Collected Poems

You can’t accuse this group

of havin’ too much mustard—

they’re gloved and buttoned

tighter than Buddy’s snare drum.

But they’re paying, so

we pay ’em back—pour on

the violins, insinuate

a little cello,

lay some grizzly piano

under that sweet jelly roll.

Our boys got a snap and buzz

no one dancing

in this gauze and tinsel

showroom knows how

to hear: The couples stroll

past, counting to themselves

as they orbit, chins poked out

as if expecting a kiss or

in need of a shave; we pitch

and surge through each ragtime

and I swear, it’s both

luck and hardship,

the way the music

slips as it burns.

These white folks stalk

through privilege

just like they dance:

one-two, stop, pose,

over and over.

We ain’t nobody

special, but at least we know it:

Across the black Atlantic,

they’re trampling up the map

into a crazy quilt of rage

and honor; here,

the biggest news going

would be Irene and Vernon

teaching the Castle Walk.

(Trot on, Irene! Vernon, fake that

juke joint slide.) So boys,

lay down tracks, the old world’s

torched; we’ll ride this train as far

as it’s going. Let’s kick it:

Time for the Innovation Tango!

Buddy, set ’em marching;

and you, Mr. Cricket Smith—mortify ’em

with your cornet’s

molten silver moan!

Got up

this morning at 2:45, breakfast at 3:30,

a beautiful sky, warm, and the moon bright.

I slept in my clothes, overcoat and socks.

I was restless last night, listening to the others

moving about.

Now, all the boys seem cheerful.

This will be a day never to be forgotten.

After breakfast—beef stew and coffee—

Charlie and I cleaned up the rest of the mail.

It is now 4:30 in the afternoon.

The whistle has blown for us

and everybody ordered down off deck.

I am not worried; I am anxious to go.

This morning we left camp at 7 and marched

silently along the town’s perimeter to port.

No cheering nor tears shed, no one

to see us off, to kiss and cry over.

F company was leading. I looked back at

several hundred men

marching toward they knew not what.

When we passed through the lower end of the city

a few colored people

stood along the street, watching.

One lady raised her apron to wipe away a tear.

I turned my head to see how the fellow next to me,

Corporal Crawford from Massachusetts,

was taking it. Our eyes met and we both smiled.

Not that we thought it was funny, but—

we were soldiers.

There were more things in this world

than a woman’s tears.

Easter Sunday.

I was up to services held by a chaplain

but am not feeling well enough to get something to eat.

All the boys are gathered around the hatch

singing “My Little Girl.” Talked to a sailor

who’s been across twice; he says this ship

has had four battles with subs, each time

beating them off.

This boat is named The Susquehanna—

German built, interned before

the U.S. declared war. Her old name was The Rhine.

The other ship that left Newport News with us

was known as Prinz Friedrich.

We pulled out last night at 5

and I soon went to bed, so tired

I nearly suffocated, for I had left off my fan.

(We sleep in bunks three high and two

side by side with no ventilation

in quarters situated near the steam room.

The stair straight down. Everything in steel.)

Nothing but water.

Just back from breakfast, home-style:

sausage, potatoes and gravy, oatmeal, coffee, bread

and an apple. The food seems better here than

in camp. Our boys do not complain much.

The sailors say we are the jolliest bunch of fellows

they have ever taken across. This boat’s been over

twice before and according to them

this trip is the charm—either

the ship will be sunk or it will be good for the war.

I guess we are bound to have trouble, for it is said

the submarines are busy in this kind of weather.

Last night I could not eat all my supper, so went on deck.

No moon out but the sky full of stars,

and I remember thinking

The future will always be with me.

About 7 o’clock I saw a few lights some distance ahead

a little to the left. The boat made toward them;

as we drew nearer I recognized a red beacon.

Our gunners got busy and trained the sights.

We passed within 500 yards.

The stern was all lit. Someone said

it was a hospital ship.

Good breakfast—

bacon, eggs, grits, and of course coffee.

We ran into ships ahead about an hour ago.

I can see four, probably the rest of the fleet.

