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University of Akron Press - John Repp

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I know I'm holding a good book in my hand when I use the other to call my friends and read poems to them. How generous John Repp is! He zooms in on the moment, but he's always glancing at everything that surrounds it. His funny poems have dark hearts, just as the sad ones are clearly written by someone capable of belly-shaking laughter. They tell wonderful stories, yet they contain chewy little nuggets that are often indifferent and even hostile to story. I've said elsewhere that a poem either writes you a check or sends you a bill, and Fat Jersey Blues writes me checks faster than I can cash them. Oh, and these poems make me do something else that the good ones always do: when I hung up after reading "Bob Johnson" or "The Maltese Falcon" or "Balcony" to a friend, I sat down to write myself. David Kirby, author of The Biscuit Joint

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Poetry

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Publié par	University of Akron Press
Date de parution	15 mars 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781937378967
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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FAT JERSEY BLUES
AKRON SERIES IN POETRY
AKRON SERIES IN POETRY
Mary Biddinger, Editor
John Repp, Fat Jersey Blues
Emilia Phillips, Signaletics
Seth Abramson, Thievery
Steve Kistulentz, Little Black Daydream
Jason Bredle, Carnival
Emily Rosko, Prop Rockery
Alison Pelegrin, Hurricane Party
Matthew Guenette, American Busboy
Joshua Harmon, Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie
David Dodd Lee, Orphan, Indiana
Sarah Perrier, Nothing Fatal
Oliver de la Paz, Requiem for the Orchard
Rachel Dilworth, The Wild Rose Asylum
John Minczeski, A Letter to Serafin
John Gallaher, Map of the Folded World
Heather Derr-Smith, The Bride Minaret
William Greenway, Everywhere at Once
Brian Brodeur, Other Latitudes
Titles published since 2008.
For a complete listing of titles published in the
series, go to www.uakron.edu/uapress/poetry
FAT JERSEY BLUES
John Repp
Copyright © 2014 by John Repp
All rights reserved • First Edition 2014 • Manufactured in the United States of America. All inquiries and permission requests should be addressed to the Publisher, the University of Akron Press, Akron, Ohio 44325–1703.
18 17 16 15 14 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN : 978-1-937378-93-6 (cloth)
ISBN : 978-1-937378-94-3 (paper)
ISBN : 978-1-937378-95-0 (ePDF)
ISBN : 978-1-937378-96-7 (ePub)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Repp, John. Fat Jersey Blues / John Repp. — First edition.
pages cm. — (Akron Series In Poetry)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-937378-93-6 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-937378-94-3 (pbk.: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-937378-95-0 (epdf) — ISBN 978-1-937378-96-7
(epub)
I. Title.
PS3568.E68F38 2014
811′.54—dc23
2013039496
∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI / NISO Z 39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Cover: Photo courtesy John Repp
Cover design: Lauren McAndrews
Fat Jersey Blues was designed and typeset in Mrs. Eaves by Lauren McAndrews and printed on sixty-pound natural and bound by Bookmasters of Ashland, Ohio.
Kathy
(always)
back in the pines way back where the deer flies whine
back in the pines way back where the deer flies whine
my baby stomps stomps berries into wine
no more nothing where the cedar water glow
no more mama no more where the water glow
no moon where I run none where the black night go
got the fat Jersey blues got blues in my mouth
fat Jersey blues what put blood in my mouth
sing & dance all night never get gone from the south
—Junior J. Walter, “Fat Jersey Blues”
Contents
Trucking Flowers to the Dump on a Day Like No Other
Reading The Idiot in Carleton House Apartments, Millville, New Jersey
Throwing a Ball South of the Pine Barrens
Fact-Checking
Waiting for the Bus in the Reading Room of the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, Haggard in a Leather Armchair
Why I Am Not a Performance Poet
Ode to Didi’s Squash Stew & the Waitresses at Fred’s Place
My Wife’s Ass (or “You Annoy Me, Matthew Dickman!”)
Another Bourbon Poem
The Channel Deeper than Anyone Has Ever Known It, Except for the Implacable Scavenger
Blueberry (or “Another Summer-of-1975 Poem”)
Fat Freddy’s Burnt Mill Blues
Krishnamurti
Having Come Late to Kenneth Koch
Another Harvey-Pekar-Is-Dead Poem
The Boy & the Bisbings
Crystal Meth Under Her Choir Robe
Nothing Happened
Sand Road Stomp (Slight Return)
Bob Johnson
What Happens to the Circus
Beatrice
Monotony (or “Another Chekhov Poem”)
The Maltese Falcon
Mayakovsky
The Totossian Poem
Jumbo Pagano Might Have Work for You
The Bridge Over Blackwater Creek
Final Food
The Ocean City Poem
Another Life-Goes-On Poem
Another Spanish Moss Poem
