Adam Henry Carrière

from

 Rhododendrons of the Sea 

 

 

successes and failures

 

Some wise men believe there’s no stopwatch

running on your life, no scorecard, just an evolving

future from a malleable present and an imprecise

past. These are voices that have either tenure,

civil service protection, or drive early-model

Swedish station wagons.

 

No, a Zenith chronometer nor a Brioni tie

(or even a Maserati) will not feed a family

of four. (They will however get thee to the church

on time.) That oceanfront condo won’t repair

your childhood scars, your adolescent rape,

your teenaged felonies, or the mortal sins

of your adulthood. It’s only a splendid view.

 

Play Dr. Leakey and Dr. Livingstone

to a near-by Humpty-Dumpty,

on the other hand, and your path to Heaven

will glint like gold. Smile at the wrecked

as if they’re not and become a Saint.

Intercede between cells with laughter

and light someone’s darkness like Dresden.

 

The insects and elementals, the gremlins

and the ghouls who took bits of your skin

along the way, their eyes will stain from the

copper pennies on their eyes.

 

 

 

The Occasional Tongues of Rain

 

All the dialects in the world

won’t better perform our reverberation.

 

We’re all but inarticulate notes,

scarcely in key, of a murmuring score

inside the sky, unused notes

played by oceans of waving grass

for the idle pleasure of impregnating

 

the unseen, singings

you can only hold, colourless,

in the occasional tongues of rain.

 

 

 

Blue Note at Norm’s

 

Five grown adults are engrossed

at the Toy House machine,

which may be a step up from noses

planted in their iPhones.

 

Ten at night and the place is hopping,

no doubt because folks with credit ratings

below 600 can afford the Daily Specials here.

 

Brewed green mango iced tea

is as good as gold. The cheerful smiles

at your communal modesty are abundant.

 

All the races, genders, modes of fuck,

the aimless and the homeless are all on display

while the all-Latin staff hump the shift away.

 

There are no holiday decorations aside

from festive hats but everyone’s awash

in Merry Christmases with intent.

 

The reefers are older than the streetlamps

and have a clock embossed onto their flanks,

indicating which century it is.

 

I pine for the warmth of its flavors,

its aromas, from the unbridgeable distance

of washed-out chance and pitted silver.

 

 

 

Street Guide

 

I wanna light up Purple Haze

Street, just ‘round the corner

from Pastel Colors and Simple Life.

 

Cross Jacobs and Forbes Field,

right on Polo Grounds,

left on Comiskey.

Watch out for misspellings

on Joe Robby.

 

Count Witzie, Viscount Carlson,

Princess Katy, Prince Scotty,

Lady Marlene and King Richard –

all laid near Westminster.

 

Cinderella met Hansel & Gretel

at Castlewood. Thumbelina

is obscured by Rip Van Winkle.

King Midas leads to Lilliput.

Sleepy Hollow and the Black Forest

abut, and Aladdin is cut in two.

 

 

 

the brains of a past master

 

Before the despair took over

it was quite the brain a once young man

had. The nuns saw it early and left

his boyish megalomania alone.

The priests never noticed, for

the candlepower was well unprofessed.

Perhaps to atone for their own middling

ways, a few parched drifters cast him out,

forward, away, west. There

he fooled even more herders

and developed a pitiable taste for

calves who’d never know better.

 

But Time has a way of wearing

even the best greasepaint off,

where mirrors can only reflect

the wages of purposeless lies

and masks fallen fallow to ground

cut into warped trenches of mud lining

mis-spent years. Once desolation

becomes a tide that never ebbs,

the gleam of parchments and the twinkle

of discontented dreams sour to acid,

and all that’s left is a curtain-call.

The rest was just salad

tossed from a city bus window.

 

 

 

Born on the South Side of Chicago, Adam Henry Carrière received last rites at the age of six, won a swimming pool at the track for his thirteenth birthday, has a master's degree and half a doctorate yet no high school diploma, adapted Wagner's Lohengrin into a screenplay, watched the sun rise through Stonehenge, swum with Beluga whales, gone snorkeling beside tortoises with Cuba near in sight, seen the Northern Lights, sailed through a typhoon, violated Vietnamese territorial waters, waved machine guns in the City of Rocks, reached 120 miles per hour on Pacific Coast Highway, walked up a Bavarian Alp, written poetry that bought him a car, and has had drinks where the Beatles played in Miami Beach, Janis Joplin stayed in Hollywood, and at the actual Hotel California. Seriously. He is the author of the novels Miles and Shant, as well as the poetry collections Faschingslieder and Rhododendrons of the Sea, each available in quality paperback from Hammer & Anvil Books, exclusively up the Amazon.