Most of the boys are on deck. A few are down here

playing blackjack and poker, and the band’s playing, too.

I’ve been on deck all morning, up on a beam

trying to read the semaphore.

5:30 p.m. Just had supper. We ate with F Company

tonight: potatoes, corned beef, apple butter and coffee.

We’ve overtaken the other ships; I can see four more

to our ports. I got wet on deck about an hour ago.

I can hear the waves splashing! I think

I’ll go up and smoke before it gets dark.

Just came down

off deck; the sea is high and waves all over.

I put on my raincoat to get in them—great sport!

There were six ships to our ports and a battleship starboard.

4 p.m. The storm is rocking us so,

no one can stay on deck without getting soaked.

I have been in my bunk all afternoon.

Quite a few of the boys are sick by now.

I feel a trifle dizzy;

there’s something wrong with the ship,

I don’t know what it is, but they called for

all the pipe fitters they could find.

Some of the boys have put on life preservers

but most don’t seem to be afraid and are as jolly

as if they were on shore. Some say

they don’t think we’ll make it.

We are some kind of circus down here.

7 p.m.: our ship gets a wireless every evening

telling us the war news. Ever since supper

there has been a bunch on deck laughing,

singing, and dancing. A large wave swept

over the planks and drenched us all but

the stronger the sea, the more noise we made.

At last, just as Pickney had finished

a mock speech with “I thank you, ladies and gentlemen,”

a larger wave poured a foot of water on deck.

The sailors had crowded around us; they say

pity the Germans when a bunch like us hit them.

Fifth day out.

I’m feeling all right—that is,

I don’t feel like I did when I was on land,

but I am not sick. Last night I couldn’t go to sleep

for a long while in that hot hole.

About 4 a.m., I put on my slippers

and went up for a breath of air.

The storm had passed and stars were shining,

half a dozen sailors busy with ropes.

One of the guards instructed me to close

my slicker, for my white underclothes were glowing.

Everybody this morning was in good spirits

and the deck was crowded with our boys.

Calm sea, a fair breeze blowing.

At ten o’clock we had “Abandon Ship” drill:

we were ordered below to our bunks

to put on life preservers, then

a whistle blew, some petty officers yelled

“all hands abandon ship,” and we went

quickly to our places on the raft.

There are twenty-five of us in a boat.

My boat’s number one.

When I think that I am a thousand miles

from land, in the middle of the Ocean,

I am not a bit impressed as I imagined I would be.

Things have certainly changed. A year ago

I was sitting in school, studying.

I had never been out of the state of Ohio

and never gone from home for more than

two weeks at a time. Now I’m away

eight months—four in the Deep South,

four in Virginia and now

on the High Seas.

I wonder where I’ll be this time next year.

Last night after dinner

I started reading a book borrowed from Crawford

titled Life of the Immortal. Stopped

long enough for supper, and finished it

about an hour ago. Then with Shelton,

Davis, and Crawford, talked about literature.

I didn’t get to bed before 10 o’clock

and did not feel like getting up this morning.

It is very hard to obtain soap on board

that will lather in salt water.

I can’t get my hands clean without soap; but

one of the sailors gave me a piece

that’s pretty good. So far I have managed

to stay fresh but some of the dudes don’t care

and their hands are awful looking.

I haven’t shaved since I’ve been

on board; I won’t shave

until land is in sight.

Wrestling match

with Casey; I was wet with sweat when we stopped

and went on deck to cool off.

We’re served just two meals a day now, 9 and 3 o’clock.

Rich Tuggle and others bought a lot of cakes and candy

from the canteen, so I was too full to eat supper.

This morning in the mess line

Rick spotted some kind of large fish near our boat.

All I saw was its tail, but it shot up water

like I’ve seen in pictures in school.

A whale, I thought, maybe it’s a whale!

But it went under without a noise.

We had a death

on board last night, a cook by the name of Bibbie.

Chaplain Nelson held the service

on the other end of the boat.

Mess call sounded before he had finished.

(Pork, potatoes, corn and coffee.)

