The Talisman: Selected Poems

By Gerry Eugene

The Talisman, Gerry Eugene’s second volume of selected poems, takes us once more to the forests and mountains of the West and to the plains and fields of the Midwest. Against this backdrop, we encounter images and situations that will long resonate in our minds.

The poems are a portal to a world of horses, childhood, cats, trout streams, friends, family, grief, planting and harvest, fear and courage, addiction and triumph, love and passion, wild nights, growing up and growing old.

Eugene’s poems celebrate the particularity of image and the musicality of language. The pieces in this book span fifty years, and Eugene presents his vision in traditional and nontraditional forms and styles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Feb 12, 2024

Book preview

THE TALISMAN: TONY IN WINTER

I was thirteen. The soft steam of our breath

grew silver under the moon. Daily we walked

toward the rising half-light of frozen dawn.

Sixty now, and after any night’s dreams,

I walk the city while my heart listens hard

for hoof beats on frozen sod in snowy pastures.

I hear the halter-buckle jangle at your jaw,

and I search the crowds and flashing traffic

for any sight of you, old pinto friend,

slowly, as you would look at frost-heavy branches

shining with morning sunlight on the path.

Those coldest mornings are my talisman,

each moment frozen in the morning’s light⁠—

first magic at another end of life.

2020

WHAT MATTERS

At summer's end our northern sun sets fast

beyond the lip and teeth of our valley.

We move ant-like along the river's edge⁠—

to hook one rainbow trout, find flecks of gold

in the black sands. A pointer strains at leash,

the grouse won't flush, and my radio says

to me, by way of waking the lost heart,

that Venus is cutting through Leo. Born

on that sharp cusp—I've been some few times sliced

by a sudden love for this losing world,

changing seasons, the up and down of roads

that snake through canyons and past blue sage.

Our center holds against Yeats's spinning gyre:

I read that wolves returned to the Cascades.

1996

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS

I remember us running traplines, Steve,

and teaching ourselves to skin those small brutes

who fell into them. I recall burning

a woods with you, and lifting your father's

forty-five and thirty-eight as he slept

with brain cancer in some white nightmare ward.

I learned to bully in your cruel shadow,

landing my first good punch on the playground,

and ran with your other friends: criminals.

They helped us bale alfalfa in August,

then found their ways to jail. You got married

to the John Birch, fell into the Nazis⁠—

into what else—I can't say. I can say

you're likely dead, and not from baling hay.

1996

BOOK BURNING

—FOR CHRISTIANE J. KYLE

I've lost Bears Dancing in the Northern Air,

your narratives and lyrics in the voice

called from our offices and classrooms

decades ago. I read your book, but lost

it to a thief, and know that while the details

disappeared, the great heart of your works,

fast breaking from the mundane into song,

your sudden