"Green Tree Cemetery Dawns"

That image from Allen Ginsberg's Howl has been stuck in my head for many years. I was in the midst of trying to memorize part 1 of the poem to recite in class as per our weekly assignment in one of my first writing workshops. (I have mixed feelings about that sort of poetic teaching. I love reading poetry, yet, taking in other peoples words like that to the point where I can perform it well has often seriously affected my own work. My dreams became my dreams as they would sound from another's mouth.) It was also at a period in my life where I had one night a week that was designated, "Rich gets sloppy night." I started drinking at 4 in the afternoon and would continue to party as long as my stamina held out. Being a large man it was much longer than people usually expected, especially considering I wasn't chemically enhanced with uppers.

There were many mornings where I saw the sun come up over the horizon. Seeing the sun come through the windows of the run down places I ended up after the bars, something in my mind usually clicked and told me "it was time to get home and get in my own bed." (which was actually a bed sheet on a sleeping bag as I was never willing to part with my drinking and smoking money for something as wasteful as a bed. This also tells you just how often I brought people home when I was living in Macomb). People would try to argue with me and give me a couch or a spare bed to lie upon, but I am obnoxiously stubborn when inebriated.

So one pre morning we were just finishing up a long night at the shack on the tracks and the bathroom is occupied so I do the only sensible thing and step out on the second story porch to urinate over the rail. ( I was far from the first person to do that on that porch or even that evening. Still I moved in there a few years later. Couldn't beat that 75 dollar a month rent). I'm on the porch. Howl was going through my head and the morning light was scaring away the fog and shining off the dew. In my liquor soaked mind and through that haze I stood there watching the sun come up and wondered at how it really brought out the green in the leaves and and the evergreen. It clicked for me that this was what "green tree cemetery dawns" were. They weren't the dawns you woke up for and didn't notice because you are sleepy headed on auto pilot. They are the dawns at the end of your hours. It is the dawn when your mind has sort of shut down but your eyes are still sharp and you just experience the light as it breaks over the horizon. I've found that those four words "green tree cemetery dawn" truly capture the magic of that particular type of morning hour. Sometimes when I think about it and I'm up late reading and I see the quality of the light in my bedroom begin to change, I may think of those words and get the urge to step outside and experience the world and that special light.

So this all comes up because I've been thinking a bit about poetry lately. I've read a lot of it in books mentioned in previous posts. I've read some of cleolove's poetry. I think about how in my mind I still consider myself a poet, though I haven't put verse to page in at least two years. I've thought back on the many projects I've started and how few I've finished especially one I call Pan a Eulogy in Three Rants of which I've only finished the first rant and started the first stanza of the second. The only reason I was able to write that first stanza of the second rant was because it followed the established form of the first. I believe the first stanza of the poem has eight lines the second has nine the third ten and so on through fifteen. The first line of every stanza of the first rant is "We were boys playing men, still boys." So the form of the second rant already has a shape and I know the first line has to be ,"We were men playing boys, still men" and filling the stanza with another eight lines to complete that thought wasn't difficult. Then I hit a monster block. Now that I've had years to think on it, the eulogy for this Pan character (A sort of mix beteen the Pan of never land and the goat legged Pan of mythology), for youth, for a man now six years dead of pancreatic cancer, I think I may actually have the words. I think that part of the problem is that I was trying to write a this eulogy without having lived through enough of my youth to have the right perspective. The Third rant is still very illusive. It may start, "I breath, Pan is dead, still dying." (Gods and youth are immortal and always dying) though it doesn't have quite the right sound to it and I may have to wait another decade or so before I can write that part. Anyway the point is I'm thinking of cleaning up the first rant "Pan Dreaming" and sending it off to Poetry Magazine as a stand alone poem. As I've never submitted to a magazine before, I figure I might as well get rejected by one of the best first.

Now I'm not one to share my poems online as I still have dreams of selling them for table scraps, but I found one of the latter versions of a poem I wrote and submitted to Poetry.com before I realized what a huge scam they are. I'm not sure if it was the best or final version I'd have to check my box of loose papers to see if I had any better. It's called "My Fellow Americans" and I give anyone permission to use it any way they see fit. I'd especially like to see the first line as a blog title or a band name. (While I like some of the word parings, I see this as one of my more grasping, uninspired, name dropping for effect works. I'm not sure it can be salvaged as a stand alone poem. As it has been "published" by poetry.com, I could care less what becomes of it. Have fun with it).

In Summary: Pull an all nighter some time and tell me about your "Green tree cemetery dawn." A technical discussion of a poem I'm unwilling to share yet is probably boring. Poetry.com is a major scam. You can see your words in print for just $49.95.

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