Navy Blue - Steve Meagher (Guernica Editions)

Today's book of poetry:
Navy Blue.  Steve Meagher.  First Poets Series 15.  Guernica Editions.  Toronto - Buffalo - Lancaster (U.K.).  2016.

"Begging penance for his necessary sin"

      - from Have You Seen Him

George Elliott Clarke mentions Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Marshall McLuhan when attempting to describe the poetry of Steve Meagher.  Not to make this about Today's book of poetry but now is as good a time as any to admit that we here in this office are all members of the George Elliott Clarke fan club - and one time, a long time ago, Today's book of poetry was lucky enough to share a few beers with Sir George of Elliott Clarke at the original Ottawa Royal Oak Inn.  Those beers were probably before Mr. Meagher was born.

As much as Today's book of poetry admires Mr. Clarke we think he got it a little wrong.  If we had to compare Meagher's poetry to anyone  it would be the troubadour of tasty trauma Tom Waits.  That's if Tom Waits were spending a lot of time with the ghost of Richard Brautigan.  Dark wisdom and lyrical splendor from Waits, sweet, tortured and innocent ala Brautigan.

New Saints

Cowboy knows all the shortcuts

He can hop the black fence without stopping

He showed me how to throw a perfect spiral

He's been David's best friend since kindergarten

Scarecrow's brave like a fugitive

He French-kissed Rebecca J. in the catwalk

Told me she tasted like Orange Crush

I saw him smoke a cigarette once

It smelled something like a forest fire

Next day he showed us his brother's magazines

Shark Tooth's got a pair of nunchucks

They came in the mail from Tokyo

His dropkicks are real deadly

He can do cartwheels over the creekbed

He knows how to slay the dragons

Ezekial was my partner at Science Fair

He's quiet as a June bug

He can't come out on Saturdays

His mom keeps him in to study his lessons

Sweet Baby's the smallest

I swear he's full of cobra blood

He threw that rock from a mile away

Hit the sixth grader straight between the eyes

He's the greatest there is

When we ride our bikes to the snack bar

We never even stop for cars

Tin Man's brains don't work right

Some nights he won't stop screaming

About how he shot Hakeem

How he caught the itch

How everybody's gotta come from somewhere

He comes round like the wind

I can hear him from my bedroom

When he's gone I breathe again

Jackson's got the switchblade

He stole it from the Chinaman

He keeps it tucked in his belt loop

Uses it to lop the heads off bullfrogs

Banjo's some kind of genius

He can do his times-tables backwards

Even the sevens and nines

he's gonna be a doctor someday

Most likely he's gonna cure cancer

I give him Oreos to do my fractions

Got In The Log knows some things

He knows the hidden tunnel

All the sweet-spots in the forest

He knows about the beehives and the helicopter leaves

But he don't like being bothered

Me and Sweet Baby are the only ones who visit

There's Moreno he's Mexican

His face looks like a map of Missouri

He killed a black girl once

We found her body in the branches

He's the reason I'm not allowed across the train tracks

David can sing like Frank Sinatra

He's got two pet salamanders

Their names are Dale and Swiss Army Knife

He's the fastest runner in the whole school

Sometimes he gives me beats

But he's still a good big brother

He makes sure nobody fucks with me

I can skip a rock five times easy

I can wallop your nastiest curve

Mostly my mind knocks like a woodpecker

I got the tadpole's shadow on my arm

When I grow up I'm gonna be big time

I'm gonna find my father

I'm gonna make my mother love me

I'm gonna shine like Christmas morning

Don't even try to stop me

...

Sometimes comparisons don't do anyone justice.  Meagher gives us plenty to think about without the comparisons and he does it with panache.  Nothing about Navy Blue feels like a first book.  Meagher has polished these poems till they shine.

Now for some more comparisons.  Meagher's poetry universe is full of great characters that you are going to remember.  Sweet Baby and Banjo conjure up visions/memories of Sodapop and Ponyboy from S.E. Hinton's most excellent novel The Outsiders.  There is a measure sense of menace just under the skin of Navy Blue.  Meagher never comes across as rough or vulgar but he keeps a particular tension that captures the reader, keeps the reader on alert.

Philadelphia Woman

She grew up off South 22nd

Her tongue's got ties in Memphis

She is daughter of the Iron Brigade

She breaks bread with the packrats

There's a shoebox in her closet

Full of Pennsylvania minerals

Years back her father was a collector

The radio's locked on 1060

She keeps up with the weather

Switches to Coltrane after dinner

When the heavy rains fall

She wraps her wrists in grapevine

Her landscapes hang like criminals

They know December's darker roads

She writes longhand letters

Sends them to the man in Fresno

He never calls or writes back

And that's the way she likes it

There are memories she holds

Like grenades with the pins pulled

The worst nights crack like battlefields

When the phone rings

I already know it's her

Only she would call so late

To ask about my broken wings

...

