Allegheny, BC - Rodney DeCroo (Nightwood Editions)

Today's book of poetry:
Allegheny, BC.  Rodney DeCroo.  Nightwood Editions.  Gibsons, British Columbia.  2012.

Today's book of poetry is ambling back in time a few years to bring you this crackerjack from 2012. We here at Today's book of poetry firmly believe that books remain new until you've read them, and in that spirit we are happy to look at Rodney DeCroo's Allegheny, BC.

DeCroo is probably better known as a musician but Allegheny, BC makes it clear that DeCroo has a fully fledged set of poetry chops.  Most of this poetry is from the school of hard knocks and Saint Charles of Bukowski but DeCroo is more than a shadow boxer.  These poems burn with sufficient intensity, they show DeCroo has the coup de gras.

Mrs. Tobin

She ran a boarding house on Doman Street

in South Vancouver. The boarders, all men,

lived in the basement, two to a room. My father

had moved up north and I'd come to the city

alone on a bus from Cranbrook.

I found her ad in the classifieds and took

a cab straight from the station to her house.

I had enough money to cover the first month's

rent and moved in that afternoon

with my belongings stuffed in a bag.

She was a large woman with a red face

and dyed hair. Her husband had been

a master sergeant, but died a year

after he retired. When she asked my age

I told her I was twenty-one, but she

laughed and said, Don't lie to me honey

or you can find somewhere else to live.

So I told her the truth, that my dad

had left me to go up north and I'd

quit school to come to the city

to live on my own. The next day

she took me to the welfare office

and argued with a case worker

and a supervisor until they

agreed to pay my room and board

if I went back to school. Mount Baker

had been a semester school

and there were two in the Lower Mainland.

Mrs. Tobin took me to them both that day.

Magee was for the city's rich kids

and turned me away, but New West Secondary

said I could start classes the next morning.

That evening, my new roommate Ken

took me to the Cobalt to watch strippers

and to have some beers. Before we

left the house he showed me a baseball

card, perfectly preserved, from 1967.

It featured a young Ken, in a Detroit Tigers

uniform standing on the dugout steps

with a bat resting on his shoulder, a huge grin

spread across his broad face. I played

two seasons until I broke my back

in a motorcycle accident. I couldn't play

after that. I've got arthritis now.

It hurts all the time. But fuck it

eh? I'm lucky to be alive, so ain't no point

in bitching. Ken was on disability

and three or four times a year

got paid to carry cocaine in a backpack

via bus to Montreal or Toronto. He 

had a gambling problem and spent

his meagre winnings on prostitutes,

but Mrs. Tobin liked him and he

always paid his rent. At the bar Ken

walked me past the bouncers

who nodded their heads as we

passed. He called a waitress by name

and ordered a pitcher of draft. When she

left he said, I got you in, so you can buy the drinks.

Okay? I nodded my head and paid

the waitress when she returned. Three hours

later I was throwing up in a urinal. A man

shoved me as I swayed towards the sinks

to wash my face. I slipped and fell

against the filthy tiles sleek with piss

and water. I got up and puked again into a sink.

At the table Ken was gone and so were

our drinks. I sat down and watched

the stripper. A power ballad

began to blare through the speakers.

She was nude and her breasts

hung and gleamed with sweat

as she bent over to pick up a folded quilt

at the edge of the stage. She flung it

outwards and dropped it open on the floor.

She walked a slow circle around it,

grinding her hips. I was drawn

to the perfect blankness of her face.

I stood up and walked toward

the stage. I felt I was the only person

there besides her. The singer's voice 

peaked at the chorus of the song, but no words

were being sung, there were only sounds

that moved across her like the stage lights

that pulsed and crisscrossed against her

body. She laid her belly against the quilt,

and began to grind her hips into the floor.

Her hand flickered between her legs

like a small trapped bird as she

mocked playing with herself. On her

left ankle I saw a blue tattoo of a heart

with wings. I reached out to touch it.

Her body whipped away from me

the instant my fingers touched her skin.

I saw a garter snake I had tapped

lightly with a stick behind my uncle's barn.

It shivered then flashed into a hole

beneath the faded boards of the wall.

She was standing, her dark hair

wild against her face. She was

pointing at me. I look at her eyes

and she screamed Don't touch me

you fucking freak! You don't touch

the fucking dancers! Get the fuck

out of here! A deep warm voice

spoke into my ear, it made me

think of the murky water we

would dive into off the banks

of the river. Okay, buddy, it's time

to go. Come on. A hand gripped

my arm just above the elbow

and guided me between the tables

toward the bouncer at the front door.

He pushed it open and pushed me

through it onto the sidewalk.

Go home pal, you're covered

in puke, he said and pulled the door

shut. The air was a thin drizzle

of rain against my face, headlights

slid like the blurred tails of comets

through the dark. I reached

into my pockets but they were empty.

I lowered my head and stepped

off the edge of the world.

...

The specific details of DeCroo's Allegheny, BC are far less important than his travelling towards some deeper understanding only to realize that it is all a journey, destination is over-rated, it is always further down the road.

