April 2016
Frederick Wilbur
fcwilbur@verizon.net
fcwilbur@verizon.net
I was brought up and still live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia so I rely on imagery derived from the natural landscape to explore human relationships. My wife, Elizabeth, and I have two daughters and three grandchildren. I have been an architectural woodcarver for over 35 years and have written numerous articles and three books on the subject. My poetry has appeared in Shenandoah, Green Mountains Review, The Lyric, The South Carolina Review, Southern Poetry Review, and others.
Editor's Note: In his submission letter Fred wrote: "Well, I’ve taken the April theme to heart though I suspect every poet on VV has a poem on poetry to contribute. (I also thought I’d be on time this time.) The poems are “Rendering a Soap Poem” which I hope comes off as light-hearted, humoresque; “Boxed” which may speak to the fate of most poetry; “Vessel: the Conceit of Craft,” which has a surface of cleverness but is, indeed, an over-the-top, self-mocking piece, and “Your Art’” which I hope comes off as a love poem."
Rendering a Soap Poem
Instead of images, smells:
bacon drippings scooped from a Maxwell House can,
the Dudley cookstove expels
a wisp of woodsmoke, a chew of Red Man
on this winter evening. The ham fat wheezes
and pops like an old codger, the pan
twitching, the first crisp crackling teases
the children, the air is rank and deep,
but this mingle of fats seizes
our imaginations and we leap
to conceit, calculating the lie
which soap makes of grease. The heap
of ash left by fire is slaked for the sly
hydroxide which burns in water as furious
as truth. Mixing the fat and lye
we conclude our curious
recipe—how plant and animal are combined
like ingredients in a luxurious
rhyme, like two in marriage entwined,
scrubbed clean and smelling so refined.
Boxed
Of corrugation, survivor of crush tests
and tattooed with priggish alphabets,
certified, bar-coded, it holds a big heart
of glitter-sweet Valentine candies perhaps,
or puzzles drop-shipped across postal maps,
big enough for hollow-point ammo, to start
a terrorist to waking, big enough for statues
of winged goddesses in bubble-wrap nests.
Six-sided cliché empty of desire,
recycle meets its inevitable end
when my personal papers are put in its storage,
and befriend silverfish, roaches, who forage
my thoughts—the box no longer paid to send
the world gifts, that might by chance inspire.
Vessel: The Conceit of Craft
We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms. -John Donne
A burly hunk of wood is reduced to a turn
of phrase, a spalted flitch on the turner’s lathe.
The gouge hollows out the heart to earn
the pure form, nuances of verse to scathe.
There is a mixed metaphor on the grainy page,
like a scythe, meaningless without its snathe.
To strain the rhymes (to shave the vessel to a gauge
too thin) is to invite the centrifugal forces
of hubris with its blood and keen wit to wage
war on this our common sense. Motored horses
release the birds, those winged images which nest there:
the shards flying into concrete block courses
of the poet’s shop. One craft ends with predictable scare,
while the other interprets life with words that swear.
Your Art
Mine is a beggar’s art,
possessing nothing but what gives itself to me
—broken wings and bitter seeds—
and you, my only constant patron,
sneak into consensual guilt
with your stunt lips and wanna-be smile.
Mine is a mistaken notion of survival—
in boasts of spoils foolishly won,
to gods I give pretzels and power drink
and you, in late summer proselytizing,
hand me a charming apology I dare not refuse,
beauty being the bait of desire.
Mine is an obnoxious modesty,
my personality slowly killing me,
yet you crawl into meaning by phases
like the moon avoiding Leo’s mouth.
You are the old habit, unbroken.
Mine is a woodcarver’s wound
intimate with changing lights, the sliver
is a fabling panic. I am duped
by the well-known puzzle cliché,
but you, with the faith of firewalkers,
ransom me for a wiser time.
Rendering a Soap Poem
Instead of images, smells:
bacon drippings scooped from a Maxwell House can,
the Dudley cookstove expels
a wisp of woodsmoke, a chew of Red Man
on this winter evening. The ham fat wheezes
and pops like an old codger, the pan
twitching, the first crisp crackling teases
the children, the air is rank and deep,
but this mingle of fats seizes
our imaginations and we leap
to conceit, calculating the lie
which soap makes of grease. The heap
of ash left by fire is slaked for the sly
hydroxide which burns in water as furious
as truth. Mixing the fat and lye
we conclude our curious
recipe—how plant and animal are combined
like ingredients in a luxurious
rhyme, like two in marriage entwined,
scrubbed clean and smelling so refined.
Boxed
Of corrugation, survivor of crush tests
and tattooed with priggish alphabets,
certified, bar-coded, it holds a big heart
of glitter-sweet Valentine candies perhaps,
or puzzles drop-shipped across postal maps,
big enough for hollow-point ammo, to start
a terrorist to waking, big enough for statues
of winged goddesses in bubble-wrap nests.
Six-sided cliché empty of desire,
recycle meets its inevitable end
when my personal papers are put in its storage,
and befriend silverfish, roaches, who forage
my thoughts—the box no longer paid to send
the world gifts, that might by chance inspire.
Vessel: The Conceit of Craft
We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms. -John Donne
A burly hunk of wood is reduced to a turn
of phrase, a spalted flitch on the turner’s lathe.
The gouge hollows out the heart to earn
the pure form, nuances of verse to scathe.
There is a mixed metaphor on the grainy page,
like a scythe, meaningless without its snathe.
To strain the rhymes (to shave the vessel to a gauge
too thin) is to invite the centrifugal forces
of hubris with its blood and keen wit to wage
war on this our common sense. Motored horses
release the birds, those winged images which nest there:
the shards flying into concrete block courses
of the poet’s shop. One craft ends with predictable scare,
while the other interprets life with words that swear.
Your Art
Mine is a beggar’s art,
possessing nothing but what gives itself to me
—broken wings and bitter seeds—
and you, my only constant patron,
sneak into consensual guilt
with your stunt lips and wanna-be smile.
Mine is a mistaken notion of survival—
in boasts of spoils foolishly won,
to gods I give pretzels and power drink
and you, in late summer proselytizing,
hand me a charming apology I dare not refuse,
beauty being the bait of desire.
Mine is an obnoxious modesty,
my personality slowly killing me,
yet you crawl into meaning by phases
like the moon avoiding Leo’s mouth.
You are the old habit, unbroken.
Mine is a woodcarver’s wound
intimate with changing lights, the sliver
is a fabling panic. I am duped
by the well-known puzzle cliché,
but you, with the faith of firewalkers,
ransom me for a wiser time.
©2016 Frederick Wilbur