Dallas Poetic View
No writer I know has ever made a living writing poems about Dallas. Actually, no writer I know personally is making a living writing poems -- period. But such work adds some value to
One note on consuming this or any other poetry offerings on the 'net. I find it distracting to read poetry online...something about poking that mouse to pop up the next few lines is unsettling. While I may read some of the stuff online, I usually print the poetry pages and read them again later.
If interested, there is a new page titled Additional Poems by Gil R. Glover featuring some pieces I've done over the years. Believe it or not, this is in response to an actual request. Hope you enjoy something you find there.
Can Dallas inspire poetry? This is not Paris, Rome or Athens, after all. Dallas is not even Chicago, which inspired Carl Sandburg with its brawn and raw energy if not its beauty. But Dallas does have a sense of "placeness," and does bombard the senses of anyone with an awareness of the qualities of light; lines of vision; the weight and feel of air; the measure and color of the sky; the diversity of the creatures living here.
Comes to mind the mountains,
The sky was so large there, much larger than here.
An old man wanders in with one small bundle,
The long dark line of the land goes on forever.
Outside the lonely traffic light
A bell has rung.
Over there the barefoot blue jeaned
The old man awoke
Bright blankets of color
THINKING OF SANTA FE WHILE SITTING IN A LAUNDROMAT IN TEXAS
Reaching through the sky,
Trying to touch the clouds
And knowing that the rain they hold
Will never reach the city.
Where just beyond the fading Laundry sign
A single house is framed in endless gray.
The rains today are from another planet.
Talking to the wind, a wormy weathered
Door bangs slowly on two hinges,
Worn with the years, it will not yield
The secrets it once held.
Loads the last machine and dozes off
To dream of fresher days.
His hat is stained around the rim.
Turns green for the empty road
Where nothing travels fast.
A weary woman staring into space
Stands to gather life’s imaginings
Which are now clean
And tosses them to dry.
She will fold the best in small neat piles
To put away for wearing.
Long haired lean and lemon scented lady
And her lover
Wash careless crimson clothes together.
Life is very old here.
Even here, yes, holding down
The distant dream horizon
Nothing dies when nothing is forever,
As far as Sunday eyes can see
There is no end to the land.
To take out his worn washing.
Slowly stored it in his worn sack
And shuffling out the door,
He disappeared into the wind.
The laundromat is empty.
On shadowy dusty sidewalks
Lined by cool and musty adobe walls.
Street urchins hawk their trinkets and treasures
For paltry sums to save
For the day when they can leave
The lazy town of their birth.
Scenes cross my mind and dance
Like an invitation of sanctuary
Against a windy rainy Texas.
I remember hot days,
So hot your tennis shoes would steam
After walking through puddles
Left by the men washing cages.
I liked the monkeys.
Someone told me
They were my cousins.
You have to like your cousins,
Don’t you?
The sea lions and the tortoise
Were there, side by side.
And just around the bend,
The bears,
In their cramped cages
Topped by curved spikes turned in.
I used to think
The bears were too big.
Now I know
The cages were too small.
I remember.
I know its
But come on!
With your long sleeve
Shit man!
But,
Lonesome Highway
6am,
so it doesnt
surprise me
when you dart
just in front
of me
in your
red car.
The white cowboy hat?
I know its Texas
but must you
taunt me so?
button down
Lucas McCain
cowboy shirt.
Its July
and even the
mornings
in Dallas
swelter.
the really funny
thing
Is that
less than
an exit
down the road
I swear I saw
a lone
coyote
standing defiantly
under
a bridge.
An Oak Cliff Tale
Possibly the wail of a drunken Banshee
And so close.
Out the window on the street some
These vocal bullets could
It could have been me
But this voice is foreign
While we that are aging, fragile
There is no answer.
He screams outside the window.
Only one in a series of unknowable
or that of a desperate man with
a freshly broken heart, not sure,
but it was definitely anger
loud defiant anger, thunderous.
Not just everyday fuck this or fuck that anger, but
balls to the wall hating the lord God, vibrating
tonsils, punching holes in the dark
anger.
plaintiff screamer cursing fate
or a woman, or his own failings.
have shattered the window, drawn
to the lamplight
striking my pregnant wife.
