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Author<\/h2>\nAuthor<\/h2>\nDavid Watts<\/p>\n
Having and Keeping is the seventh book of David’s poems to be published. The manuscript was requested by Brick Road Poetry Press following their annual contest. David has also published two collections of short stories, Bedside Manners from Harmony\/Random House and The Orange Wire Problem from U. Iowa Press. He has also published two novels, a mystery and a western and has authored several essays.<\/p>\n
Having and Keeping is the work of an accomplished poet collecting and revising for more than a decade. These poems, inspired by the landscape of the Southwest United States and by human interactions that astonish and entertain have initiated this spontaneous poetic response. The poems have been etched out in a distinct poetic voice that has, over the years, become very comfortable and is both probing and graceful. The voice has been influenced by poets such as Jack Gilbert, Jennifer K. Sweeney and Molly Bashaw. Several of the poems have won awards or have been published in respected literary journals.<\/p>\n
The journey this book takes ushers the reader through the various and varied pages of a life: interactions between father and son over life choices, the hesitations of love, the teen-age betrayal that remains in the consciousness forever, the death of loved ones, divorce, and finally, a prescription for happiness in the midst of turmoil.<\/p>\n
The unintended subtext of the book is a deliberate exploration into the mechanisms and quirkiness of memory in preserving for us the events of our lives. In this analysis, the distinction between having something and being able to keep it is elegantly revealed. Without slipping into academic tones, the book takes on a philosophical turn, laying in its observations not like mathematical deductions but as revelations earned by careful reflection.<\/p>\n
The experience thus encountered by a careful reader is that which crosses many lines of thought but always reduces what is observed into a compressed, elegant language that is both lyrical and effortless.<\/p>\n
Inheritance<\/p>\n
My father is made
\nof dust and intelligence.
\nHe holds the barn together
\nwith road signs:
\nGrapette, Lucky Strike,
\nBurma Shave,
\nrusty foundlings
\ncobbling slats together
\nlike stitches in a fence.
\nHe preaches Jesus.
\nHe whistles Turkey in the Straw.
\nMother is made from music
\nand culture. She bakes
\nbread. Opens her tilted uterus
\nfor two sons.
\nShe plays Five Foot Two
\non the ukulele.
\nShe is a long way from Laredo.
\nThey made me
\nout of farming and music,
\nembryo
\nwith two lines tangled,
\nhatched like a confounded
\nchicken
\nwith a tune in its head.
\nSo it happens the barn hums
\nold melodies,
\nnames, and notes.
\nAnd the cotton rows get counted
\nas beats in a measure,
\nlike Mozart,
\nwhile the combine whistles
\na shed full of arias.
\nMy father shows me harrow,
\nwindmill, horse trough.
\nAlready he knows my world
\nis different.
\nHe knows inheritance
\nis like jumping through smoke.
\nHe listens for what I hear.
\nThe forest hums.
\nEven the Johnson Grass squeaks
\nas it grows.
\nThe Delicate Sprigs of Love
\nHe is sitting next to her.
\nThe firmness of her thigh is pressed against his.
\nThere is no light between them.
\nHe listens so heavily
\ninto the heartbeat of her that he hears the murmuring
\nof aspens on the hillside.
\nHe tells her this.
\nHow could he sit next to her if he didn\u2019t
\ntell her this?
\nShe is beautiful
\nin the manner in which there is so much beauty
\nit almost cancels itself.
\nI can lie down
\nin the golden shape of your shadow, he says,
\nand no longer question myself.
\nShe wonders
\nif they were just prisoners of the freedom
\nthat brought them there.
\nOr if to love him
\nwould mean waiting for promises, lying awake,
\nin the draft of crossing stars.
\nThey kiss
\nand though he is still alone in the fear that no one will ever kiss him
\nhe is sitting next to her.
\nBroken Jar
\nThe heart wanders
\nthen it questions itself.
\nPleasure, then the horror
\nof guns and tanks in Syria.
\nWe\u2019d rather ghazals
\nin moonlight. The turn of a face
\nas she disappears around
\nthe corner. The desire for peace
\nwhile war runs its poison
\nalongside. Each morsel
\nof tranquility more precious
\nas memory chimes in
\nwith hot Louisiana days,
\nlemonade, and mother
\nat the piano. I\u2019d like to think
\nwhat memory wants us
\nto think, sitting securely
\non its fence post
\nlifting particles of light
\nfrom the broken jar.
\nBut the world is beyond us
\neven as we live inside it\u2014
\nThe sun comes and goes.
\nThe moon breathes and circles us
\nwith reflected light,
\nwhile the soul holds the body
\ncarefully in its arms
\nas we walk through the perforated dark.
\nWords
\nMy father used few words.
\nHe moved fearless
\nfrom task to task as if
\nthey were meals to be eaten.
\nOur house grew inglenooks
\nfrom the imagination of the carpenter
\nhe became.
\nFrom tree limbs of summer
\nI watched him tote
\nand saw, driving nails
\nwith the same muscles
\nthat lost baseballs
\nover West Texas outfields.
\nLeaves turned.
\nSnow fell.
\nAll that whiteness
\ncame. Standing
\nin the emptiness of transition
\nhe spoke
\nimploring wisdom.
\nThen, when the inkwell went dry
\nhe reached with great and somber hands
\nto turn out the light.<\/p>\n
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