The Poetry of Doug Tanoury

The Poetry of

Ward Kelley

The Beauty of the Trick

The universe, incarnate, slouches over the guardrail,

having taken the form of a skinny teenage poet who

has dyed her hair blonde, but who now peers into

the Grand Canyon.

No one knows, she thinks, the beauty

of the trick.

She admires her wondrous chasm, then watches

a hawk pined silent on a thermal.

The stork who delivers the baby earlier acted

as the knife to silent a crone's heart, a slight

of hand, sliding death to life to death to life;

open, closed, open.

Nothing is permanent, the skinny girl knows,

nothing made of atoms is permanent, while

souls can neither be created nor destroyed.

She winks at the hawk who breaks free

as a bullet, targeting a snake far below.

Come To Be Matched

To name all the parts of a harness . . .

seems a unbearable task,

seems a forlorn mistaking

of proper work, seems like

a thing not worthy

of a woman or a poet,

for the naming is not

really important,

even the recognition

is not our main task,

but instead it is the notion,

the embrace of the thought,

how we all, each of us,

all of you, and every single

soul, and all the parts of a soul,

come to be matched with all

parts of the harness we hold clenched for

every day and every death in our very hands.

Artist's note:

Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) was a highly acclaimed American author,

winner of both a Pulitzer and a National Book Award. She once wrote,

"I was brought up with horses, I have harnessed, saddled, driven and ridden

many a horse, but to this day I do not know the names for the different

parts of a harness. I have often thought I would learn them and write

them down in a note book. But to what end? I have two large cabinets

full of notes already."

Express Motion

It was never intended to be a free fall, this

poem, a plummet, a drop into the sensuous

noose, this eclipse of the normal thought.

Nor was it supposed to be a door, where

one had simply to pass to the other side

then close it to walk contentedly away. No,

this whisking off of the soul was never

meant to have anything to do with those

who would think to be contented. It's a

drop, a menace, an enthrallment, a present

of express motion, a bedevilment of sliding

where the bottom always becomes just one

more entry into the next disappearance of

flooring similar, I suppose, to a lynching,

these poems who fall and fall, drawing the knot

more firmly around the neck of the soul, a present.

Artist's note:

Stevie Smith (1903-1971), English poet, once said of death,

"Whatever names you give me / I am / A breath of fresh air,

/ A change for you." Arguably one of Britain's favorite poets,

she died shortly after penning this line.

A Ghost to the Flesh

Love is that which binds us, one soul

to another . . . and time is that which bends

us, one soul hurtling, one catching.

Love is an ember which smolders

forever before it explodes, but one

cannot light it or fan it, it has a time

of its own, a mystery to even itself.

Time is the silent sister of love, she

is always there, a clear shadow,

a ghost to the flesh of love who

will haunt you and trouble you

invisibly, and only when you grow

accustomed to her bedevilment --

when you suspect she never existed

at all -- only then will she explode

the ember and set you afire.

Love and time, they whisper together.

His Singular Initial

A single poem, bred well,

will race far ahead of all

the other thoughts in a poet's

mind, for most thoughts are

laden with the cares of our

existence: how to drag these

bones from place to place

while providing them an

adequate nourishment. But

a poem has no such baggage,

and instead gallops through

the brain, never in circles, but

always straight to the finish

line where it rises on two legs,

screaming a horse's thin exclamation . . .

and only then do you see the black-

caped rider who unveils his arm

to slash his wicked sword at your

naked chest then rides off, leaving

you marked with his singular initial.

Artist's note:

Galileo (1564-1642), in his "The Assayer" wrote, "I say that the testimony

of many has little more value than that of few, since the number of people

who reason well in complicated matters is much smaller than that of those

who reason badly. If reasoning were like hauling I should agree that several

reasoners would be worth more than one, just as several horses can haul more

sacks of grain than one can. But reasoning is like racing and not like hauling,

and a single Barbary steed can outrun a hundred dray horses.

If the Dead Must Speak

We miss our limbs, the splay

of arms, the limbo legs, the

intimate positioning of apertures

for sex; all must touch

to satisfaction, even toes.

We miss the inflections from

our tongues and vocal chords,

and where we can now convey

our words much more succinctly,

there is no way to cluck

or kiss a minor statement

for a proper irony; we miss

the sibilance that comes from

talking faster than one's own thoughts . . .

for out here we never run faster

than the speed of thought, it's physically

impossible, you know, yet we would

hiss and hiss, as gulls might whisper . . .

but most of what we miss is you,

for none of us would trade places,

and this, just this, is a fine thing

for you to know . . .

our waiting for your own death.

Little Parts of the Same God

The future looks back upon

us all and says, "Create me.

All of you in the teeming

are one boisterous tag team,

most without the game plan,

but nearly all passionate

to play.

Create me. I need form,

whether civilized or animal;

one could say it hardly matters,

but we all -- you in the past, there,

and I, your aspirations made

flesh -- all wish it to be better.