(I fear)
Or come like chaotic bricks,
smashing the world falling
defiant to the floor.
fourteen years ago, spitting into the sky
demanding more of life, and love,
little realizing that the worst
was yet to come.
possibly Spanish or indiscernibly intoxicated,
not that of an existentialist being let down
easy, possibly that of a killer, an executioner
human in form only. Challenging life.
with responsibility and very small fears,
lamplight mannequins, poised
reading poetry in bed,
simply do not answer.
He screams on the street corner.
He screams down the block.
He screams until barely audible then gone.
passing tragedies,
late, on an Oak Cliff Monday
while cats roam the streets
and wives are asleep.
A Century in Scarlet
This is the city of glass where i
This is the city of plastic where i
This is the city of dreams where i
Discovered i had no reflection.
This is the city of steel where i
Forswore that sort of protection.
Played with it overmuch.
This is the city of flesh where i
Was touched but could not touch.
Assembled them by the clock.
This is the city of streets where i
Perfected my rapid walk.
Prairie City Winter
Raw winter wind will quickly cross an open city space
then blast through trashy alley tunnels,
whistling in door and window flanges
whirling through tracts of houses,
sweeping streets and shopping strips and soaring
up the chilly, thin skinned towers out along the freeways;
then beyond to platted suburbs to escape
through fields rotating cotton last year, condos next,
over native grasslands, pastures, meadows,
creeks and stands of pin oak,
woods that welcome wind,
that sigh soft reassurance
as the dying wind moans low
and lies to rest,
home at last.
The Heroes of The Metroplex
Four million lie as dead in darkness,
Sleeping, seeing only flashes
From their unhinged mending minds,
Enough dementia, pillow cradled,
To end a thousand worlds a thousand times.
Yet here and there throughout the urban sprawl
A few are watchful.
Predators and prey,
Prostitutes, policemen,
Paper vendors, pale computer tenders,
Night clerks, diner cooks,
Crazy taxi jocks defying death for cents per mile,
Insomniacs and night sky watchers,
Scanners, TV and Internet voyeurs,
Tenders to the ill, the ill themselves,
These are the essential few remaining lucid,
Tending the fires of consciousness
That keep the night from staying.
The Light
A house looms on the right, The Light is on.
A flickering intelligence, lightening in the living room,
It throws a war upon the window shades.
The walker in the summer night can see the pulse
But not the information.
He wonders who is in there
Gazing at the flashing glass, grinning with the laugh track,
Learning of the world
In snacking, farting home bound study.
An orange slice ascends the eastern sky,
A breeze is in that smells of oleander.
Trees are stretching, cooling
Nodding to the walker in the night.
A house looms on the left, The Light is on.
Five Dallas Women
A honey blonde in a black BMW,
A filly jogging in the park,
Cinnamon skin that drinks the sun
A dark brunette with Roma eyes,
Copper hair brushed full of fire,
Perfect red lips, a little moist,
Impervious to ogling eyes,
Cruising to a destination,
A rendezvous, a liaison,
Something or other slightly French.
Where in Dallas do these women go?
Brown braid bouncing
Off each shoulder blade
In sway with perfect rolling hips
Encased in sweated shorts
Where exercise meets exhibition,
Dallas public art that moves!
To fill the wells of ink black eyes,
Sleepy slow stroll, trailing a scent
Of Mexican mountain flowers
In hip-length hair, darker than coal,
Tossed just so, near cobalt blue.
They come to Dallas from everywhere.
Cabernet lips, a Tuscany smile,
Skin as smooth as virgin olive oil,
A Catholic soul, a chocolate heart,
Connected somehow to names
That end in risky vowels,
A chance to be taken in Dallas.
Orbs of jade for eyes,
Perfect pearls for teeth,
Electric smile and laser glance,
A lioness stalking helpless prey
On tawny legs as long as night;
Desire prowls the streets of Dallas.
North Texas Wind
This wind blows from the northwest,
Wet gulf winds will have their days of wreaking havoc,
Then summer's southwest winds will sear the grasslands,
These timeless winds have filled my ears since birth,
Dry but dustless,
Chilled and restless
Indian ghosts from ancient Colorado.
