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Art by Ross Macdonald
My father's hands
My father had so many hands
He had almost three
My father had so many hands
He had almost three
My father had almost three
Hands
But not enough
To touch me once gently
O my father had so many eyes
He had almost three
My father had so many eyes
He had almost three
My father had almost three eyes
But not enough to see me
Once perfectly
My father had but one mouth
And one heart
To lift those bales and bales
At the factory
My poor father of fists and fists
Beating at the wall
Beating at his brow
Beating at his children
My poor factory father
Lined and fat-bellied now
Tranquillized and happier
Made smaller by so many sons
The winds gave him only one
Heart
And they said
“here -- spin it
Make it the hole in rock
We whistle shrill through
Grit your teeth and count your
children
He wonders what to do with
Hands now
Where to put them --
These tender lined things
That ache for sons
O my father we are here –
The prints of wanting
Emblazoned on us like
Radioactive brands
My father had so many hands
And he waves them now --
Ashamed a little
Looking puzzled as we leave
At the movement from his wrist
As if he wondered – what are they
When they are not fists
My Mother's Hands
They call me over the wilderness
over the waves, fingers in dials
fingers in rings, through
keyboards of ivory
wringing themselves
bone dry
they call
that sewed with thimbles
those raw things, those dangerous
hands
poet's, painter's hands, trapped
in a woman
hands of mind, dripping with
talent always talking
of slitting themselves open at
the wrist
and just running away from it all
saying "sometimes I just
feel like dying --"
In certain shapes memories are
kept
flashing for a moment over the
ages
as though from a genetic shore --
warnings, beauties, secrets
mother, mother --
this poem should be about your
blood
your blood in the bath
threatening to be there
diluting the water behind the
locked door
where you washed yourself making
no sounds
"Mom"
as we lay awake in the room
beside you
in our beds, calling out at
regular intervals
"MOM"
just to make sure that life
hadn't just slid out of you in there
in a slow freezing rush
Mother
this poem should be about the
white of statues
the way you would say "this
time I'm not coming back"
and walk away after arguments or
blows
wrath, down the street
a long way to where it bends
and then turn
me praying, giving up
preposterous rights
anything to god to jesus
to whatever it was that had the
power to reassure me
Eventually she always came back
her hands freezing in the coat
having walked it off I suppose
cooled out
back
with a kiss
to show us
that brutality
can have the softest face
the most gentle hands
of all
I Knew I Could Sing (Industrial
Accident No. 1)
I knew I could sing
when my hand got sucked into the
rollers at the factory
cause I hit a high note then that
they said
was heard over the sound of the
machines
all the way up to the front
office
Even as the rollers whirred and
burned
and gnawed at my flesh
my mind in its detached way
was listening to that note
marvelling at its purity
I was deep in shock
by the time the men ran over
and finally turned the machine
off
The great cylinder ground to a
stop
and just weighed down there --
a painful rim
like a whole world
squashing my hand
When they finally unscrewed the housing
(there was no safety release at
all)
it took three men to lift up
the great fallen log of the
roller
and then as the blood rushed back
in
to the white branch of my hand
I knew I could sing
I knew I could sing
Why I Crushed My Hand
I crushed it for my girlfriend
I crushed it for my dad
I crushed it for my mom and my
squashed history
in the head
I crushed it for factory safety
--
a young martyr at sixteen
I crushed my hand because I
wanted to see what it was like
for the school system and
workmen's compensation
just to have a story
because there was a piece of
paper caught in the roller
and I wanted to get it out
so I grabbed at it and got sucked
in
feeling a great tug on the flesh
all the way up my arm
I crushed my hand for world peace
because I wanted to stop
the fighting in viet nam
no -- I wanted to get out of my
homework
I wanted people to stop hitting
me
and I wanted a kiss from those
Indian lips of hers
those dark kisses
of Shamim*
I crushed my hand because I hated
working in the factory
I wanted to be out in the sun and
I wasn't having this
60 dollars a week
40 dollars a week is what I got
on compensation
and this skin graft on my hand
where the flesh was burned off in
an oval egg shape
I crushed my hand because I
wanted to get the paper out of the rollers
because I had heard the story
over the supper table
a million times before
because I wanted to know the
careless violence of machines --
metal without pity, just power
surging --
to sing, to do a great circus
act, a man with a hand like a white leaf
WHOOP, a man with a hand like
steak
a purple football, a man with a
hand like a great yellowing yam
big as hell in the bed, in the
cast
I crushed my hand to give
starving doctors work
to keep the hospital going
because I wanted to see what plastic
surgery was like
I was young and I wanted to meet
a physiotherapist
I had never had manual whirlpool
baths before
and my guts, my guts were ready
because it was the damn hand
that picked up the phone, that
got the news, that got the refusal
the rejection, blackened by
plastic over the wires --
a baleful voice saying no saying
no
because it had dared wave goodbye
because it had been in the
service of the empire and was tainted
and needed to be punished
now I wouldn't have to do my
share of the housework
I could just walk around with
that large bandage
the hand held high, in traction
as though in greeting and look
like a holy man or a fool
I crushed my hand to find the
hidden map in the flesh
that would lead me to poetry, to
you and to the page
I crushed it to get out of there
and get my ticket stamped
and get on with it
*my first girlfriend (a native of
South Africa) who had recently
rejected me.
