Author: stevekuusisto

Uncle History
Contains many histories
His flatus is terrible
He can empty an elevator
Its not enough
To say
Its history inside history—
There’s the air pollution
Barely contained
By his skin
Olfactory stuff occurs
Somatosensory tickles
Up the nose
Pity him
He gasses himself
Into unconsciousness
At least a hundred
Times a day
He wakes
In the Boston
Molasses flood
He wakes
In the sewers of London
He wakes and wakes
Yes the past
Can make him faint
But even worse
It wakes him up

Uncle History is tired
Since the dawn of writing
He’s been running in circles
What does this mean?
It means fuck Ben Hur
There’s no straight race
And all of living
Is the chase your tail blues
History never rhymes—
Though run around
Rhymes with
Hole in the ground
Fuck rhyming
Did you know
Nothing rhymes with history
Not mystery
Nor sophistry
Only near rhymes work
This tree—
And though it rhymes
With flee
He’ll never get anywhere
Exhaustion has near rhymes
Faustian
For example

Soothsayer

At twenty she came to me
Saying: you will write books
And some will read them
But you’ll not be happy
Life will be
A muffled clamor
You’ll be foreign
To yourself
Like one
Who speaks
The glaucous dialects
Of herdsmen
And all I heard
Was “books”
Authorship—
Not understanding
The loneliness
To come
And the crying out
For trees
To save me

Marigold

I’ve written of blindness
But not of the marigold
A failing
Astringent—yellow
Untroubled birth
Your first arrival
Is cream on cream
So bright
The Romans called you
Officinalis
Important
Unprompted earth

Aunt History has a ton of problems
She’s not unlike Penelope
Weaving and un-weaving
While outside her door
Brutal men
Tear at the curtains
Meanwhile
She inserts wisdom
Into tapestries
Treadle, warp
Reed and shuttle…
Homer never mentions
The song in mind
The Ithaca song
The one that keeps
Women going
It’s the oldest song
On earth—
Men don’t know
What its called
Which is why
It’s not in the Odyssey
It’s a Swedish word
“Namlost”
No name for it…

Something terrible happens
In Uncle History’s wrist
When he puts his hand in the stream
He feels premonitions
Innocent people and animals
Are soon to be harmed
He pushes deeper
Brushes aside the reeds—
So many ghastly forecasts
Water bearing rumors
Probable ones
What can he do
The future
Isn’t his specialty
There’s no word
For anticipating
Atrocities in advance
In turn
There’s no way
To defeat this
Cold water
On his wrist bone
Lonesome on the riverbank

His past selves
Trail him in the dark
Uncle History’s
Mendicants
Begging for alms
They cry out
“Remind us
Who was where
When the city
Locked its gates
Against Rousseau
Which passengers
Ran out of pills
At mid ocean
Father
You’re running so fast
We’re trying
To keep up”
But now Uncle
Is far ahead
Dressed
Like Mozart’s
Bird catcher
In a suit
Of feathers
But without mirth
Or a song

Uncle History has gone into the day so deep
Even the insects are in awe
His watch stops
Memories fade like smoke
Diderot, Catherine the Great
Clark Gable, Joan
Crawford all gone—
He no longer recalls
Who they were
He spins a bottle
Wobble wobble
Who’s this?
Why its David Niven
Returning to the school
Where he was beaten
As a child
Only to find
Its abandoned
First the places go
Then the people
But the insects
Beside the ruined factory
Know losing your mind
Is lovely

New York City 1903

The very day
Edison
Electrocutes an elephant
Caruso
Dressed as a clown
Sings
Of a broken heart
With a drum
In his arms
And Uncle History
Hears the “squillo”
That ping
In a tenor’s voice
Which only the greatest
Can achieve
He thinks
For the umpteenth time
Of Poe—
Believe nothing you hear
And only one half that you see
But walking up Fifth
The notes
Stay with him
There’s something
At work in his soul
Which he doesn’t understand

Aunt History knows an unending
Series of sayings—many
Taught by mothers
“Don’t poke that thing
With a stick…”
“Never eat something
That’s been dead
For more than a day”
She’s kept track
Of each word
For as long
As language itself—
Turns out
You can teach
Absolute crap
To small children
“Watch out
For those crippled kids
Those Black ones
Those who limp
That blind girl
Beware…
But c’mon over
Let me jiggle you
On my knee”