Nine Poems and Nine Songs

by Eric Chaet

Author Eric Chaet is a longtime and valued contributor to our Life~Times section. More »

Report to William Blake

by Eric Chaet

Blake, I won't read yr work again, right now—
maybe never, or maybe some time when I don't know
   what to do.

I'm busy consulting my imagination: how to redeem
   my routines,
resist the normal attacks on my splendid potential,
& make unprecedented moves of mental warfare:
poems, songs, polemics, talk, pictures, forms, acts.

Yr London was a bloody town—
wars of seven, thirty, one hundred years
against the French, Algonquin, Spaniards, Turks,
   Marathas, Afghans.
You went back there to work & burn yrself out
in acid & metal & ink & unconsummated scheming.

They wouldn't buy yr epics on London streets.
I doubt they could look right at you.
& what you had done was imperfect, too—
too many characters—frantic, reeling—so baroque.

I barely caught yr intent, the hope
& strategy in the midst of yr fallen giants.
I flashed back then into the rhythms
of my own experience in the mundane shell.

What an advance of thought!
Yet how far from actually swaying the general will,
from ending the continuous, sporadic Armageddon,
the exploitation, fierce competition, suffering,
   bitter respites,
resignation, & fading without fulfillment
   of glorious possibilities.

My path is clearer for yr strange lights,
   resolution clear & bright.
I chew yr protein, Blake, & spit out yr gristle.
If we, still in the midst of the battle,
can struggle to sufficient wakefulness, & insist—
yr moves may yet come to fruition, Blake.

Copyright © Eric Chaet 2003

At a Counter on a Cloudy Morning

by Eric Chaet

I wake, cold.
I don't remember any dream.
The ground's frosty.

I sit at a counter, drinking coffee.
The others are preparing to drive their trucks,
feed corn stalks to their white-breath cows,
operate machinery that produces toilet paper & packaging.

They know what they owe, & how much they will earn.
They tell of recent bureaucratic run-arounds & vandalism—
& catch up on ball teams.

The newspaper is full of celebrities,
the useless pronouncements of authorities
attempting to cut themselves heroic notches in history,
& tragedies that have occurred
to people never before considered worthy of mention.

The Sun has been obscured for a long time already.

I don't know how I'll sustain myself.

Copyright © Eric Chaet 2003

I Am Neither Proud Nor Ashamed

by Eric Chaet

I am neither proud nor ashamed
to be a citizen of this nation.
I don't know where I could do less harm
   & more good.

It's true this nation was built
on the Atlantic slave trade, & dispossession
of tribes that befriended puritans & cavaliers.
I know some think me a puritan,
& some think me too cavalier—
but I have never owned a slave,
   nor dispossessed anyone.

As for liberty, I can't take credit
or blame for its subjugation in the maze
of acquisitiveness, jostling for advantage,
   diving for safety.

It's true that, when a boy
   & afraid others would think me girlish,
   I treated girls with disdain;
&, later, other girls—
   tho they'd done no deeds—
   distracted me from soil, plow, & seeds.

But many nights, a long time, I paced—
& dare say, now, I've reached another place,
& responsibility for decisions that I truly make.

I am neither proud nor ashamed of my ancestors—
prophets & their persecutors—& the indifferent;
bosses & laborers of European estates & factories;
& those who headed for ports,
found ways across the sea, & learned the language,
   & found shelters, jobs, & mates.

It's true sometimes I withheld my participation,
not from principle or strategy,
but just because someone treated me disrespectfully,
or just from sloth,
or inability to emerge from anxieties.

I am neither proud nor ashamed
of my life so far, of my name.
I am twirling a stick in the block of wood
   I'm part of, now—
trying to ignite a new flame, a new engine.
I have finished the book of my life so far,
   am no longer who I was.

It's not what I expected.
I know more than when I made the plans
that did not have the intended results.
I am neither proud nor ashamed.

Copyright © Eric Chaet 2003

For Strangers

by Eric Chaet

When, as a frightened youth,
I marched for equal treatment of every stranger,
among crude Ku Klux Klan signs,
green & white cottonfields wavering in heat
that emanated from highway asphalt,
& convoys of stern & angry state troopers
glaring thru tightly-closed windows of black & white cars—

I didn't know that I had most to fear
the punishment that would be meted out, over decades—
by so many—Black & White—who didn't go—
more anxious, even, than I,
or shrewdly advancing their advantage, instead—
unwilling to know how normal evil—cold & confident—
   steers—
obstructing those of us who continue to disrupt
   the so-called peace
for the benefit of youths we've never even seen
   on television.