This is an ideal Sunday afternoon;

I wonder what we would be doing back home

if I was there. Now I will read awhile

and then lie down. I am tired of the voyage.

I suppose there are lonesome days before me,

but no more so than those that have already passed.

I can make myself contented.

We are having very good weather.

It must have been a whale!

A cornet’s soul is in its bell—

trap that liquid gasp

and you’re cooking.

(Take your hat off, boy.

Not quick enough.

Pick it up! Too slow.)

A horn needs to choke on

what feeds it, it has to want

the air to sing out.

Nigger, where you been raised?

This is a respectable establishment.

The difference between a moan and a hallelujah

ain’t much of a slide.

I don’t know how I knew this,

growing up deep in the church

deep in Indianapolis—

Bent over like a mule

from one bitty kick—why,

you need strengthening.

but right now, standing here itching

up under all this wool, I figure:

What you staring at?

You got something to say?

When you’ve got whole nations lining up

just to mow each other down—hell,

a man can hoot just as well as holler.

“A soldier waits until he’s called—then

moves ass and balls up, over,

tearing twigs and crushed faces,

swinging his bayonet like a pitchfork

and thinking anything’s better

than a trench, ratshit

and the tender hairs of chickweed.

A soldier is smoke

waiting for wind; he’s a long corridor

clanging to the back of a house

where a child sings

in its ruined nursery . . .

and Beauty is the

gleam of my eye on this gunstock and my spit

drying on the blade of this knife

before it warms itself in the gut of a Kraut.

Mother, forgive me. Hear the leaves? I am

already memory.”

This lonely beautiful word

means church

and it is quiet here; the stone

walls curve

like slow water.

When we arrived the people were already gone,

green shutters latched and stoops swept clean.

A cow lowed through the village,

pushing into our gloves her huge

sodden jaw.

It’s Sunday and I’m standing

on the bitter ridge of France, overlooking the war.

La Guerre is asleep. This morning early

on patrol we slipped down through

the mist and scent of burning woodchips

(somewhere someone was warm)

into Moyenmoutier,

cloister of flushed brick and a little river

braiding its dark hair.

Back home in Louisiana the earth is red,

but it suckles you until you can sing

yourself grown.

Here, even the wind has edges.

Drizzle splintered around us; we stood

on the arched bridge and thought

for a moment of the dead we had left

behind in the valley, in the terrible noise.

But I’m not sad—on the way back

through the twigs I glimpsed

in a broken windowbox by the roadside

mums:

stunned lavenders and pinks

dusted with soot.

I am a little like them,

heavy-headed,

rough curls open to the rain.

Music across the lake? Impossible . . .

it had to be coming from behind him,

doughboys in the square, catching some rays,

Calvin’s piccolo tickling the air.

He’d let it ride, just a little while . . .

Every morning tap-step, tap-step

from cot to veranda, then lean

against the doorframe, head back

to feel the dew. All right: Ready?

Elbow cocked (yes) to push

the forearm through the sleeve

(check), jacket hunched up and

over (hoopla!)—to do at least

this much!—brought tears. Good work,

they’d say; why don’t you rest a bit?

For the walk back, they mean.

The sun on his cheek, a gentle burn.

Setback. Bedrest.

How could he recover without a song?

His whistle tuckered, voice cracked

into a thousand rasps and throttles.

No tin cup, but here’s a hook to keep him

in line—silver curve too ornery

to strum or take bets with,

lift a caramel chin for a kiss . . .

Dismissal.

He’d been to the mountain

and found it green and trembling

with its fallen. He’d called out

so many times to those lost last breaths

it was like listening to his own heart

—flutter, stop, kick, canter—

all in a day’s climb. The stick

wasn’t there for decoration:

he’d own it, old man tottering

out of hellfire, a medal bumping

his chest (step, tap), at his back

an impertinent nation

popping gum as they jeered: Boy,

we told you to watch your step.

We trained in the streets: the streets where we came from.

We drilled with sticks, boys darting between bushes, shouting—

that’s all you thought we were good for. We trained anyway.