Today's book of poetry was instantly comfortable in Meagher's poetry world.  These poems are immediately accessible and that is something we like a lot.  Meagher is generous and playful, even when his poetry is serious as a heart attack.  We like that too.

Our morning read was as perfect as today's weather here in Ottawa.  We opened all the windows in the Today's book of poetry offices and passed Navy Blue around like a new talisman we were learning to believe in.

Reading Navy Blue is mining a very rich vein, rich enough that we were able to find another splendid list poem.  Regular readers of Today's book of poetry will remember how fond we are of list poems. This one is exemplary, this one came directly from beneath the poets fingernails, the real dirt.

Peter's Dream

The way things used to be

When I wanted a bedtime story

Grandpa would read me the Bible

The Old Testament gave me nightmares

I dreamed I was an Egyptian

With the lizards falling on my head

I dreamed I was a sinner

And the punishment on its way

I dreamed I was Isaac on the mountain

And Abraham had the knife

I dreamed so much

I even dreamed I was the apple

But I don't get stories anymore

Nowadays Grandpa just says goodnight

Then he shuts the door

And I'm alone all of a sudden

So now when I dream it comes like a hurricane

And I don't know how to stop it

I dreamed all the riverfish turned up dead

I dreamed the eastwind broke my pole in two

I dreamed the world was on fire

And our house was burning

And Grandpa was inside taking a nap

And the smoke was in his clothes

I dreamed I stepped in broken glass

And the coyotes could smell my blood

I dreamed I was a soldier

And the Nazis were after me

And I was hiding in a pile of bodies

And I was too scared to breathe

And I could taste the skin

I dreamed I was a madman

I dreamed I was a scientist

I dreamed I was a leper

And I was living in the canyons

I dreamed I was a cannibal

And I bit off Banjo's ear

And spit it in the lake

And it floated like a lilypad

And the catfish fed till morning

I dreamed I kissed the Bag Lady

And my tongue went black and swollen

I dreamed I was being born

With a rattlesnake round my throat

I dreamed a knife in my back

I dreamed a pistol in my pocket

And a thousand of blind children

I dreamed the North Star spoke my name

I dreamed I was in the medicine show

And my mouth shot dust in Cowboy's face

I dreamed it was next Sunday

And I was in church

And the preacher was a cyclops

And he had horns the size of fence posts

I dreamed I was real sick

And my hair was falling out

And the nurse kept feeding me Jell-O

I dreamed Sweet Baby got run over by a truck

So he had no legs

And he wouldn't stop laughing

I dreamed I was dirt poor

And my only friends were gypsies

I dreamed I climbed the tallest birch

And I couldn't get back down

I dreamed I ate a spider for supper

And it laid eggs inside my stomach

I dreamed a horse kicked me in the belly

And it hurt so bad I crapped blood

I dreamed I was Tarzan

I dreamed I was King Arthur

I dreamed I was combing the hairs on Grandpa's chest

I dreamed the killer was licking my fingers

I dreamed I was catching water in a bucket

And it felt like early spring

And the lightning bolts were lasers

And the raindrops hit the metal like a hummingbird

I dreamed I had the shotgun

And the pigs were in the shed waiting

I dreamed I saw David naked

And he got real mad

And said we wasn't brothers no more

I dreamed I was dead at high noon

I dreamed the hangman was my father

But my mother was an angel

So I met her minutes later

...

Books like Steve Meagher's Navy Blue are exactly why Today's book of poetry is in business.  Poetry like this needs to be shared.  Poetry this vibrant can make your body hum, it hits a register that your senses can't ignore.  We are silly human beans who spend so much time looking for truth we don't always recognize it.  Here's a chance.

Steve Meagher, well, I'll remember that name.  Read Navy Blue and you will remember it too.

Steve Meagher

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Meagher grew up in Oakville, Ontario. His poems have appeared in Carousel, The Nashwaak Review and Ottawa Arts Review. Navy Blue is his first book. He lives in Toronto.

BLURBS
Navy Blue is an exhilarating, guerrilla romp through tabloid news talk and Internet inanity to set up the seditious poetry Marshall McLuhan would’ve written if he could’ve. These poems are a cross of Bob Dylan casual strangeness and Jimi Hendrix bluesy surrealism. (Think “Visions of Johanna” mixed with “My Friend”.) Each line could spin off into its own bizarre screenplay: “The doctor kept cutting / Now the blood was everywhere … / I listened to the crickets / Their prayers sounded like my bicycle.” Nicely, Meagher gives shout-outs to Ray Souster and Irv Layton, claiming their street-wise vernacular and sardonic, ironic insights. But I see a touch of Dick Brautigan here too, in the accomplished insouciance, the freedom to just “say” and have the meaning be in that liberty. Ladies, gents, here’s the new vibe. Ready to be experienced?
     - George Elliott Clarke, Parliamentary Poet Laureate

Steve Meagher's Navy Blue is full of ghost voices, fever dreams, cowboy saints and hard scrabble benediction.
     - Singer-songwriter Jason Collett

Navy Blue

Steve Meagher

Video: Guernica Editions

guernicaeditions.com 

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

To Greet Yourself Arriving - Michael Fraser (Tightrope Books)

Today's book of poetry:
To Greet Yourself Arriving.  Michael Fraser.  Tightrope Books.  Toronto, Ontario.  2016.