You little parts of the same

god, if you stop to wish,

I would be great; but you

never take time to wish for

what will exist a thousand

years from your day."

The future looks back upon

us all and says, "I'm not sure

I am grateful to you."

Never Marry It

Within every great beauty is the seed of madness;

the history of beauty tells us so, but one doesn't

have to study much to know this, for the most

alluring beauty has always deviated from the norm,

and this is why great beauty should always be admired

from afar, whether art or woman. Never marry it . . .

for it will not allow itself to be trapped, and it is

impossible to fashion a cage, no matter how clever,

without some form of bars. Determined to be free,

great beauty will ultimately find its freedom in death --

and whether yours or its, makes little difference -- and

often both participants become victims of the fatal seed.

The Nuns Gave Me Shelter

The nuns gave me shelter -- hiding

me from those who would kill me --

there in the cellar of their convent,

below with the wine, the formal linens,

and also now a Jew. I spent many days

in the dark, and I must say I reached

a point of mind where I could think

of nothing but the odd sexuality of

the sisters; forgive me, but it's true:

the rustling of their habits, the purity

of their faces -- the younger ones I should

say -- and the way they seek to appear

as androgynous . . . there in the dark,

these women became quite alluring,

as though making love to them would

bring me nearer to God, but it's true: every

man wants to think the act of sex is a carnal

act enabling a comprehension of infinity,

a religious endeavor, a passion, and if

this is so, just imagine what fruits these

dear nuns would bear, just imagine . . .

but I was crazy, this was me at my most

insane, and in the end, the only thing I gave

these good nuns was my great gratitude.

So forgive me, I simply sat in the dark

far too long.

Artist's note:

Abba Kovner (1918-1987) was one of the founding leaders of the United Organization

of Partisans, which was formed in the Vilna ghetto as an armed resistance to the Nazis.

After WWII he eventually settled in kibbutz Ein Hahoresh where he dedicated most of

his time to writing. In 1970 Kovner received the Israel Prize for Literature.

He once commented, "Who are the living and the dead? I don't know how to answer

this question. But I believe there is one place in the world without cemeteries.

This is the place of poetry." During the German occupation of Vilna in 1941,

Kovner hid with a few other partisans temporarily in a Dominican convent.

Our Dead Are Not Dead

Our sorrow is no sorrow, our weeping is no weeping,

our dead are not dead, our despair is no despair.

- Yehuda Amichai

Our dead are not dead, the missing

are not missing; they are not absent

from our souls, for even now they

minister to the grief we feel over

their temporal vacancy.

Our dead are not missing, they are near

and active, their airy hearts pulsing

gently in the depths of our own souls,

and though they cannot speak to us

with the words we use for speech,

they have their own language,

one based on assurance, and they

use this to touch the nerves of our

bodies, the ones that can listen to them.

Our dead are not dead, they live

with us always, residing in the best

spot we can place them, and all they

ask of us is to hold them there without

grief, hold them with love, and they

will continue to give us their assurance.

What the Ghost Thinks Today

The ghost kisses the top of a woman's head,

dutifully, and thinks he understands why

a woman would find happiness in this.

He thinks he knows how the blood rushes

through his veins, or how breath pulses

through his lungs, but like any other dead

person he understands nothing at all,

but only thinks he knows something

about the physical world.

He has tricked himself into being alive.

The woman underneath the kiss could tell

him much more about this trick of life,

but she has learned the more you tell

a ghost, the more he takes this knowledge

in a completely false direction.

For instance, she knows the flow of blood

through veins matches or mimics the breath

of the robin's chicks outside the window,

nesting within the oak . . .

to Nature everything is metaphor,

but the ghost would want to turn this

knowledge into a song, or worse,

a poem.

The Writing of Names

You could have written my name there in the sand,

instead of on your body, for one is only slightly

less permanent . . . but you thought I missed the point

by a wide margin. The problem with your name, you

said, is you do not know it, nor can you remember all

the names I have whispered to you throughout the years,

nor can you recall all the names of me or I of you, for

bodies, like sand, only bear the high tide of our souls.

About Ward

Ward Kelley has seen his poems appear in journals world wide. He is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee whose publication credits include such journals as: Plainsongs, Karamu, Another Chicago Magazine, Spillway, GSU Review, Rattle, The Chaffin Journal, Midstream, Zuzu’s Petals, Ginger Hill, Sunstone, Pif, Whetstone, Melic Review, Thunder Sandwich, Potpourri and Skylark. He was the recipient of the Nassau Review Poetry Award for 2001. Kelley is the author of two paperbacks: “histories of souls,” a poetry collection, and “Divine Murder,” a novel; he also has an epic poem, “comedy incarnate” on CD and CD ROM. Kelley holds a BA and is currently at work on his MFA. He recently published a management theory book, Warehouse Productivity, under the name Pat Kelley.

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