Joshua Beckman
Joshua Beckman was born in 1971 in New Haven, Connecticut, and attended Hampshire College. His poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Harper’s, The Massachusetts Review, Poetry, and other journals. His books of poetry are Things Are Happening (American Poetry Review, 1998), Something I Expected To Be Different (Verse, 2001), and Your Time Has Come (Verse, 2004). Beckman and the poet Matthew Rohrer collaborated on the collection Nice Hat. Thanks. (Verse, 2002) and released an audio CD of their live collaborations, Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty (Verse, 2003). Beckman is also the translator of Tomaz Salamun’s Poker (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2003) and Carlos Oquendo de Amat’s Five Meters of Poems (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2005). He lives in Staten Island, New York, and in Seattle, and is an editor at Wave Books.
[“Final poem for the gently sifting public begins on the streets…”]
Final poem for the gently sifting public begins on the streets,
the police turning corners, the people exact in their gaits,
the all-knowing god existent in minds everywhere.
The shower running because I am sitting on the floor with a joint,
in my small book there is a story about this.
The crude protectiveness of one mistaken person seems too much.
The floor is rented.
The shower is rented.
The water is purchased almost unintentionally.
It is not memory that treats you this way,
you should know that by now.
Why is there no music in the house.
Why have you begun to set a record for dreariness,
may I ask you that.
Why can’t the chevrolet seem like a swan
when that is what I want.
Surrealism is old, so everyone should get some.
Why did the water disappear before the swan arrived.
Why did the swan disappear before the swan arrived.
Why won’t the poem write itself as I drift into the shower,
as I levitate above the yoga mat,
as I perform the perfect pose upon the yoga mat.
I ask little of the passing hand of mental celebrity.
I am not greedy.
I will do what I am told.
I will not attempt to create the eucalyptus tree
or steal the lines of other poets.
Oh Peter, I stole a tree from your poem
and now it is gone, and you at home
and me without your number.
Is it me crashing into the typewriter as waves?
Is it me exploding with letters that mean nothing?
Is it me moving about the city like a police car
not looking for trouble and not finding it?
No, it is the drink.
It is the days.
No, it is the passing.
Bakersfield, California cried out
and I said something like
“I cannot hear you above the crashing defense
of heaven and hell that goes on here.”
We were at the center of unimportant things that made noise.
They informed us of nothing.
If we were swept up in the high school students
going to get high, and we went with them to get high,
and they allowed us that when we brought the stuff,
and if they didn’t knock us into the river,
and if they didn’t secretly hate us,
and if they didn’t notice our brains fighting,
and if they were content and did not disown us for this fighting,
and if they secretly had wishes unrelated to us in our presence,
and if we babbled unmindfully and they said
“that dude is fucked up” so we could hear,
and if no one cared how we kept looking at them,
how our thoughts swirled around them,
and if they didn’t push us in the river,
but thought that is how you get when you get like this,
we would ask to pass the oxygen,
we would watch them leave,
we would say look out for the police,
they are moving in a grid,
they are carried by something greater than themselves,
they are in control of their cars but their cars are in control,
and this is not a paradox,
they are more afraid of you than you are of them,
they would say, we know, fuck them,
and we would know what they meant,
that they meant no harm.
[“I like your handsome drugs. Your pleasant…”]
I like your handsome drugs. Your pleasant
drugs. Your frozen fingernails. Your painted
fingernails. That man screamed out, “The
karate chop of love,” before tackling that woman.
The breeze. Your sort of quiet happy voices.
The karate chop of love. Your handsome drugs.
If you, in all your sexiness, could just bring that
over here. A barrel of fried chicken. That girl
named Katie. A birthday party. Yeah. I go
running in, all ready to show everyone the
karate chop of love. And that girl named Katie.
A barrel of chicken. The breeze. This
birthday party is fucked without the karate
chop of love. Your handsome drugs.
[“The thirst of the crowd. We laid the surfer down….”]
The thirst of the crowd. We laid the surfer down.
The child and the child. Come look what I have found.
Our country is in disgraceful times and you bring
this around. The thirst of the crowd. Another dead thing
on the ground. A body. The dimness and the broken board.
The display of a body. The child and the child.
Come look what I have found. Lay the surfer down.
Another dead thing on the ground, and you
brought this around. The child and the child.
Come look what I have found. A surfer there upon
the ground. The child and the child. Far away a little
sound. Come look what I have found. The crowd
and the crowd. The surfer lay out on the ground.
In the disgraceful dimness of our country, your body.
[“The canals. The liquor coming through…”]
The canals. The liquor coming through
the straw. The canals the land and
the bridge and the landing by the bridge
destroyed. The liquor. The little anger
growing inside the friends. The canal.
The pile of wood up against the bank.
The liquor. The friends. A little
anger growing inside them. The canal.
The jets. The wood in piles along
the bank. The dead. The jets. Liquor
through a straw. Speaking. A little anger
grows inside them. The jets. The dead.
The bank. The sky. The friends. The jets.
The dead. A little anger grows inside them.
Ode to the Air Traffic Controller
Melbourne, Perth, Darwin, Townsville,
Belém, Durban, Lima, Xai-Xai planes
with wingspans big as high schools
eight hundred nine hundred tons a piece
gone like pollen, cumulus cirrus
altostratus nimbostratus people getting skinny
just trying to lose weight and the sky
the biggest thing anyone ever thought of
Acceptance, Vancouver, Tehran, Maui
school children balloons light blue nothing
one goes away not forever, in fact
most people, at least if you are flying
Delta, come down in Salt Lake City
Fairbanks, Kobe, Auckland, Anchorage
from Cleveland a hundred Hawaii-bound Germans
are coming in low, not to say too low
just low pull up Amsterdam pull up Miami
historically a very high-strung bunch
smokers eaters tiny planes must circle
we have bigger problems on our hands
New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris
the boy who has been ignoring dinner
throws thirteen paper planes out the window
does it look like this? Tashkent, Nome, Rio,
Hobart, yes yes it looks just like that
now do your homework Capetown Capetown
lots of rain good on one good on two
go three go four go five go six
Mau, Brak, Zella, Ghat, an African parade
good on two good on three
please speak English please speak English
good on five good on six gentlemen:
the world will let us down many times
but it will never run out of coffee
hooray! for Lagos, Accra, Freetown, Dakar
your son is on the telephone the Germans
landed safely Seattle off to Istanbul
tiny planes please circle oh tiny planes
do please please circle