Michael Fraser's To Greet Yourself Arriving works a bit like hot magma, lava.  Left undisturbed it forms a thick and eventually rock solid black crust, any disturbance at all and you soon see it is red hot, in transition, and capable of scorching any surface on earth.

These poems are celebratory odes to a pantheon of black heroes throughout history.  They also work as a syllabus to an endless litany of injustice.  George Elliott Clarke, our poet laureate, wrote, "Fraser gives us characters who, even if tortured by their experience of "race" and/or racism, win through to a stardom that edges into heroism."

And Today's book of poetry must admit to a clinical weakness.  Pretty much any poem that mentions Miles Davis is going to hit a weak spot in my anatomy.  Michael Fraser knows the way straight to my heart.

Miles Davis

The day I met Miles Davis,

he poured gold tunes

out box speakers

and sailed ahead

out over coffee table plains

and climbed the foothill couch.

Each note carried its own light.

His trumpet called from the walls

and the ceiling was

a swollen cloud.

I was flung into brass moods,

my fingers pulsed to

the walking bag's groove.

I became a yard bird

with blues for sale,

a young rebel soul

counting the air-blast hang time,

all the hazed rhythms

taking a new wave elevator

to warm sound shallows.

Transfixed, I grabbed

onto the aural sculpture.

Water refused to go

down the drain,

time spiralled 'Round Midnight,

the air lit itself

and glowed like a June day.

It glossed Miles' Italian suit.

My eyes rode the album cover

with coolness coiling itself

into my bones.

...

Michael Fraser adeptly moves through a complicated cast of characters from the Cuban singer Celia Cruz, the Queen of Salsa, the Central Park Five, Gordon Parks, P.K. Subban, Miles Davis and so on. This is distinguished company by any standard but Fraser immortalizes them all once again with his passionate and all too reasonable To Greet Yourself Arriving.

The Lynched

The veins of these trees

know the night's flavour

as it climbs and

washes each leaf

in summer's moon shade.

The aging bark listens

and peers through time

back to laughing crowds

with their army of words.

How the boy swung

over the loose voices.

How flies chewed his face.

Morning brings its scavenger tide,

an establishment of worms and beetles

crawl from the dangling tongue,

sound of something feasting

from the inside out.

How a man suffocates in air.

How a man breaks down

in the deadfall earth.

...

Many heroes, big and small, famous and unknown hurdle through Fraser's book and towards eternity and all that judging.  By the time eternity arrives perhaps none of this will need explaining -- but the stories of these brave, brave, brave and beautiful men and women will always need to be told.

Fraser never lets anger get in the way of his retelling although you can feel it under the smoldering crust.  To Greet Yourself Arriving is going to be a guilty pleasure by association for many readers.   Someone is responsible for the horrible hellish rain of racism that continues unabated today.  The poems in Fraser's To Greet Yourself Arriving stand fiercely on their own as poems, tight and clear and clean, but as a chorus this book raises itself to a beautiful black sound.

Michaëlle Jean

Mountain hinges cracked and

snapped earth in a fly's wing beat.

Screams percolated up dusted rock

and waved galvanized roofs.

Everything was veined in stone.

The living stood at the rubble's end,

listened to the wounded sear in the

Caribbean's unforgiving heat.

My birth country stumbled against its

history. Flat bodies peppered streets.

Survivors cursed the ground's blowtorch.

There was never enough of it--

time. We jumped planes and cranked

our world's cupboards while doctors

severed limbs freeing wounded scores.

It was always more than we could take,

but we continued for those slipperless

street girls, each one reflected in me.

...

Today's book of poetry is happy to find hope in poetry and astonishingly enough Fraser is up to the task, he is able to pull that off in the middle of all that sad history.  Fraser's heroes remind us of the deeds in the very worst of human folly, all those terrible things our brothers and sisters have had to endure at our hands, and then in the same poems Fraser allows us to celebrate the absolute best in human achievement - in spite of the barriers, 

To Greet Yourself Arriving is one hell of a kick in the poetry pants.

Michael Fraser

Photo:  Krystyna Wesolowska

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Fraser is a Toronto high school teacher, poet, and writer. He has been published in various national and international journals and anthologies, including The Best Canadian Poetry in English, 2013. His manuscript, The Serenity of Stone, won the 2007 Canadian Aid Literary Award Contest and was published in 2008 by Bookland Press. He won FreeFall‘s 2014 and 2015 poetry contests and is the creator and former director of the Plasticine Poetry Series.

Michael Fraser

Spring Poetry Salon @ Urban Gallery

May 31, 2014

video:  Brenda Clews

tightropebooks.com

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DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.