{"id":4219,"date":"2023-02-24T12:32:21","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T20:32:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=4219"},"modified":"2025-02-07T11:21:26","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T19:21:26","slug":"three-poems-by-randall-watson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/three-poems-by-randall-watson\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Poems by Randall Watson"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Issue<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in Willow Springs 91<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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Three Poems by Randall Watson<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The Future of Nostalgia<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\nhttps:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/332\/2023\/02\/The-Future-of-Nostalgia.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n\n\n\n

Not your town but a town
by the sea, a little village, maybe, named
Clean <\/em>or Bay Shore<\/em> or<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No Famine.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’re a stranger there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s raining it’s snowing it’s very hot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You find it intolerable
though the people seem friendly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple of clammers drink beer
in a flat-bottomed Sharpie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lineman for Suffolk Lighting
checks his tool box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’re eating a Happy Meal and yes, you’re happy,
that’s the point, isn’t it,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you’re a child,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a rank but comforting breeze
eases in off the bay,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the white belly of a dead blowfish bobs
sunward in the shallow end
where the short canal stops at the highway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morning, of course, is beautifully inhabited,
which is how it should be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3 kids in their mid-teens
race on stolen bicycles across the bridge,
a red tick settling into the groin or armpit or clutching
the hair of an eyebrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A street sign says: Stop<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A t-shirt says: Cui Bono<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And night-
like a big indigo berry
that began as an umbrel of poisonous white flowers-
is predictably dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s scary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unemployed hunch over their shot-glasses and darts
cursing the rich while wanting to be them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shuffleboard’s long narrow planks
fleck with sawdust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A painted umbrella waits
to open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s like a gift card with sound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ping-ping-ping of the wind chimes
from the restaurant next door
bubble over<\/p>\n\n\n\n

each note as small and green and sour
as a strawberry that will swell and ripen
when spring ends
and the summer says ha<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you’ve never liked that music before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Little League<\/h3>\n\n\n\nhttps:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/332\/2023\/02\/Little-League-edited.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n\n\n\n

When I was ten, playing baseball for one of those leagues where the teams are<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sponsored by banks and beer distributors<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the colors seem, repetitively, Celtic green, though not, I think, some sly,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

symbolic invocation of ancestral pride<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but simply a bright and pretty color-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

our pitcher, Bobby, I will call him, southpaw, black, his fastball tailing away<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from so much righthandedness, was good,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and we were in first place, at that time, ’66, all that mattered,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

pitcher and catcher bound, not just by effort or desire,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but linked in an orbit of speed and motion, a joy that moved, untroubled by<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the world, na\u00efve, immediate-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and one night I invited Bobby over to my house, my neat little segregated<\/p>\n\n\n\n

neighborhood, with Jews and Catholics and depressed atheists you could identify<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by the hazard of their uncut lawns, as though the landscape<\/p>\n\n\n\n

were a kind of metaphysic-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and I recall the blend of excitement and unease I felt, a tension that went<\/p>\n\n\n\n

almost unnoted, when he and his mother, who was somewhat large and old<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and nearly gray,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

pulled up in what must have been a car from the 40’s, the lines of its hood<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and fenders and roof all beautifully rounded-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and though I can’t imagine now what it must have been like for him, just eleven<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and black,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with all those white people standing at the door and smiling, my mother, my sister,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

me, one thread-worn azalea on each side of the stoop, the front grass deep<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in oak-tuft and maple, still bright from recent falling–<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we were happy, glad to be there, shy, open, as boys are, or can be,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

uncluttered, and we spent the night flipping baseball cards, matching<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and mismatching sides, as called, the faces poised at the edge of action,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

pitchers in mid-windup, batters peering out at us as though we hurried,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

dangerously, spinning toward them,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the next day passing unmindful and content and curious, the world united<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in its flush and blossom-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

until a few weeks later someone complained to the league office, that Bobby,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

it seemed, was born three days too late or early, and according to their<\/p>\n\n\n\n

calculations,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

red Mars casting its martial shadow across the path of Venus, he was too old<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to play in the minors,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

so they moved him, forcibly, mid-season, by rule and fiat, to another team,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

which is when I learned what laws were made to do to those who hadn’t made them,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the world became, in a day, more dense and weighted, as though summer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

had thickened into a shadow<\/p>\n\n\n\n

no one could pass through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that, after the tears and objections, the vague tribunal of league officials,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

we would go, almost the whole team at first, the Sadowskis and Kramers and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engelhardts and Jones,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to watch Bobby play, first baseman now, as the coach’s son was a pitcher,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

but eventually everything just went away,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

disappeared, it seemed, into the oncoming heat of summer, the season’s end,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the way things can, and do, sometimes for good,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

though who can hardly tell for sure,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and for me it all became a kind of vague regret and choler in the climax<\/p>\n\n\n\n

of August,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a scar on a part of the body you cannot see<\/p>\n\n\n\n

unless you try to,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

until years later, in High School, when we met again-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

blacks, whites, Bobby, me, recognizable, glad,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

parked in our cars by the Great South Bay,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

playing Clapton and Hendrix and Herbie Hancock on our eight-tracks,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

smoking dope and drinking, and listening to Ralph Rivera tell us all<\/p>\n\n\n\n

about this book by a guy named Castaneda,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who we had not read,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and how he’d<\/em> learned the arts<\/em>, Ralph said, passing the joint to the person<\/p>\n\n\n\n

beside him, of another world<\/em>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

where a man might forget his body and rise, unfettered, into freedom and power,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

accompanied, depending<\/p>\n\n\n\n

on the character of his soul, the depth of his wisdom,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by the dark, shimmering, light-filled, knowing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

body of the crow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Losing the Self<\/h3>\n\n\n\nhttps:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/332\/2023\/02\/Little-League-edited.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n\n\n\n

It happens. Is happening. All the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ask the young couple who’ve just returned from their honeymoon in<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Montparnasse<\/p>\n\n\n\n

shaking their suitcases out above the white sheet they’ve spread<\/p>\n\n\n\n

on the hardwood floor of their new townhome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or the widow, just after Church, Easter, 2004, who’s convinced it’s somewhere,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the place that only exists if you never find it,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

her truck just sitting there, week after week, grazing the driveway, adjusting<\/p>\n\n\n\n

its shadow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day you wake up, your bowl filled with Kashi or cranberries, wrinkled<\/p>\n\n\n\n

as wet walnuts,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and sense it, roaming the maze of the body, seeking an outlet,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rushing to your feet when you stand up, to your head<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

when you bend down to handsweep<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a broken decanter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly you’re anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One minute it’s that boy trapped in a perpetual loop reciting the poems of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

extinct insects,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

another it’s the golden-haired botanist growing orchids in a swamp,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and yesterday you were that girl no one taught about measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


It was sunny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just this morning, for instance, for about 3 hours, you were your neighbor,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20 lbs. overweight and balding, recently divorced,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

dancing slowly, happily upon his porch, embracing the emptiness,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

gazing coyly into her sunglasses,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

whispering to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You recall it quite clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or someone does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A small iridescent butterfly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

clinging to the vine of the climbing jasmine,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

which freshens the air,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

a male grackle perched on an old antenna,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

planted, like a winterized maple,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the lawn.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":25234,"featured_media":4191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4219"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38805,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4219\/revisions\/38805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}