

the small

puppet to puppet

with no puppeteer

we, the lovers, dance.

I am rising

you are rising

too

THE DISTANCE TO HER ALWAYS

quicker. love

puts lead in the foot

the accelerator to the floor

it’s always a

hurry-home

to love

A CONSPIRACY FOR TWO IN EROTICALLY MAJOR

we do everything together.

sleep, cook, eat, shower, water, weed and flower

play, empower, mistake, parent, work, procreate

inspire, desire, conspire

we do everything together.

now she primps as I write.

the perfect lay of dungaree denim

announces her intention

attracts my attention.

my lover has new lucky jeans.

look how well they fit, she says

I’m dressing for sex at the office today.

lucky for me we work together.

lucky for me we do everything together.

CROWN OF LIGHTS

upon my knees I look up to see

a diadem of galaxies

vortex the cortex of my love

incredulous she asks

how do we make the sun go up and down?

with our love, as always, with our love

A STRUCTURE IN 13 LINES / A WEDDING SONG

this woman

like a poem needs

another’s hands

to make it tight

the love around the braided hair

for this man

what’s to do?

but tie the knot

or lift the hair

to kiss the face

that love would wear

to see the white light

shining there

EVEN THE MOST KINDRED SOULS

HAVE SEPARATE BODIES

love is couscous cake

with lemon curd, the

affections of an afternoon’s kiss

giving up lust for Lent.

love bends an ear to hear

a fantasy to sharpen its

delights against and asks

questions of fidelity

and the trust of just

one name between us.

ah, drive time with my Valentine.

in the back seat, the kids asleep,

and a picnic keeps, as mountain towns

a century golden old ghost by.

the curves along the creek

host an infinity of light

sliced by jagged peaks

as we fly in the face

of a suitcase of facts against us

- we legatees of outlaw mountain lore.

recognize, we do,

the effect the music has on us

as the road follows water through the canyon

while centrifugation creates

our lean of bodies

‘round snakes at fifty-five

and switchbacks at twenty.

we babble our way unto the next

descent and reminisce,

taste the sweat of a hot springs rendezvous

with you, your Pinto winding west

across a valley so high

‘twas lit by stars that moonless night.

one hand upon the wheel I

keep one upon your thigh.

even the most kindred souls

have separate bodies.

even the most kindred souls

have separate bodies.

THE POT QUEEN

a ranch relic lust, who but you

o creatrix, could sativa trust?

who but you, shape shaper of silver night?

who but you insights with light?

in a small garden, in a small place

…no, that will never do…

in a valley vast the mother of the harvest fires up

another fecund moment, a full moon swoon

creeping through the groin of earth itself.

children gather ‘round her, their eyes, like

adoring spacecraft.

the moment is the happiness of handing him, the

partner, man

a flower bigger than his dick, bigger than a bird,

bigger than his appetite.

the Pot Queen loves the measure of his delight at

his first sight of it

anticipates the pleasures of the making love he’s

promised her for later.

the Pot Queen attends well, charms again, this

creature she has captured.

her radiance, the pleasure of happy

I am to see you.

her world, one of interested beings

still interested in being.

her taste, the velvet throat of imagination.

her face, the verb to luster.

NOW THAT STEVE IS BACK

(for Steve Wilson)

now that steve is back

the plainer poems

dressed like bookman

scouting lawn sales

the ass pocket a jingle

with miniatures of vodka

one shot per slug

rambling a bit to insure

the territory’s covered

before opening the bag

that carries home the pumpkin pie

IF EVERYONE BELIEVED IN GHOSTS

if everyone believed in ghosts

there’d be no lies

fortune tellers would

be out of business

or in charge of the future

we could nothing to connive

what with all the family watching

we would just have flower gardens

and throw parties

sculpting beautiful statues

of our selves

for our children

if everyone believed in ghosts

there’d be no bad deals

no short weight

and very little conversation

in the government

the pain would slacken

no stiff necks

and love

would be the subject

of our experiments

THE MAGICIAN

nobody knows

what he does

inside the trick

ever

always

he hides the strings

she moves his hands

IT’S NOT EASY

it’s not easy

to throw away

old clothes

the buttons alone!

