September 8: Poet of the Week, Matthew Gavin Frank, Music, "Types of Symphony"

I had no idea until this morning who I was going to choose as Poet of the Week.  Usually, by Friday or Saturday, I have an idea.  This time, I literally stood in front of my book shelf at 4:30 a.m. and just scanned my shelves.  My eyes stopped on a collection by Matthew Gavin Frank.  I scanned the shelves again.  Back to Matt's book.  Third time, same result.

Thus, the Poet of the Week is Matthew Gavin Frank.

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you already know my affection for Matt's work.  He is, simply, a fantastic writer.  On top of all that, he's a really decent guy.  Down-to-earth.  Funny as hell.  Somebody you want to have a beer with, which I have done on more than one occasion.

The first poem I've chosen to share with you comes from his newest collection, The Morrow Plots.  I've already written a review of this book, talked about its strange, dark beauty.  Today's selection is slightly lighter than most of the poems.  If the rest of the book is ebony, this poem is dusk.

It's about the music of life, the way I read it.  There's music in everything.  The chicken sandwich you eat for dinner.  The smell of skunk in the early morning dew.  Sour milk in the fridge.  Everything contributes notes, chords, phrases of light and dark.  Melodies heavy and tripping.

Saint Marty could listen to this "song" all night.

Types of Symphony

by:  Matthew Gavin Frank

When the sun rises behind the black
                                                                cow, everything
around the cow brightens.  This

is the rule.  The milk pails

upturned by the night,
the river, the landowner in bed
                                                     biting his lip.  No one is exempt.  The wife

who has pulled their daughter awake
by her hair.  In her scalp, needlmarks
                                                                            of blood struggle

against her skin, nothing
                                 a hairbrush can fix,
nothing to undo the know.
I don't know what to make of this
                                                                          as I wake next to you,

your neck steeped in days-old panache,
the kind of perfume a shower

does nothing to wash away.  I can't tell
if the cow is a sign of doom
                                                    or hope,

if the landowner's teeth
are too weak to break the skin.

                                                          Your answer isn't
an answer at all, but more
of an aubade, your fingers, in sleep, reaching
                                                                                      for the piano

in the blankets,

your voice like the cow's to the world
                                                                           to every hairbrush
not picked up, to the boy who,

in the back of a barn,

handles his first gun.  Sleep,
like some rough draft of God
                                                                 still engaged in the nonviolent

act of dove-making.

It's beautiful music