Legend of the Squidhound

As a young man, Sean faced nature’s conspiracy of ambivalence at the mouth of the Mississippi River. It was the dark of early morning. Temperature in the air: ambiguous, unconcerned. Temperature of the water: a salted cool. Sean stood drowning his hook in waist-high water. He waited in his waders, snaking line into the flats and retrieving nothing. Was he fishing for flounders? No. They’re flatheads with eyes ever upward. He angled for squidhounds, those rad-ass bass always lithe in the fall. Surface-skimmers, shoal-strikers, they raise their eyes to hunt.

For the fiftieth time, Sean reeled back, unwound, and watched his popping cork splash in the current.

Sean [to nobody]: Great fishing, my ass. Pops, you were so wrong. I haven’t had a single strike! Not one! And I got up at three, too. I’ll tell you what. Three more casts, and I’m gone.

Pop! The cork disappeared, and Sean’s rod arched as line raced out, spool whirring.

Sean [to somebody]: No, you don’t. I’ve got you, no matter how far you swim. I’m bringing you in right now. I’m a fighter as much as you. Ah, and who are you?

A prominent black margin marked the fish’s posterior fin, and dark speckles lined the green ridge of its back. Sean lifted the fish from the water and wiggled the jig from between the fish’s front teeth. One marble eye searched Sean’s face. The fish croaked, sputtered, and spoke.

Fish [to somebody]: Who am I? I’m your nightmare.
Sean [to somebody, too]: You are not!
Fish: Yes I am!
Sean: No, you’re my breakfast.
Fish: I am not!
Sean: Yes, you are!
Fish: No, I’m a spotted sea trout, your nightmare.
Sean: You might be a spotted sea trout, but you’re no nightmare. How could you be a nightmare? I caught you, remember?
Seatrout: Exactly, you caught me. A spotted trout. And if you check the regulations, I have to be fifteen inches, yeah? Measure me.

Sean grumbled and pulled a tape measure from his wader’s illustrious pocket. Fourteen inches scraped out. Sean groaned. And again…

Seatrout [to somebody]: Yes, I’m your one-inch nightmare.
Sean [scoffing at somebody]: I think I can stretch you an inch. I’m hungry. Besides, you’ve been giving me lip. No fish should give me lip, you salt-cruster.

Sean prepared to slip the seatrout into his equally illustrious fish-pouch, but in the distance an engine hummed. As Sean’s eyes queried the horizon, the seatrout pounced at the black sea and disappeared.

Sean [sputtering to nobody]: Gave me the slip. Two hands! Pops always says to hold’em with two hands, never one.

Sean cast again, still muttering. The fishing line seemed to grumble with Sean’s discontent. He continued to cast until light kissed the ocean a deep green. Finally, shluop! the cork disappeared, the rod arced, and the line shantied out.

Sean: I hope it’s the trout. I’ll kill’em. Up you come and…

No. A flounder. Perimeter fins a dusky brown, a sandy tailfin, and those two awkward eyes, twitching. Sean scowled and reached for his tape measure. The fish wriggled.

Sean [to somebody]: Stay still, will ya? I’m just getting my tape measure. No need to get jumpy.
Flounder [to somebody]: No! Don’t! You can’t! I’m your, um, I’m your morning-mare!
Sean: My what?
Flounder: Your morning-mare? Is that right? Are you scared?
Sean: Scared? Why should I be scared? You’re a flounder. Now stay still, if you’re less than twelve inches I’ll let you go.
Flounder: Twelve inches. I’m clearly less than twelve inches.
Sean: You are not! You’re huge!
Flounder: Twelve inches is pretty big. I saw a grouper who must have been at least 13 inches, and she was at least twice as big as me. You should have seen her swim, the sweep of her tail. She swims over me all the time. A massive shadow, trust me.
Sean: Ah, the tape measure.
Flounder: What? You got it out while I was talking? Flip me around so I can look at you.
Sean: Seventeen inches. Aren’t you big?
Flounder: Stop it!
Sean: Sorry, but you’re over the minimum, and I’m hungry.
Flounder: My grandfather’s fins, but we’re disgusting. We’re thin. Stringy. Fishy.
Sean: And delicious. I’ve eaten flounder before.
Flounder: But