BILLY B – (for William S. Burroughs Jr.)

billy b

he be dead

at thirty-three

(like a cypress tree cut down

to clear the air around

a stop sign

- the idiots!

something cute about

 a pirate and a poet

funning themselves

on colorado boulevard

with me on the lark to luck love

and the baby you divined

and you

casually on your way to early death

(aye

and sainthood in a cutthroat heaven)

yes

we were outriggish as you said

the clothes the hearts the hair

and you

on the hospital morphine fly

so high

you’d pass out on a toke of good weed

and I’d take you home to your chair

where you’d smoke your cigarettes

drink your beer - schlitz malt liquor please -

and stare

at alice liddell

doc holliday

or joe frazier

maybe get your strength back in a while

and throw a knife into the wall

or bayonet the couch

I’d water your philodendron

a tropical rarity you claimed

for a year I was gonna get

a new pot for it, billy

and remember lili, billy

an angel come to see you

            I’d hoped there’d be a meeting of the hearts            

and remember the day

you ernie and ray

dressed in wedding bests

out the door at 9 am

catching a ride

to the finest celebration of the summer, your last

tattooed children

actors and painters

cool jazz on the balcony

beautiful dresses across the floor

with booze on the tables even

and mushrooms in the bag

tony scibella was throwing hats

off the edge

and you warned about knives

and revenge in relation to your hat

and that hillside

child-mad you were

defending your hat

and on the way back that night

you wanted to stop at mcdonald’s

but I didn’t have the hour

it would take you to eat

I dropped you off hungry

in front of your pad

and pointed at

the jack in the box across the street

"In My Mother's Bed"

 “In My Mother’s Bed”

as always

for Marcia

The great American poet, Robert Lee Frost, was once asked, “What is the most significant event, the most important thing that ever happened to you?” I’m sure the interviewer thought Frost’s response would have something to do one of the following: with Frost’s recitation of his poem “The Outright Gift” at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1963, the first time ever that a poet had the honor of reading at a presidential inauguration; or being selected to be the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1953 to 1959; or receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times, in the years 1924, 1931, 1937 and 1943; or receiving Yale’s Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1963; or his marriage to his high school sweetheart and co-valedictorian, Elinor White on December 19, 1895; or the births of any of his six children. Robert Frost’s answer, however, had nothing to do with any of these important events and dates in his life; rather, his answer – “a road less traveled,” if you will - had to do with Frost’s own birth in San Francisco on March 26, 1874: “I was born in my mother’s bed.”

Now I’m not sure how I came to know this odd fact. My best guess is that I heard it via a recorded interview with Frost that was broadcast on early public - as in University of Pennsylvania - radio in the 70s, a decade or so after his death. Regardless, it was an indelible tidbit etched on my hard drive that I never forgot and which helped to inform my getting on board with Marcia’s decision to pursue a homebirth when she became pregnant in July of 1980. Our first child was born on March 27, 1981, like Frost, in its mother’s bed, in particular at 542 South Pearl Street in Denver one hundred and seven years, plus three hours, after Frost was born. This is the story of that birth and the fortunate happenstance of the five women, the midwives who assisted.

Marcia and I were not exactly trying to conceive a child when we did. As with many of the important moments together in our lives, a wedding played a part in Marcia’s impregnation. Indeed, our history as a couple is wedding rich: Marcia and I met as blind dates at a wedding and we both have spent decades working as wedding professionals, Marcia as a photographer and I as a celebrant. Our own wedding in 1979 was so over the top personal that those in attendance still speak of the poems burned, the mushrooms distributed, the fact I wore no shirt, the motley tent made of sown together drapes that shaded her family and my friends from the July noontime sun in our South Pearl Street backyard, the severe frown on my father-in-law-to-be’s face. And much of what I know of spirituality and ritual has been engendered by what I’ve experienced at weddings.

Now the particular wedding connected to our first child’s conception was the wedding of my boss at the time, Tommy Larkin. He managed the Boston Half Shell where I waited tables. Thus it was an Irish/restaurant-worker wedding with more than its fair share of fine food and drink; and I do believe the alcohol offered and imbibed that day in Aspen Colorado played a significant role in Marcia’s miscalculation of her ovulation cycle as we made love the night of Tommy’s marriage. Nonetheless, when, a month or so later, it became apparent that something was missing in Marcia’s life, the regular monthly punctuation signaling all is as it has been, that she might be pregnant, we both were ecstatic with joy at the prospect of parenthood and we embraced the pink color of the test strip and the confirmation of her pregnancy with an almost rabid fervor. It would seem that something I wrote in a poem after attending Tony Scibella’s daughter’s wedding in 1979 – “At weddings, a woman, sometimes two, will get pregnant” - had been prophetic.

And soon, Marcia and I were off in search of a midwife, not an easy thing to do in 1980 as midwifery was generally frowned upon by most practitioners of modern medicine and not the usual choice of young married couples, even though humans have been born without hospitals, doctors and drugs for over two hundred thousand years. Many of the people in our lives at the time thought us a bit crazy, if not irresponsible, to pursue homebirth, including Marcia’s parents who would never be on the same page, culturally and spiritually, with their daughter and son-in-law. Marcia and I took to searching the postings of community bulletin boards in the Bohemian establishments we frequented: coffee houses and bookstores and what were then known as natural food stores. Although practically everyone we knew characterized our search as foolish, dangerous, and hippie-dippy, we thought it to be wise, natural and empowering, if you will, “the road less traveled.” And the midwife we soon hooked up with proved to be wise, natural and empowering as well. Rare would be the woman who could say she had walked in her shoes. Her name was Gina and to this day I consider us lucky to have found her because her underground network of fellow practitioners of black-market midwifery was so large that a curandera, i.e., a woman healer in Texas, her wisdom, was largely responsible for solving a difficulty that presented itself during the birth of our first child, and the elderly healer never even knew of us.

