The Obstacle Poems and Others

By Karl Patten

This is an old mans book, not simply because of my age but because I am taking one last basket to market, and I want to fill it with as many good eggs as I can find. The title poem is followed by poems for Isabelle and other members of my incredibly loveable family. The next group of poems is a broad mix, the first having been written in recent years; then poems written over my many decades. They were, at one time or another, considered for a book but rejected. Now all have been revised sufficiently well to satisfy my fussy taste. Obviously, I chose everything here and stand by my pickings just as clear is that, you, dear reader, range over great latitudes with untrammeled feelings. May the muses of poetry bless you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524543709

Karl Patten

Upon publishing Irreplaceable You and Other Poems in 2006, I considered that my last book, and so it became, although I continued to write poems, as one must and will. (Does anyone ever stop? Sleep, dream, and the rhythms of English speech will not permit it.) But in the spring of my eighty-seventh year (May, June), the poems that were to become the Obstacle Poems came upon me, ever more insistent. I had experienced such an event in one week of March 1988 when I wrote, almost feverishly, most of the poems in my Shaker Suite, published by Touch (l999), and of course, I had to remember Rilke and Duino, the best-known gathering of clustering poems. Something bigger than me told me that I was going to have another book, with Obstacle Poems as the title. This mattered greatly to me, for I was fervently opposed to the Keystone Pipeline. I seriously thought of a poem as an obstacle—the pen is mightier than the sword—and I had to be more than happy (a harmonious marriage of poetry and politics here) when Poetry International published my long poem in February 2015, somewhat before President Obama vetoed the monstrous thing.

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Copyright © 2016 by Karl Patten.

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Rev. date: 09/26/2016

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Preface

THE OBSTACLE POEMS

ONLY IN NEBRASKA

THE HIGH PLAINS INDIANS

VOICE AND PLACE

A NEWSPHOTO

THE NEWS IS BAD

VARIETIES OF PRAIRIE EXTINCTION

AN UNDERSTANDING

1

MAX WEBER’S PEARS

REMEMBERING GREECE: LOVING YOU ALWAYS

ON EDGE

YOUR VOICE IN THE NIGHT

RHYMING FOR NOVEMBER

WET BREAD

PRODUCTIVITY ESSENTIAL, EXISTENCE ACCIDENTAL

RAW NOVEMBER

A NOCTURNAL FOR THOMAS, AGE SEVEN

A CLUMSY CELEBRATION OF HANDS

FOR TOM

THE FIRST FALL

SNOW

FOR HELEN

1/23/16 AND ONWARD

A POEM IS A POINT—PENN, AGE FIVE

11

THE FIFTH ELEMENT

PLAIN POEM: RHYTHMS FOR TOOLS

WORDSWORTH IN LOVE: A SHORT STORY

APRÈS LES POÈTES

GET THE COOTIES OUT

APOLLINAIRE: THE END

LAST WORDS

AN OBSCENE POEM (IF YOU LIKE IT)

ALIEN AND TERRIBLE?

SMALL WORLD

DANCING—FOR DIONYSUS

SLEEP

STILL

THE INSIDER

FACTS

THIS SCAR

THE HORSEAPPLE

A TEACHER’S YEAR ENDS

DESPAIR

DUTCH INTERIOR

A PROPHET

LINES

EDGES

A FILM OVER EVERYTHING

STONE

SILENCE

A STONE HEART

OPEN PLACES

LYRIC FOR A VISIONARY MOMENT

THE LETHARGY

JFK NIGHT FLIGHT TO EUROPE

BEING ALONE

TOUR OF THE CATHEDRAL

WHAT FOLLOWS THE BODY’S FALL?

COBB WOULD HAVE CAUGHT IT

THE PR MAN EXPLAINS

THE UNDERSTROPPER

111

FROM RETAIL TO DETAIL

VICINA ROMA

GUY FAWKES NIGHT

DREAM—12/29/06, 3:00 AM

THE VOICE AT THE WINDOW:

ANTI-PARANOIA: ALWAYS LOOK BACK

ON NUNS

DOLCE FA NIENTE

Acknowledgments

Over all the years many people have helped or inspired me, none more than Isabelle, my dear wife who has been my muse all along. For this particular volume my greatest debt is to Cynthia Hogue who encouraged the title poem from the beginning and was chiefly responsible for finding a magazine that would print a long poem by a relatively unknown poet (I refused to break it up). She and Isabelle were dear friends and share the dedication. So many others could be named that I must limit myself to this book and praise Jeannie Murphy for her unwavering attention and critical eye as we went over the older poems together helping me in the rigorous process of revision. Finally, my hearty thanks must go to Dot Baumwoll, who finished it all up