Copyright © Eric Chaet 2003

Almost Thru the Surface

by Eric Chaet

Unresolved issues
   with parents, siblings, lovers, friends, peers,
   & those who outranked you,
   & those who depended on you.

Important events & developments
   recorded, or never recorded,
   or recorded dishonestly or inaccurately,
   or recorded honestly & accurately, even brilliantly—
   but you're unaware of them.

People you approached, hoping to team up,
   but you didn't fit their needs, they felt, just then—
& people who approached you, hoping to team up,
   but you'd already embarked, & you called out
   that you couldn't return to shore for them,
   or were too far gone already even to reply.

When young, lack of experience against which to gauge
   hopes, fears, plans, others' claims—
then, when older, nagging aches, gnawing regrets,
   equipment & arrangements you count on
   that no one but you is going to maintain or repair,
   nebulous anxieties about health, old age, & death,
   & obligations previously assumed, wisely or unwisely.

Time invested examining works not of genius or efficacy,
   but of imitation, vanity, selfish ambition.

Time spent beginning to create such works yourself.

Works of genius or efficacy you haven't examined
   that would save you years of joyless blundering.

The bright & sparkling moon, stars, & galaxy—
   but you were tossing & turning in bed, thinking,
   I must be alert tomorrow, in traffic, at school, at work!

The great open world—but you're trying on pairs of shoes
   when you already have a good-enough pair.

Great initiatives of poorly-informed, self-righteous
   so-called leaders, of your nation & other nations,
   of your time, & of recent & ancient times,
   the consequences of which involve you,
   tho you bitterly resent that they do.

All the struggling to clarify your own hopes & intents,
   to discover & refine your methods,
   to proceed, accomplish, & contribute—
   to sprout thru the barrier yet doorway surface
   into the glimmering & nourishing future—
   while you still have sufficient energy for the effort!

Copyright © Eric Chaet 2003

Day Before Thanksgiving, 2002

by Eric Chaet

Day before Thanksgiving, 2002, aged 57:
Sun came out & the river was at the same time
   metallic & full of movement—
scales, not like musical scales, more like fish scales—
   come to think of it: a lot like musical scales—
   major, minor—3rds & 5ths—chords, trills, octaves—
   not quite silver or gold,
   some alloy of walleye & carp, I suppose—
& the trees had conveniently ditched their leaves
   for clarity of the vision—

&, so late in life, I finally figured out
   what the Dutch Republic was & when,
& how it related to Spain & the Holy Roman Empire,
   Pizarro, Cortez, Aztecs, Incas, & Cervantes,
   expulsion of the Muslims & Jews,
   Amsterdam's pickled herrings,
   the Baltic timber & grain trade,
   Breughel, Spinoza, Rembrandt, & Locke,
& the Reformation, &, of course,
   the English Revolution, & the American,
   & the French—& the Ottoman Empire—
   & the Russian Revolution, & the various
   counter-revolutions & reprisals blatant or sly,
   & results of conflicting power assertions, & resistance:
      no one gets everything as they'd wish.

By which time, distinct flakes of snow
were streaming horizontally, from across the river,
from the big dark cloud of dirty wool
   (they imported rough English woolen cloth
      into Flanders & Holland,
   finished, dyed, & sold it, especially to the French)
that had gathered itself along the western horizon
behind the toy-like silo & the freight cars rattling south
   like there's no engine, caboose, or tomorrow—

& Sarah called laughing to report that she had just learned
never to shop for groceries the day before Thanksgiving:
   the place was packed & the people all crabby.

Copyright © Eric Chaet 2003

Tree Along River

by Eric Chaet

One tree, among many, of several kinds,
   along the bank of a quiet river,
   one quiet night, just before winter.
I don't know what kind of tree it is, or how old.
Its leaves are fallen away for the year.

As old people look to a child—
   as tho there's something wrong
   in the asymmetric wear & tear, stiffness, scars,
   the attitude of stoicism in a world far beyond control.

Will tender leaves unfold from buds, next spring—
   each etched with perfect river & tributaries?
Will new branches emerge from crooks of old branches?

