Excerpts from A LOOSE RENDERING: TIME, MEMORY, AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS by T.P. BIRD
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Sample poems fromT.P. Bird's
A Loose Rendering: Of Time, Memory, and Other Considerations.
Of Time, Memory and Other Distractions
Poets walk in circles—coming
back to well hidden, captured
thoughts—inspecting a mental
trap-line like trappers after pelts.
These thoughts perform for
an audience of one before being
exposed to the external world.
Thus, my walk takes me to
another snare.
‡
Standing in a group of men,
talking—a quick flash crosses
my inner sight, interrupting the
flow of my thought and
the conversation—if just for a
moment. It’s a view of myself
as an aging man—no longer
relevant, afraid of descending.
It’s also happened while I stood
before a mirror, shaving.
I saw my face grow out of focus
as steam washed across the glass.
Wiping at the reflection, a
stranger looked back out of eyes
like ice. The years are both a
friend and an impediment.
I can’t go after old images
disappearing around a corner;
I might get terribly lost. Yet,
there is a great temptation to
explore. Only a lack of strength
will hold me here.
I may laugh at the follies of youth—
yet, I grow impatient about the
impending conclusion of my life.
I see young bodies move with
ease—no pain in their rising
or falling. Often, I would like to
burst forth with bravado and
daring—to both conquer and
beguile the world at large.
Yet, the desire passes quickly,
amused at being noticed, a
mischievous smile at play in
the corners of its mouth. It will
probably return just for the
attention it receives. “Turn
away, turn away, go home,”
say I to my soul. It would be
folly to stay and wander; folly
to entertain distractions on
my way to other themes.
You Were One of Them
—for Lynne
In my life many people have
passed through far too quickly.
After days, weeks, and six months
of working with you in Ft. Ord’s
old hospital, you went home
while I was away at my own.
I still harbor loss; our good-byes
never existed—just the missing
words that were never said.
I was a young man, maybe
more of an over-ripe boy—
an innocent—shy, and perhaps
considerate without even
meaning to be. You, a few years
older, were a warm smile in a
small frame, a light voice from
the upper Midwest. I knew of
your hometown’s name—yet,
none of its life and stories.
But it was okay; my recognition
forged a link between us. Maybe
a small thing, yet I will always
remember the small things.
They flash by now like passing
railcars at a lonely crossing;
like oncoming autos on a busy
highway, your face in each and
every window.
You seemed wiser, more knowing—
having seen pain, suffering, even
death—attending to the bodies of
eternally young soldiers—a cruel
time for a lovely, dark haired girl
in olive drab and lieutenant's bars.
The nurses’ station at the
beginning of our hospital shifts
was like a lifeboat—as the
names of patients were lifted
from the churning waters around us.
Often, when we shared shifts,
I felt your smile and calmness
from afar—a gift from across a
barrier of rank and duty. Your
eyes, like a message among other
messages, stayed upon me longer
than needed—keeping me from
falling overboard into my own
sea of inadequacy. I’m sorry
I never thanked you for that.
Many people in my life have
passed through far too quickly.
You were one of them.
An Instant Coffee Poem
After reading
an anthology of
“Coffee Poems,”
I made a cup of instant,
and sat down
in the middle of
an imagined coffee
plantation, and myself—
a single bean—
trying to write a poem
about being planted,
picked, shipped,
roasted, packed,
stored, sold, ground,
run through hot water,
poured, and inhaled
before being swallowed by
a yawning black hole
in some strange cosmos
of a coffee shop—
whose pull of gravity,
sucked me into a vast
space beyond, where
I mixed with other
tired travelers.
This poem can only
end somewhere in the
vast recesses of this
city’s bowels. The
reader, if not happy
with it what they will.
Riff
If it’s a true poem,
it gets laid down
on paper like a jazz
player circling and
swirling around a
melody line—
finally coming back
to finish the thought
after a time away.
And all the while
the reader gets lost
in the cycle of words—
all like musical notes
bouncing around in
Saturday night’s
heavy air—looking for
form . . . until they
finally rest somewhere
in the imagination.