Rodney DeCroo's Allegheny, BC is a coming of age road trip that dips into the complicated world of sons and fathers.  These poems the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our past, the stories we need to believe in so that we can believe in ourselves.  This is hard-scrabble stuff by DeCroo takes it all on with admirable panache.

Fight

He'd been stealing my letters from the front desk.

The woman who cleaned the rooms found them

when she emptied the garbage from his room.

He'd written all over them in red ink

slut, whore, cunt. I didn't know why he did it.

I was seventeen and living in the Tudor House

Hotel in Cranbrook. He and I would snort

coke together in my room so we could drink

all night. Sometimes men shouted in the hallway,

kicked a body down the stairs, we'd do a line,

turn the radio up and pretend not to hear.

I didn't know why he did it and I didn't care

to know. She'd been sick for months

and wasn't going to get better. He knew

what the letters meant to me. I went into the bar

and asked if he wanted to smoke a joint.

It was January and the parking lot was ice

and hardpacked snow. When he took the joint

and put it in his mouth I hit him as hard

as I could. His head snapped, the joint

flew and he went down. I rushed to kick him,

but he didn't try to get up. He curled into a ball

and covered his face with his arms. I screamed

Get up and fight! but he just lay there. It was quiet

and I could hear the low buzz of the streetlight.

It sounded like a woman humming a song to herself.

That's when the crying started. I kicked him

but he wouldn't get back up and fight.

...

This morning's read was a little subdued.  Milo and Kathryn, our head tech and our Jr. Editor, went on a tequila exploration project last night and never quite made it home in one piece.  Which is why I am happy to report that we have been blasting Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass out of the office speakers since the two of them crawled through the door.  It may also explain why I am dancing around their desks in a sombrero and a hopping set of maracas.

Eventually reason prevailed, Max dragged his sagging carcass out of his cavernous dark and insisted I relent and turn down the music.  Then, thesaurus in hand, egressed his way back into his library/office and slammed the door.  Milo and Kathryn quit holding their tequila lubricated heads and I put down the maracas.  We did turn off the music to read DeCroo's Allegheny, BC.  You could see the poetry soon sobered the cactus right out of Milo and Kathryn.

Strong, raw and real.  This poetry is peppered, tempered, hammered out of some genuine drama. DeCroo tells one hell of a story.

Days Like This

We stand inside a doorway to share

a cigarette. The rain comes straight

down: long strands of blown glass

shattering against the concrete.

I tell you this, how the rain appears

to me, and you say no, the street is a face

and the drops are not shards of shattering

glass but tears from a blind god's eyes.

In this darkness I can almost not see

the sores on your face, how your hand

shakes as you lift the cigarette to your lips,

how your eyes shatter with each glance.

You tell me about the landlord who stole

your cheque and threw you out of your room,

how I must believe you, as I watch

you looking for someone to silence

the rat tearing at your stomach, to calm

your fingers picking at the scabs on your skin,

the blood crusted under your eaten nails.

You will died on this street in the rain,

or in a doorway or half-naked in an alley.

You hand the cigarette back to me and our

fingers touch. You smile and for a moment

we are walking through the rain-mist

and pink petals of cherry blossoms.

You take my arm and pull me to you.

You tell me that days like this are proof

we live forever. I smell the spring rain

damp in your hair. Your breath leaves you

as easily as the rain falls to the street

to shatter like broken glass. Days like this

are proof of what we will have to lose.

...

Today's book of poetry is enthused about the poems of Rodney DeCroo.  Best poetry Rodney we've seen since Rodney Jones.

Rodney DeCroo

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rodney DeCroo is a Vancouver-based singer/songwriter and poet. Born and raised in a small coal mining town just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he has called Vancouver home for years now. He has released a previous collection of poetry, Allegheny, BC (Nightwood, 2012) and seven music albums that have received critical acclaim in Canada, the USA and Europe. Music critics have named him one of Canada's best folk/alt-country songwriters. Next Door to the Butcher Shop is his latest collection of poetry.

BLURBS

"From boyhood memories to middle age, the poems in Rodney DeCroo’s debut collection chart a journey across several landscapes: the polluted industrial outskirts of Pittsburgh, the oil towns of northeast B.C., and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The glimpses of these worlds are compelling, the poems laden with grief, remorse, and longing, yet never with sentimentality or self-pity."
      -The Malahat Review

"The gritty, Americana-tinged music of Rodney DeCroo has always had a powerful lyrical side, both mesmerizing and wrenching...So the shift to the role of poet is a natural one."
     -Brian Lynch, The Georgia Straight

"Although the book is autobiographical, and therefore personal, it's easy to read as well as identify from your own experiences something similar to what DeCroo remembers - old pathways, old haunts, old relatives. Drinking, fighting, travelling."
     -Tom Harrison, The Province

Rodney DeCroo

On The Night Of My First Breath

Video courtesy Rodney DeCroo

nightwoodeditions.com 

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