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16 - quit school to be a cowboy
17 - tried to join the Marines
18 - called to be a Baptist preacher
who's that sentimental American fool
I am that hyphenated citizen
The Foolish-American
born on All Fool's Day
fluent in Foolish
raised in the heartland of Fools
where we translate Americas as
Amo Amas Ame Ricas —
we love riches
prophets & profits of raw war
from arctic to tropic
Foolish-Americans have traipsed
raising our arms
pens plowshares and swords in hand
offering our spoor
a proud Foolish-American
raised on homeland clod & sod
as Foolish roots hold the deep
as America
bristles
& twigs
now not a proud Foolish-American
for cannons named Sacrifice
howitzers called Slingshot
in the old country
Foolsland
our president was a poet
his concubine controlled
a Department of Peace
(which makes all Fools giggle)
in this new world of deserts
pick up chalk & scrawl
POETS PREFER PEACE
on the other side
in invisibly large Foolish letters —
GIVE US POETS AS CANDIDATES
now now I'm beginning
to want to forget
my Foolish heritage
now now I remember
to try to embrace my American half
& Lady Liberty's thorny crown
stop at the light
theres a bank on the corner
with bilingual clerks
war begins with a double you: you; no, you
as if this were high noon & you cast no shadow
except your heart — dark as a sharecropper's neck
dark as the inside of his long cottonsack
— your heart is the shadow; or is my heart the shadow
except there is no my or me in war
unless on the freeway when a dark rage
the lizard—brainstem who remembers how important
to get to the water hole before the others
the others, the not us
the tribe beyond the hill, the less than human
they make the night to our glorious day
and, no, there is no whee in war
like evil & live, war is raw
: so, we may be the shadow on our collective stage
strutting a pomposity, gesticulating madly
: this is the show here — lights, camera, action
life is precious: a boy from our valley, dead
life is precious: a shopkeeper from their valley, dead
if I did not watch, would the show stop
surely, there is no I in war
no, like the tree falling in the solitary woods
there is no sound, but there is a wave
a wave begins with a rising floor, the wave seeks a beach
wave also begins with a double you
only under the surface, we are us, a sea
so say the mystic poets, only the thinnest veil
between you & me, only a few chromosomes
whatever crawled out of the sea ages ago, the first us
maybe at sunset its shadow will become clearer, distinct
but by night be gone looking for another beach
looking for a story to climb into
like inside the cottonsack: it's warm & soft
my heart is not black, here with the cottonbolls
it's pure light; the war is in you
: no, it's in you; no, it's in you
who, now, is this other voice, softly, even sweetly, saying
: yes, by golly, the war may be in me
Keller grew up in El Paso, Texas. At 16, he quit high school to become a cowboy. After a couple of weeks, he realized being a singing cowboy would probably be much easier and more fun.
Keller recorded an album in 1983, Around the Bend (Eutaxia), a CD in 1997, Gene Keller: 99 NAMES (Eutaxia), and another CD in 2004, Every Song the Mockingbird Knows (Street of Trees). His poetry aired on PBS in 1995 (Are We On? with Buck Henry). He has released several books of poems including Oñate and the Nightbirds (Sun Dance,1998) and 13 Full Moons (Street of Trees, 2001), as well as a book of stories, Big Tent Jubilee (createspace.com, 2009).
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26 Jan 2012, 17:59