Chicken Feet: Poems

By Brian Kenneth Swain

carry me away,

beyond the cusp

of the hemisphere,

all the way back

to the start of time

-------------

The start of time and the start of poetry are very tightly entwined. Whether you

subscribe to a big bang or the touch of a creator, either event yields images at

once breathtaking and diffi cult to describe, in other words poems.

Still, we try our best. From the most renowned poet to the youngest schoolchild,

we are all searching for meaning. And in those few fl eeting moments when we

feel like perhaps weve unearthed some small explanatory fragment, our instincts

are the sameto take up a pen and share what weve discovered with those

we know and love.

This collection is my attempt to share the few small truths Ive stumbled upon

during my journey from here to wherever Im headed

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781491797716

Brian Kenneth Swain

BRIAN KENNETH SWAIN is the author of nine previous books, including the novels World Hunger, Alone in the Light, and Sistina; the poetry collections Secret Places, My America, and Chicken Feet; the essay collection The Curious Habits of Man; the short story collection The Book of Names; and the children’s book Hegel and Hobbes Have an Adventure. Brian is a graduate of Columbia University and The Wharton School. He grew up in Brunswick, Maine and now lives in San Antonio with his black chow chows Maya and Loki.

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© 2016 Brian Kenneth Swain.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-9769-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9770-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-9771-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016909561

iUniverse rev. date:  07/08/2016

Contents

Introduction

Something New

Shoebox

Mrs. Peters Reviews Billy’s ⁴th Grade English Comp Essay

African Gray

The Growing Season

Thursday

Lobstah (The Reckoning)

Ronald’s Metaphors Fail to Get the Job Done

Witness Trees

Skipping Stones at Cook’s Harbor

Found Poem

Stopped

Some Assembly Required

Yves Klein Blue

Sniper

Footprints in Light Snow

Cut

SAT Question #117

Only a Minute or Two

Tidal Pool

The Mason

Nine

The Arc of the Day

The Night the Mountain Moved

Hummingbird

The Imminence of Rain

The Bones of Trees

The Perfect Stone

Don’t Make Me Stop This Car

The Storyteller of Kathmandu

The Judge

Taunting

Reflections upon Hearing for the First Time the 206-Rank, 11623-Pipe Aeolian-Skinner Organ in the Mormon Tabernacle

Oon Sherkoniferous Paliodon

She Wants to Heal the Earth

A Space of His Own

The Final Performance

Watermelon Pickles

Alone in Center

Poem for POETRY

You, under Different Circumstances

The Curious Case of Ezekiel Hanover

Maine Street

Could I Write a Poem If I Were Blind?

How to Properly Fold a Fitted Sheet

The Strange Tale of Jeremiah McClintock

Running

The Gull

Revenge of the Sesquipedalian

Infidel

Things You Can Hear If You Just Shut the Hell Up and Listen

South Road

Stripping Paint

On the Troubling Tendency of Certain Drivers to Travel Great Distances with Their Turn Signals On

Christmas for One

Taken Aback

Summer in the South Houston, Texas—August 17, 1959

Visiting Hours

Clarence the Rooster Suffers a Crisis of Confidence upon Waking Two Hours after the Dawn

The Footbridge

In Search of Lady Slippers

After Midnight at the Million Dollar Saloon

A Postmodern Tragedy in Three Parts

Thoughts on Having Already Lived Longer Than My Father

Damned If You Do

Breakfast in Des Moines

Little White Lies

Grandpa the Philosopher

I Am Charlie Brown

Into the Sun

Crutch

The Green Room

Not Nearly Enough

Wishful Thinking

Peepers

Dementia

Beauty in Emptiness

Breathless

Poem Lost in a Dense Wood

In One Way, at Least, the Heart Is Like a Box

The Morning after the Party at Which I Had Intended to Bid My Frailties Goodbye

A Random Collection of Multisyllabic Words Which, Though Lacking Apparent Association, Nonetheless Sound Pleasing When Juxtaposed

The Crackles of the Night World

Skipping Stones

This book is dedicated to all of you who have ever shared your poems with me. I herewith return the favor.

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I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

Socrates

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Introduction

It’s not exactly accepted wisdom that a poetry collection requires, or even necessarily benefits from, a prose introduction. Still, here we are. I’ve written it and apparently you’re reading it, so we both may as well make the most of the situation. I suppose if one is going to go to the trouble of writing a poetry introduction, the best way to provide some value from the experience is to expound a bit on the poems in the collection, if not individually then at least in some aggregate sense. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a proper poetry book introduction if I didn’t also pontificate at least a bit on the state of poetry in general.

Anyone who writes, regardless of whether it’s poetry, fiction, or essays, will at some point be asked when he started writing and why. For me it was midway through high school, and, to the best of my recollection, my inspiration was the modicum of encouragement I received