Industrial Accident No. 2
One minute the fingers were quite
straight
and beautiful
I was pushing a plank lengthwise
into a table saw and I said to
myself --
"Be careful now -- your hand
is getting close to the blade
and you've already had one
accident."
Then the buzz saw bit into me
with a singing twang
splattering blood over three
walls
in a wide halo of drops
My hand seemed to be ringing
like a bell as
I held it up in horror --
all the fingers exploded outward
like red flowers at the tips
My other hand grasped
tourniquet-tight about the wrist
"Take me to the
hospital" I screamed
jumping up and down
Now one finger is permanently
bent and stiff
On cold days I don't dare type
with it
and it is useless for picking up
dimes
Nor is it good for pointing out
directions or fault
knowing as I do
that finger is always somewhat
pointing back at me
ADVENTURES
OF MY HAND
So far away as my pocket, as close as your
breast, my hand cannot get to the banquet on time. It is coming in from a
far-off place, on a rocket, on a train. My hand the worker -- a gigantic fist
kept in a stall, pounding in fury. My hand in a suit pretending to be a man on
some luxury liner crossing its legs. My hand is a great poet always writing. I
remember it coming back from the factory crushed in a machine when I was
sixteen -- a fat mottled rainbow, huge as the hand of a god -- a great fist in
bed. I remember it slipping like silver into those rollers coming out crushed
flat -- a white web of bones till the blood held back rushed in to fill it, to
rejoice in its return, shocked, running over the broken vein mouths, bleeding
ever and ever inward -- a huge gush down from the wrist that would blacken and
rot. My hand screaming. My hand in bandages -- those fat purple fingertips,
that burnt palm, that swollen wrist -- all of me threatening to bulge out into
this multi-coloured bruise. My hand Joseph. My hand Jacob and Christ and
Neruda. My hand the rebel, the fist, tied down by a million machines but still
rising in the air, still smashing down on the earth, snapping the threads,
grasping and clawing its way to freedom. My hand is hunted now. It wanders over
the world in search of its own kind. It goes from door to door trying to be
joined up to something, knowing it is just a small piece of the puzzle.
THE
VIOLENT MAN'S HAND
The violent man's hand fell into the dust
and withered to the size of a seed. Later from that spot grew the wheat that
would be ground down into the earth by armies, the grains that would be burned
and turned back to earth in peace.
The violent man's hand fell into the heap
and from it a bird burst -- a bright bursting bird, a third bird, a herd of
birds so that the hand leapt and spattered as each bird burst from it. Finally
it was a spent black splinter from which blue sparks leapt.
The violent man's hand sank into the earth
at 2 miles per hour, heavy as lead. To come back as a bomber angel, dark
Lucifer jets with arms full of crosses and gelignite, bleak bomber angels, that
only to look into the eyes of a new born child can bring down, one by one --
dark flies, dark fear-flung fists overhead, the severed hands of those who
would strike us, dark wings of surrender, bleak hands of poverty thrown high.
The hand that was nailed up, crossed down,
crushed at the foot. The hand that went mad and took on rage like seven
gravities. That is why there are holes in Arkansas, call them comets, call them
what you will. There is rage in those hands when they come down and the
children run inexplicably past certain houses, terrified of a sound no one else
can hear.
THE
MAD HAND
Once there was a floating walking hand
which went round and round the world darting and crawling, hoping to evade
detection, sometimes scaring drunks and small children. A wild leaping
scampering hand not wishing to be part of a circus but utterly mad, knowing
only old routines and concentric habits like circles at the bone -- to dance,
to tap, and insanely to shake hands. That’s why this hand took to creeping into
embassies and literary parties, so that it could crawl up table legs, wait for
the right moment and then dive into a handshake, usurping the place of the
intended other hand with a shrill kind of scream. This is the hand that madly
signed papers over and over again, pouring wine glasses back into nothingness,
tilting back beers, making its stump shriek like a whistle.
For a while the hand hung out with spiders
thinking it might be one of them. It
dreamed of running over buttons like a minefield, setting off sequences of
roses in some drunkard's head, detonating poems like Q-blasts. "Arrrrg!
Take me to the abodes of people! Get me into a glove! I will buck and jolt. I
will seize up and spit blood if I do not get involved in a caress."
One thing the hand liked to do was grope
and poke at parties -- touch people in places no living human being could get
at -- give a poke in the dark and then roll across the floor like a
combat-trained creature, chuckling with sheer unbearable squeals as the puzzled
party-goer nervously eyed whoever was behind him.
Sometimes the hand liked nothing better
than to ride the still surface of a stream like a water spider -- to just hang
there above its own reflection, each finger, as it touched the mirror, leaving
a poem to the sky, an ode to the sun, a divine literature.
Also it is true that the hand would
sometimes go into a factory, start up the conveyor belts and madly assemble
amazing gadgets, strange amalgams and marvelous gimmicks, all the while whistling
with its strange humour until it fell down exhausted.