This is autumn wind,
Unwelcome now in spring.
Warring across the dry line,
Breeding storms along the cap rock's edge,
Feeding on open country filled with moisture.
Warnings, sirens, lightening, deluge;
Refuge will be sought.
Persistent, parching, an invisible pall
Full of the feel and smell of open fires,
The dry and stifling sigh of Mexico.
Whole cultures fly across the Texas prairie,
Just to stand before the wind is wanderlust.
Have rippled my eyes like transient pools of water.
Within them I have roamed the plains with painted horsemen,
Have sat before the smoky pueblo fires in Coahuila,
And eons hence I'll howl at huddled mortals
As I sweep an arctic mass across the frozen starlit sky.
Oak Cliff, Late November
These steely blue autumn afternoons
This throwing down of leaves reveals
Catlike, I can almost cock my ears,
The weakened sun seems hurried, diving
the edge seems nearer;
fresh breezes hint
somewhere a door is slightly open.
a spiteful side to trees,
their brazen naked limbs
exposing birds and places insects hide.
I feel them twitching backward,
catching rustling sounds
of unseen dramas.
toward the western rim,
and stingy with its twilight
now for months to come.
NOTE: The above poem has generated more questions and comments than any other on this page. If it does not speak to you in a haunting way, then it doesn't...but it apparently does to many other readers. I have had several inquiries and speculations on what this poem was really about. For those who do not know Dallas, it may be a little less intriguing, but Oak Cliff, lying south of the Trinity River, is basically the southern one-third of the city of Dallas. When I wrote this poem in 1983, I really had no idea where the inspiration came from or exactly why I felt moved to write about a place where I had not lived for more than 25 years. But I did grow up in Oak Cliff, living there until I was 18 years old...and living there at the time of the John F. Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963. I was 15 years old at the time, and the world-class terror and tragedy of the assassination, occuring as it did on turf I was as familiar with as my own neighborhood, was a far deeper wound to a developing character than I realized at that time. I believe this poem finally broke the surface 25 years later in a form that I could live with as a personal expression of sensations I experienced during those dark days for Dallas. It was another three years before I finally understood the poem myself. In 1986, I experimented with changing a few words in the poem just to test my sense of what it was really about. I have never published that result until its incorporation into this page, below. I personally prefer the original version.
Oak Cliff, Late November, Version II
These steely blue autumn afternoons
This throwing down of leaves reveals
Catlike, I can almost cock my ears,
The weakened sun seems hurried, diving
the edge seems nearer;
fresh breezes hint
somewhere a window has been opened.
a spiteful side to trees,
their brazen naked limbs
exposing prey to probing vision .
I feel them twitching backward,
catching sounds that might be gunfire
somewhere far across the river.
toward the western rim;
its warmth will not touch Dallas souls
for many months to come.
Downtown Towers
Of steel, brick and glass
Like so many termite mounds
Spitting
Forth human insect clouds, mindless
Corporate drones feeding a Queen
Who gorges on dollar bills.
The mounds are built on quicksand,
Ready to swallow Queens
As well as drones.
Old black men sit in empty chairs
Their brown eyes watching
Johnsongrass
Bleeding from sidewalk wounds
And used carlots that sprout
Like broken promises,
Littered
With shattered glass and old memories.
Behind boarded windows
In crack house rooms
They breathe in death
Through toothless grins
And streetwise youth
Play deadly games
That lead but to graveyards
Full of brown eyes that
Have finally escaped from
Hatcher Street.
Ghosts walk the streets of Deep Ellum
With names like Blind Lemon
And Leadbelly, Ramblin' Thomas and Texas Alexander.
They sang hard case blues
Of dangerous men and lost women,
Blues with rhythmic echoes of ancient Africa.
Now an old blind man
Sits spraddle-legged on the sidewalk
Strumming with calloused fingers
On an old guitar, something about
A black snake loose in his room.
Stark graffiti paints the building walls
With the cry of dead men's blues,
Which asks questions that have no answer.
An old woman pushes a basket down the street
Picking up cans.
She walks over to a trash can
And finds an half-eaten sandwich,
Takes a bite and hands the rest to the blind man.
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