THE GREAT CARVER
For Tess

Without hope, with despair- this is not an intro but a untro.
In the words of Raymond Carver my hero. ‘Did you get 
what you wanted, I did’, to follow his spiritual current
in the clarity of his under-current of poetry, flowing
secretly subtle through my mind.

Given the book ‘Fires’ by a friend with the latest American Music
Club C.D, I read the poem for Karl Wallenda and it blew me away.
I was on that high wire walking the thin line of Carvers words
all over the world, this poem caught my breath and a poem never
done that before. I grew up reading books on the Secret Army
and Hollywood dreams, they were the only books in our home
his words held me up there on that high wire, wow magic.

This was the magic and loss that Lou Reed talked about
the music I loved and lived for transformed into words on a page
words from the street that took no prisoner’s.
Raymond Carver and Patrick Kavanagh are two writers who matter
Deeply in my world, although a lot of writers have inspired
me these two writer’s words were a part of how I walked and talked
I finished my M.A. thesis with a poem on these two writers.

RAY RIVER

Although I’m here in Donegal and not Yakima
Washington state, or in Dublin reclining
On the banks of the grand canal.
I feel a sense that Raymond Carver
And Patrick Kavanagh are here with me
Following the Ray River to the sea
Of this poem.

In the words of Lao Tzu, darkness within darkness, the gateway
To all understanding. My poetry is dark and very deep
Most by passed my work as depressing but this is the world I
Lived, awakening on a hospital bed just seconds after I was de-
Clared dead, paralyzed down my right side unable to speak.

I lived for ten years beyond the massive stroke that would have
killed a horse. Everyday I told the world what it was like to live
in that hell even if they didn’t like it, my words kept me sane, without
the power of memory and dream. The poems I wrote witnessed
the hell I endured, my poems come from a dead part of me like
a stipple of blackness, I seen almost every day
my darkness was within, most only see this
darkness if they survive a massive blow to the head or
witness their own passing.

It’s not your fault and I don’t blame you, my words are so honest
And true somedays I can’t take it but as I said in a poem
The dog’s honest truth has stuck in my throat
I don’t want to be here but I have no choice.
Like Carver who ate wheat in the poem “Prosser”, I know
I will never come close to the great Carver but
just to feel his presence is good enough for me.

Companionable.