Sean dropped the flounder into his pouch and returned to fishing. The sun appeared. The sea warmed. The currents shifted. Sean smiled. His rockfish waited somewhere, scoping the surface, hunting. Shrimp beware. Herring flee. Sardine shipout. The rockfish is nosing from the deep, gilling for the shallow water. Ah, a flash! A surface something dancing. The rockfish bites and fights the illuminated line. A furious struggle: The fish snarls bubbles, and the fishing line winks. But two pillars draw closer and closer, and arms reach down, and

Sean [to somebody]: A striped bass! Record-sized, beautiful. You came, and I caught you. You are nature’s olive jewel, lined to perfection. And your eyes, what eyes! At least forty-seven inches and maybe fifty pounds. Breakfast is going to be monstrous! Hey, flounder!
Flounder [from the pouch]: Don’t put him in here with me! Just don’t!
Sean: I’m letting you out to make room for this fish. Get out quick.

With his right arm draped around the seabass, Sean untied the pouch with his left. Desperate, the flounder slammed his nose against Sean’s knee. Foolish fish, eyes always on the sky. Sean buckled and cried out. The linesider’s ten-pound tail slapped Sean’s face. The greenhead seemed to grin as it swam away.

Sean stood red-faced and dripping. Grimly, he set his bait and cast into the morning sun.
Sean [muttering to nobody]: Greenhead, linesider, rockfish, squidhound.
Sean [muttering a curse]: Striped bass.
Sean: Wait until Pops hears this.

delight

Twenty minutes before dinner I put the wine in the fridge to cool.
Red, a Pinot Noir, a walk with raspberries, Oregon's valleys.

A fillet of walleye in a gentle baste, a hint of salt, an aroma -
Oregano. The fish pops in the heat of the skillet.

My God, I love the cool handle of the scrapper - flip the fish
Oh! see the perfect brown, taste it in the air, feel your lungs.

Lighting is essential. No candles and yet ambiance.
One fork, one spoon, one knife, plate, and table. Modify that.

I like wine. I like fish well prepared. I like perfect lighting.

And I love music twisting elegantly in the background -
fishing nets draped over candlesticks and the delight of dinner.

Deflected Narcissism

Reading about your professors on the web is a kind of deflected narcissism. Dr. Jones and Patty Kirk gain acclaim for their published works, and I gain some strange kind of pride by association. The process couldn't be simpler. Simply type their names in a google or blogger search bar and browse the displayed sites, each with its own imperfect voice, thoughts, and praises. Or hop over to Amazon and search directly for the books themselves and read the meandering, anecdotal reviews stating what they liked, what they didn't, and above all how they felt about it. "It felt a bit preachy," is followed immediately by the next reviewer saying, "I love how the book never felt preachy." And as narcissism would have it, you condemn those who detract and commend those with the good sense to praise.

I didn't always have professors with small fame, but these four years have been good to JBU. Quality teachers have arrived, worked hard, and succeeded in publishing books and students. Older, more experienced professors have finally released their products of toil both in hardbacks and diplomas. The books have been fairly well received, each with its odd negative review, yes. But mostly positive.

It's strange to compare myself to these author's works. Of course, Confessions of an Amateur Believer or Is Belief in God Good, Bad, or Irrelevant: A Professor and a Punk Rocker Discuss more reflect their authors than me. But in some ways, the books and I are both products of their efforts writing and teaching. The book reviews are deflected reviews of myself.

I'm protected by two things. First, the reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Second, I ignore all negative reviews as a proper narcissist would. I am beyond my education. Maybe.

To an Unknown Woman

To an Unknown Woman

I delight in the back of your head.
I delight in your forest of hair that tumbles
Down from its peak,
Thins, and
Dies
On the foothills of your shoulders.

You turn and look at me.
Again, I delight in your hair
As it flies off those foothills, drifts,
And settles softly
Like willow branches after a storm.

Three impressions linger:
The silhouettes of your smooth cheeks
The range of your eyes
And the nature of our inverted intimacy –

I always look away.

It's Weird, I Know

The Players, The Actors, The Despairing

In this scene:
Jeremiah the Criminal Negotiator
Maria the Teller, the Hostage
David the Artist, the Hostage Taker

From Act 1, Scene 2

A seeming robbery has taken place. David has taken Maria hostage behind the teller window but allowed everyone else to leave the bank. These people report to Jeremiah that David has remain silent, not asking for money or ransom. Jeremiah announces his presence.