Of all things, the hand most enjoyed
slapping the faces of dictators when they made big speeches on television. This
made the hand well-known to all despots, but due to the fact that these
programs are pre-taped, the mad escaping hand never had the pleasure of having
its handiwork seen by the masses. So if you ever see a political speech and,
after a commercial, the great leader comes back on looking a little stunned, a
widening red imprint spreading out on his cheeks, look at that shape, that map,
that message in the right light and you will see it for what it really is --
the mark of a mad hand.
Single Father
The father counts his money
then he counts his children
How many sons does he have?
He has one son
One Son!
The father counts the hairs on
his beard
and does division
How many children does he have?
One child!
The father counts the windows
How many chairs in the house?
With mounting avarice he counts
the chairs
How many? How many? How many?
How many fingers
He has ten fingers
How many children?
He has one child --
A son! A son!
but the son is gone
The father counts his shirts
How much sand does he own?
How many sons?
How many sons does he have?
Saturday the child comes to him
How many children does he have?
He has one
The man has one son
And how many fingers?
The son has ten fingers
"Good! Good!" says the
father
grabbing his son's hand
as he comes in the door --
"So many fingers!"
"So many fingers!"
My Son’s Hand
It
is a brand new Van with those kind of sliding doors that close with a
longitudinal push and my first attempt has not quite clicked it shut so I draw
it back again for a firmer push. We are waving goodbye. “Goodbye Peter. Goodbye
Peter.” but that is not enough for my young son. He is too low to the ground and can’t be
seen. He must peak back through the doorway – his waving hand leading the way
to that rapidly narrowing space. ‘No!’ The green door propelled by my thrust.
The tender young hand, slowly, slowly in microseconds moving to its moment, the
snap and catch, the click and howl. His little hand pinned, bunched up like
cloth – “NO” in the closed door. Staring, disbelieving a moment at this
grotesque echo from my own life. Then, quick, the door is open, the shocked
look spreading out – holding him to me “NO!” Folding him into me. “NO! NO!”
These moments – true pain – “Can you move your fingers. Can you move your
fingers?” – before the little digits twitch – before the little wrist bends.
The hand unbroken! The elastic hand fine but for a welt – a curved mark on the
same hand – the right hand – same shape, same place as my scar, almost one on
one. But him recovered now – the hand forgotten in moments of play-acting, the
incident over but for that slowly disappearing welt, written in his flesh like
a letter in some strange alphabet that finally explains everything.
MY HANDS SPLINTER ON
My hands splinter on
More branch lightning
From the long list
Of lightning hands
That struck in anger
Exponential fingers
Gripped in one fist
Full and hard
I smacked him in the head
My own son!
My hand my hand
That went through a machine
Crushed flat
My hand I got
From killers of kings
My hand that branched down out
Of time at me with a mighty clout
Of blood
I struck my eldest
In the head
Full-fisted hard
His head sideways
On the ground
I confess
I confess
That’s the worst thing
I’ve ever done
Rotator Cuff
My shoulder is a chip on itself
It is one side of a wave reared
up against my head, my hairdo
Both are extensions of my
shoulder
I am still hunched to the rifle
Hump to the shovel
I have shoulders to keep the hat
above my ears
And on my left shoulder the
cannon
And on my right the dove
My shoulder is a mountain in the
making
Ragged pulleys pickaxes chip away
at it
My shoulder is a glacier
retreating
An ice flow tipping into the
north wind
One side of a star tacked up to a
hockey stick
My shoulder swivels like a target
It hangs like a ragged sock
Some frightened animal is trying
to get out of my shoulder
And every movement beats its
fiber with a bat
My shoulder is a failed epaulet
hung in tatters
From the gallows pole
It rips at itself like a bird
with one wing
Every string taut and tugged
A snow bank on a one-way highway
It is a butchered moose
Road kill on a rack
Something on the end of it
Flapping in the sky
A hand
Trying to write
Industrial
Accident 3: My
hand (an update)
Time
revved its wheels at the back base of my thumb
At the
bottom back of my index finger
In
that V there
My
skin was stripped out
Burned
bare
I saw
the grid coming through my hand
I saw
the latticework underneath the crisscrosses
I
still feel the scaffold in it always
My
hand where a burning god walked
Where
gears of skin meshed
Standing
up now without a staff
Having
woven new flesh from old
Having
knit new nerves from old
It
extracts from broken glass
New
clear panes
Once
crushed in the tons of machine
It now
pulls from thread
The
delicate thread
Within the thread
Robert
Priest, is the author of fourteen books of poetry, 3 plays, 2 novels, lots
of musical CDS, one hit song and many columns for Now Magazine . His words have been debated in the
legislature, posted in the Transit system, quoted in the Farmer's Almanac, and
sung on Sesame street. His 2008 book: Reading the Bible Backwards peaked at
number two on the Globe and Mail’s poetry list. Rosa Rose, a book of children's verse, in praise of inspirational
figures, has just been published by Wolsak & Wynn and recently won a silver
moonbeam award in the U.S.. A new book of poem for adults, Previously Feared Darkness, was published in Sept. 2013 by ECW
press.
websites
poems online
to buy a book:
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