Everywhere At Once
No Away
Balcony
The Mistake
Another Mistake
Down Teaburner Road
Bats & Balls
Another “Taps” Poem
Schoolhouse Door
Honorary Jew
Poem Beginning With a Line from Ezra Pound’s “Canto XX” & Ending With a Line from “Notes for Canto CXX”
Canoeing the Lagoon
Hansey Creek Eel Blues
Another Forgiveness Poem
Notes
Acknowledgments
Trucking Flowers to the Dump on a Day Like No Other
Big Vic drove. Little Vic rode shotgun, chewing the stub
of a dead stogie. The green pickup, hill of flowers
from that day’s funerals. Ronnie & I squatted behind the cab,
shirtless kids in pith helmets. Best part of the job—floral wind,
drying sweat, afternoon shade of the cab, pre-dump stop at Scotty’s
so Big Vic could tilt the ritual half-pint of vodka to the sky.
On the day like no other, we ferried two bums earning a day’s pay,
Boss Bill a soft touch. They slowed down all we did & now sped up
the best part, every second free of the dead-still heat precious.
One bum pressed his forehead to his knees. My God, we all stank,
but they exceeded the reach of that word & all its synonyms.
Dressed in a filthy suit & tie, the other bum worked Q-tips
in & out his mouth, tossing bloody ones over the side as we rode.
Then the monumental stench of the dump, us raking a few minutes,
Q-Tip doing a good job with the push broom at the end.
Even then, I knew not to seek a lesson. Afternoon break,
I poured the last of my Hi-C into the red cup & drank it.
Reading The Idiot in Carleton House Apartments, Millville, New Jersey
Myshkin so serene at a ball or sipping tea
as someone labored to humiliate him. It took
weeks for him to board a carriage. Nothing
but noisy stillness, cascades of fevered,
microscopic speculations. The cover
was bordered in yellow, a Signet edition pulled
from the “Classics” shelf in the Cumberland Mall
Waldenbooks, or so I now propose. When at last
she arrived, Joni picked it up, said Wow. Heavy .
Later, we lay on the couch, just breathing.
The sleet that had splatted & ticked on the window
all day stopped. Frank next door pounded
down the stairs outside. Joni lifted her head,
smiled & nestled back down. It was enough right then.
Throwing a Ball South of the Pine Barrens
Throw a ball at the basement wall & catch it
one-handed on one bounce, white tennis ball too grey
with crumbs of mica & oil-furnace soot for higher play—
that was the game. A tipi (spelled “teepee”) in the woods
hardly woods, but holy. The unforgettable watercress,
copperheads & far into fall, water rats. Dick saw Jane
& couldn’t un-see her, not even pumping white gas
into the red, five-gallon can. Everyone said geeus & wooder .
“One never fails to kill fire fueled by the other,”
claimed the context clue. Dusty blue sky & biplanes
cutting their engines & revving up. When Jane dropped acid,
Dick cradled her permeable head & sang something far away,
where they didn’t have to go, but could, so fragrant
& true he was, crumbling dry moss in his left hand.
Fact-Checking
Water moccasins, not copperheads. I fed her halvah,
not raspberries. The first time she’d eaten it, she said
as it crumbled going in. She was Jewish as my wife,
but I, addled joy, was first to feed her that sweet sand.
Hermit crabs, not blue & I never tipped oysters
down my throat. That was Bud, born 1920,
but the aromatic painter I should have kissed still wets
the tip of each new brush before swirling it in brilliant goo.
Her rapt silence failed to note my Verlaine-ish abjection,
even though I knew from Philadelphia. My mother’s scoldings took,
so we never waded the creek in summer—too much poison,
no matter name & now poison is all the water is, dribbling under
the W.P.A. bridge where Mark gave me “Papa’s Got a Brand-New Bag,”
not “My Girl,” learning me for good, though I forget & forget.
Waiting for the Bus in the Reading Room of the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, Haggard in a Leather Armchair
I still had the Army-surplus field jacket & the beige-leather work gloves,
six of eight finger-seams shot, but rabbit-fur lining warm, oily, redolent of smoke.
I was happy as I ever got in those days to have missed the 61B that ferried me
to a private hell lower in the dank spiral than I can fathom now. I still had
the watch cap I bought at Kress & the hunting boots my father gave me,
the jeans & flannel shirt of my daily uniform & the dust motes left of a woman’s love
& mine. What book did I carry in the jacket’s big left pocket? Such consolation
to have one ready-to-hand in the cold. What satisfaction to have a corn muffin
in the right pocket & money enough for coffee & let’s say Galway Kinnell
or Daniel Deronda or maybe even Proust to read. How dutiful to watch the clock
so as not to miss a chance to sink into the quiet chaos of that chopped-up
Point Breeze Victorian. Miss Frick lived five blocks away. The lawn bowlers
did their flanneled best on Sunday mornings. On each layover, the pilot fucked
a new woman overhead. They shrieked up there over the good coke & each other.