Preacher Gunn
Originally written 1 June 1998 at Marion Correctional Institution and long forgotten, I unearthed and slightly revised this poem an hour or so before leaving for my Phoenix reading on 23 August 2008.
I introduced it that evening as a piece "about firearms."
Preacher Gunn
Shoots a yellow green stream
Of ammonia and impurities
Into the white porcelain basin
Of his congregation
Where dehydrated souls
Drink their fill
Of a backward dog's swill
Preacher Gunn
Then runs like a rivulet
Down hill to home
Where he
Loaded and pearl handled
Pukes the hair of a backward dog
On his gun shy children
Me playing Rev. Isaiah Hawkins in Reflections of Possum Gulch
December 1998 in the chapel of Marion Correctional Institution
I introduced it that evening as a piece "about firearms."
Preacher Gunn
Shoots a yellow green stream
Of ammonia and impurities
Into the white porcelain basin
Of his congregation
Where dehydrated souls
Drink their fill
Of a backward dog's swill
Preacher Gunn
Then runs like a rivulet
Down hill to home
Where he
Loaded and pearl handled
Pukes the hair of a backward dog
On his gun shy children
Me playing Rev. Isaiah Hawkins in Reflections of Possum Gulch
December 1998 in the chapel of Marion Correctional Institution
http://poetrypoem.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?poemnumber=822075&sitename=charlax&password=&poemoffset=0&displaypoem=t&item=poetry
this link goes to the poem thereis musick on it its my main website poetrypoem
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Cool... thanks, Charles!
By the way, after I posted this, I added "gun shy" to the last line. Folks reading the e-mailed version won't see it; but it's here now.
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I thought this poem went over very well at the Phoenix reading Saturday-- the images are startling, and I especially liked the lines
"Preacher Gunn
Shoots a yellow green stream
Of ammonia and impurities
Into the white porcelain basin
Of his congregation
Where dehydrated souls
Drink their fill"
I'm also impressed that you could "unearth this" an hour before the reading, and use it to dazzle us there.
Congrats on another great poem, JC!
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Thank you, Dianne!
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that foto of you you could be a preacher, an old timey westerner, or a snake oil salesman.
preacher gunn reminds me of the tv series Peter Gunn 1958-1961. he was mister cool.
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That play was actually set in the Old West. I was a well-meaning preacher who came to town to sell the snake oil of Christianity to the townfolk. Had no building, so had to hold services in the local saloon... but 'twas bad for business, so the saloon owner set me up and had me thrown in the calaboose, where I was when that picture was taken. It was a sequel to our 1996 play A Possum Gulch Christmas.
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don't know if it's just me (i'm having a bad flow day) but in your online library, i clicked on walt whitman's song of myself three different times and get just the title and a black box. probably just me.
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Interesting... seems to be working on my end.
Try this link: http://library.crisischronicles.com/2008/06/18/song-of-myself-by-walt-whitman.aspx
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yup, works today. tried 5 times yesterday to no avail. i think it's just reality messing with me. so i'll read it now while i can still see it.
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Cool... I apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate you caring enough to keep trying. I added another, shorter Whitman piece last night and a Pound this morning. I'm adding some meaningful (to me) "dead poet" classics in clusters - with them it doesn't matter as much if I post a bunch at a time. I like to post a local/living author at the end of the cluster, however, so he or she will remain at the top of the main page for a least a day before I post something else. Today's a dead poet cluster day. I'll finish off tonight with a living legend - then I hope to add living poets' works daily through the coming weekend and week.
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smith this is charlax to smith
go back to the archive and LEFT CLICK the title the thing pops open and fills the whole page the picture of whiteman is nice there here is one of mine
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc48/charlaxici/WEDNESDAYewe/?action=view¤t=eecummings.jpg
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc48/charlaxici/WEDNESDAYewe/eecummings.jpg
http://s216.photobucket.com/albums/cc48/charlaxici/WEDNESDAYewe/?action=view¤t=eecummings.jpg">
[IMG]http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc48/charlaxici/WEDNESDAYewe/eecummings.jpg[/IMG]
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Did you know that the picture is dated December 2008?
Think the poem is wonderful and the picture quite apropos.
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Oops... lol. Thanks for pointing that out, Pinky! It's supposed to be 1998 (and I've corrected it now). Thank you for your kind words about the poem and photo, too. Normally the inmates didn't get phptos of their performances. Our chaplain (who was our theatre troup's executive director) took them for his private collection. But since this one was blurry and apparently a "throwaway," he let me have it. It's always been one of my favorites.
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Dig it...
Thought it interesting to watch you go thru the mental machinations of re-working it on Saturday before your reading.
Very instructive for me as a beginner... I hate re-writing and changing things.. but I am doing it more and getting better results... so thanks for the encouragement.
Ya.. as Pinky P notes wrong date under foto... your not still in jail are ya??
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Haha! Thank you, Chris. I always hated rewriting things in the past - had a certain fondness and respect for every word and didn't trust myself to actually improve the piece without removing its original heart. Plus editing felt like I was committing the sin of revising history. Years later, I feel more confident in my ability to see the poetic heart and "separate the wheat from the chaff" when editing - to keep the good writing and toss out much of the bad while staying true to the history. Sometimes now I see things in the poems that I didn't consciously notice back then. I think it was Adrienne Rich who said, "Poems are like dreams. In them we put put what we don't know we know."
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Boy... that's as true a statement if ever I heard one... thanks for sharing that. I often feel that when I write the good ones... they seem to come from somewhere in side... I know not where. And contain a wisdom in them I feel is more subconscious than conscious. And feel blessed retreiving them... because they often don't feel consciously written.
Thanks for the quote...
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