In camp we had no plates or forks. First to sail, first to join the French,

first to see combat with the shortest training time.

My, the sun is looking fine today.

We toured devastation, American good will

in a forty-four piece band. Dignitaries smiled; the wounded

settled back to dream. That old woman in St. Nazaire

who tucked up her skirts so she could “walk the dog.”

German prisoners tapping their feet as we went by.

Miss Flatiron with your tall cool self: How do.

You didn’t want us when we left but we went.

You didn’t want us coming back but here we are,

stepping right up white-faced Fifth Avenue in a phalanx

(no prancing, no showing of teeth, no swank)

past the Library lions, eyes forward, tin hats aligned—

a massive, upheld human shield.

No jazz for you: We’ll play a brisk French march

and show our ribbons, flash our Croix de Guerre

(yes, we learned French, too) all the way

until we reach 110th Street and yes! take our turn

onto Lenox Avenue and all those brown faces and then—

Baby, Here Comes Your Daddy Now!

Early fall in the fields a slow day’s drive south

of Paris French birds singing frenchly enough

though we didn’t know their names in any language—

not even the German of my husband

reared in a village like the one we were passing

in our rusty orange BMW baby daughter

crowing from the backseat her plastic shell

strapped over the cracked upholstery

We were en route to the battlefields of the 369th

the Great War’s Negro Soldiers

who it was said fought like tigers

joking as the shells fell around them

so that the French told the Americans

Send us more like these and they did and so

the Harlem Hellfighters earned their stripes

in the War To End All Wars

We followed cow paths bisected pastures

barreled down stretches of gravel arrow straight

until the inevitable curve signaling each hamlet

noonday silence dreary stone barns and a few

crooked houses cobblestones boiling up

under our wheels the air thick with flies

the sky streaked cream stirred in a cup

The maps we’d bought in Montparnasse were exquisite

Each dry creek bed and fallow square

each warped stile or cracked fountain appeared

at the appointed millimeter under my index finger

This afternoon the battlefield at Ripont

one more name in a string of villages

destroyed during the course of their own salvation

We were thrilled when the copse of oaks

appeared on the left just as the five dots printed

in the crease of the Michelin had predicted

we counted the real trees to see if there were five

of them too but there were seven Down an embankment

then to the blue squiggle denoting a stream

our daughter gurgling her pleasure as I reached back

to feed her another spoonful of Gerber’s spinach

cold from the jar A sharp right

onto the map’s dotted line Two tire tracks

leading into deeper foliage path blotted by vines

the sun a cottony blur too far off to help us

through locked branches a sudden rectangle yellow and black

ACHTUNG – MINEN watch out for mines

This was the village before that September

decades ago before victory ploughed through

leaving her precocious seeds Past

the brambles the broken staves of barbed wire

we could see a frayed doorway a keystone

frame of a house gone a-kilter

like a child’s smudged crayon drawing

A branch slapped the windshield I shrieked

rolled up the windows as if tragedy were

contagious as if our daughter could detonate

the mines by tossing her rattle into the briars

We were in deep no way out except by

shifting in reverse so we drove on till at last

there came a clearing a crabgrass mound

choked under a layer of gleaming automobiles

Nothing to do but park so we pulled behind

a Peugeot got out and followed the road

on foot turning a bend onto a smattering

of people decked out in their somber best

some older ladies with corsages some with veils

a lean man with the hat and mustache of a mayor

was giving a speech We made out

the year of the battle the name of the town

a bugle sounded as two old soldiers laid down a wreath

and only then did we notice the memorial stone

with the date today’s and the names of the fallen

both the French and the Negro

Everyone smiled at us sadly they thought

we were descendants too

What else could we do we smiled back

we let them believe we drove with the crowd

single file through the woods to the river

where we turned left they turned right

some of them waving

our daughter waving back

We kept on until twilight stopped us

found an inn in a town not starred on our map

where I sat in a room at a small wooden table

by the side of our bed and wrote nothing

for thirteen years not a word in my notebook

until today