Odd formation—two trunks, not twins—
   twists, curves—branches out of each trunk—
   branches out of branches—thicker, finer.
Every sort of angle, tangle—denser, rarer—
   ramifications mysterious, hidden roots mysterious—
   all—trunks, roots, branches—emergent from a seed.

How affected by years of nights, & years of days
   of 8-minute, 100-million-mile light,
   every day a slightly different angle, clear, clouds, haze?
How affected by stars, moon, headlights, meteors, comets,
   by being observed or unnoticed by passers-by?
By summers, winters, springs, falls—storms & idylls—
   droughts, floods—insects, cocoons, nests, eggs?
By rains & snows filtering thru its branches,
   darkening the grey-brown bark, or coating one side white?
How affected by perchings of birds, large & small—
   & nervous, tenuous, then rushing explorations of squirrels?
How affected by the river just below,
   or by cars on the now-silent road, day after day?

Is it decomposing, vacantly unaware?
Or, in some inhuman way, musing back on its experience?
&, if it's musing, does that musing affect anybody else?
Or is it gathering itself for some effort it must yet make
   to fulfill some inscrutable purpose
      —next spring, summer, fall—
   or during the next growing season, or the next—
      or even now—
   or in the coming, bracing months
      the geese have left behind?

Copyright © Eric Chaet 2003

Sleeping Baby

by Eric Chaet

The baby's head fits in my cupped hand.
She sleeps, completely relaxed, on my lap.
Her mother has dressed her in a one-piece pink outfit.
Her cells are growing & multiplying,
& her brain is making connections:
the smell of milk & where to get it,
light, colors, shapes, sounds, movements—
up, down, angles & curves, front & back, hands, feet, fingers.

She's no sapling or caterpillar—
she'll have to learn to cooperate to fulfill herself,
with individuals who have learned, in turn,
well or poorly, slightly or a lot,
to cooperate & fulfill themselves
in love, in friendship, in their work.

No one can completely dominate,
& not dominating leaves you open to being used—
how far is the cooperating to go?
There are people among us—
criminals, neurotics, & highly-respected & powerful people—
who have no intention of cooperating
& would live off her efforts,
keep her down so she won't compete for resources,
take what she needs to thrive, or even survive.

But if she doesn't learn to cooperate,
with her contemporaries, & ancestors & descendants, too—
to contribute, & share in others' contributions—
& to set shrewd limits, to protect herself,
without limiting her range of action unnecessarily—
she'll fall short of the goals she'll yearn to attain,
her life will be one of the many wasted lives—
the meaning of her efforts never crystallized—
whether others, who can only ever partially understand,
think & speak well of her, or not.

Copyright © Eric Chaet 2003

Years to Come!

by Eric Chaet

The years to come!
Challenges I've prepared myself to meet!
Breakdown of structures & traditions
   people assume, & count on!
Hostility of fanatics
   toward those among whom opposing fanatics live!
Inevitable frailties of age!
Perfect & imperfect babies arriving on the scene!
Neighbors with new, strange ways & neighbors
   with the same old insistent programming!
The usurpations of those whose lust for dominance
   overwhelms the potential growth of their understanding
   & interferes with everybody's harmonious development!
Birds, leaves, clouds, insects, & works of genius & efficacy!
Sudden bright discovery
   of playful & intelligent people
   in humble roles, clothes, vehicles, places!
Consequences of seeds
   I've overcome a thousand obstacles to plant
& consequences of multitudes of seeds
   I struggled, panicked, to fend off,
   as they flew in from all directions—
   beyond my ability to intercept!
Brilliant new networks of communication & commerce
   & the mad, rushing, & grid-locked
   traffic, legislatures, schools!
Compassion slyly & effectively implemented
   under the radar of the chatter & self-important analysis!

Copyright © Eric Chaet 2003

Next page: Eric Chaet, conclusion: Nine Songs »

—Continued from top—

Eric Chaet

Eric Chaet is the author, most recently, of People I Met Hitchhiking On USA Highways. You can purchase the book at Amazon.com, or by sending $15 (which includes shipping & handling) to Turnaround Artist Productions, 1803 County ZZ, De Pere, WI 54115.

Sample more of Eric Chaet's writings on StickYourNeckOut.

Contact the author at:  echaet@gbonline.com

Visit Eric Chaet's website.