Jeremiah: I see your arms shaking, and your leathered hands

Trembling: black gloves, black gun tracing eights

On her cheek. I watch you tuck her hair

behind her ear with your weapon’s muzzle.

Maria (Whispered): And this I feel, the caress of desperation,

The promise of cold annulment waiting

One corridor down, that metallic slug

Cued before fourteen others, hoping for a finger’s touch.

Jeremiah: I watch and beg you pause to breath. Muzzle

That maw by loosening your fingers.

Relax and speak – expel the poison of tension

Creeping through your straining muscles. Exhale.

For we will take your calming inhalation

As growing hope for life’s continuation.

David: Tension is nothing. Tension is water wrapped around a line broken

By a strong tug and a thousand ripples. By a fish

Driven by fear of capture to explosion.

If that fish, perhaps a carp, could speak a line in human

Tongue, I know what it would say,

“Tension is nothing. Tension is water wrapped around a line. Broken.”

Maria (Whispered): You know fish words, but I fish thoughts,

“Oh, to burst from pond to sea by way of some inland bay,

Driven by fear of capture to explosion.”

David: But enough. No carp chews a human tongue. You brazen,

You beg me speak with your needle in my mouth? Says your stitch,

“Tension is nothing. Tension is water wrapped around a line broken.

Relax and speak! Let thought and communication – Let reason

Stay your flustered mind, stay that swaying finger

Driven by fear of capture to explosion.”

I am caught and know it. I know the yank of a thousand strings

Set in my lips and tongue. Set in and ripping. Yes,

Tension is. Nothing is. Like water, like my words: fragile, broken,

Driven by fear of capture to fragmentation.

Maria (Whispered): Before, as he leaped the counter and caught my arms,

I caught his current meaning: the silence baited with fear.

Now we are married by rings of steel, by the same

Waiting death –

Its coming and present capture

Of our thoughts.

Jeremiah: An artist often speaks in repeated

Lines, one image cast many times,

Odysseus lost at sea, then stranded,

Now stranded by domestic crimes.

Mourning is buried in recurrence,

As each passing lends power to a phoenix’

Tears. Remembrance bursts like currants:

Red, sweet, and swiftly destroyed by bricks.

You were the artist who knows life’s weeping,

Who sat quietly, uncomfortably in

Hard wooden chairs at night, thinking, scribbling

About circumstance and freedom’s absence.

Now you are the artist who marries all to

Death, who uses our lives to make dead art new.

In Glorious Response

(Advice poster #3 in the writing center: "Always write – and read – with the ear, not the eye. You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken. If it does not sound nice, try again.")

What does it mean, “if it doesn’t sounds nice.”
Must it sound pretty and nice,
as sweet to the ear as chocolate is to the tongue?
What if a sentence is bitter, soured by death and pain and fear?
It shouldn’t play nicely on the ear
Like an over-sweet rhyme
“If it doesn’t sound right, try again,”
sounds nicer than “nice.”

Precision is obscurity’s doppelganger.
“A square is a square! I see it precisely.”
Geometry sits passenger-side, shotgun ready,
And shoots deer from a pickup truck near
The forest of semantics.
From the road, Geometry shouts,
“A tree is triangle not a cone! A deer, a square quadruped
Riddled with my cylindrical
(bang!)
Now circular
Slugs.”
Precision grasps the steering wheel,
Revs the engine
And turns
To laugh with Geometry as
They bumble along what mapmakers call
A perfect and straight country road.

Perception is but a daydream of truth.
A black cloud, a bitter wind
That suddenly, sweetly, ruffles the hair
Of a child who ducks under a slick tire-swing
And spins, arms out, in a sort of wet rain
That drenches the rich black earth of an
Iowan cornfield,
That rusts the iron of a barbed, brush entangled fence.

Philosophical Problems

Formidable
My foe sits on cowls, cloaks
and confessional masks
naked
wasted, silent and frail.
Sits on grey cathedral steps.

Enticed
Doors open, they swirl and coalesce,
crowd and edge closer
to the beggar
naked
sitting on their chapel steps.

Defeat
I tear at their coats and scream
“your children, your homes!”
but trip on a cane and tumble
down their steps; I have lost
them.

Hope
The crowd parts. The beggar, my Foe,
naked
descends the chapel steps. Raises
my cowl, my cloak, my confessional
match.
I catch and burn.