Marcia’s labor was exceedingly long, over thirty hours: morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night, all night, into another morning. Because Gina was an on-the-down-low teacher of midwifery as well as a practitioner, there were three other midwives assisting Gina during the first twenty-nine hours of Marcia’s labor, and a fourth arrived about twenty minutes before our child was born. Ramona, the last to arrive – in the nick of time you might say - had just returned to Denver after two months of study and training with an elderly and legendary indigenous midwife, shaman and teacher who had been present at and assisted with the births of some thousands of kids in rural Texas. Upon arrival, Ramona had telephoned Gina’s house after departing the Greyhound bus on Twentieth Street and had been told by Gina’s daughter that Gina was attending a birth on Pearl Street. Informed that the birth most likely was imminent, given that Gina had already been gone from home more than twenty-four hours, Ramona took another bus, the Number 5, from downtown Denver and arrived at my house with a backpack full of traveling clothes and a head full of wisdoms recently learned. Still, she was quiet and calm and deferred to the more experienced and older midwives in attendance as Marcia’s labor progressed, that is, until things got dangerously complicated.

When my child entered the birth canal, there was a problem. Gina told us the baby wasn’t breech, but its seemingly large head and shoulders were positioned in such a way that, were this birth taking place in a hospital, given the duration of Marcia’s labor, most attending physicians would call for a surgeon to perform a Caesarian. I had all the faith in the world of Marcia’s determination to see things through and immense confidence in the midwives present, but I must admit I was apprehensive. Worried I was about the extreme effort Marcia was putting into pushing, concerned about her understandable exhaustion, disturbed by the gritty and growling moans that accompanied each push, fearful of the fluctuating information of the fetal monitoring, anxious about the time my child was spending in the birth canal. And then when Gina said we might consider going to the hospital if the progress through the birth canal remained impeded much longer, the young apprentice, Ramona, offered a suggestion, something the elderly curandera had only spoken of, a technique Ramona had not actually observed or employed.

Marcia sat on our futon bed with her back to the wall. Gina, monitoring our child’s vitals, squatted between Marcia’s legs. With a midwife on either side of Marcia, Ramona, with the assistance of Fiona, Gina’s primary assistant, did a handstand aside Marcia, the kind of handstand where one’s feet are used to walk up a wall with one’s head facing the wall. Ramona then sidestepped with her hands until she was centered over Marcia, an arm on either side of Marcia’s outstretched legs. And then as Ramona’s legs walked further up the wall above Marcia’s head, the three midwives lifted Ramona up, with their hands under her upside down shoulders until Ramona could place her hands lightly and gingerly on Marcia’s stomach, at which point she was literally doing a handstand on Marcia’s fundus, although the accompanying midwives were totally supporting Ramona’s weight and there was no pressure on Marcia or our child within. After exploring the surface of Marcia’s stomach like a masseuse and finding what she was looking for - our child’s rump I guessed - Ramona directed the three who were holding her up to ever so slightly let her weight come to bear on Marcia’s stomach. And as the women began to let the force of Ramona’s upside down weight come into play, I heard the sweetest words I’ve ever heard above the howl of Marcia’s final moan: “It’s a boy.”

After the birth of my son, I began writing letters to my assorted governmental representatives advocating that midwifery be legalized in Colorado. I wrote letters for thirteen years. Only one politician ever wrote back, my state house representative, and he informed me I was dangerously insane. Every year for more than a decade he told me the same thing. He was dead set against midwifery. And then in 1993 he wrote to thank me for my persistence as he had changed his mind and had voted to make midwifery legal in the state of Colorado.

I guess I should have written to thank him, but I did not. I simply burned the thirteen letters wherein he informed me of my lunacy, as I am the kind of Irish who enjoys a shaman’s voodoo as much as holding a grudge. On the other hand, I have been writing Thank You’s in the form of poems, novels, plays and stories to Mr. Frost these last thirty-four years, thanking him indirectly for the wisdom of his answer to the question of significance “I was born in my mother’s bed,” words that have inspired me and others – Marcia, Gina, Ramona, and many others – to take the road less traveled. And this tale is one of those Thank-You-Mr-Frost letters that I wish Ramona and that Texas curandera might read one day.