No Road Back Home | Becoming is Superior to Being

Thomas R. Turner, May 23, 1942 – November 13, 2014 — Image by kenne

Standing above me in Smith’s 
Awkwardly looking down through a clipped hesitancy
 Our lives came together.

From within, mutually canceling
 Vignettes of naturalness and gender-cliche.’
She kissed through closed lips of
 Pristine openness.
 Innocently I loved.

After my return from the war
 I stepped into a world of Kafkaesque embraces; yearning . . . 
Paled with particular sensations
 I was momentarily blinded.

I could taste the t.s. eliot peach that I dared to eat. 
Looking at you the way you love the first person 
Whoever touched you 
And never quite that way again
 I savored my idea of you but missed the obvious.

Paradoxes betray the limits of logic 
Not of the reality, we shared. 
Your “passion” was stillborn through so dame necessary.

The aesthetics of my artifice went against the grain: 
Recreation, utilitarian achievements, and another  sexuality
Were hidden karmas of your soul. 
My recondite preoccupations rung up as
 No sale.

But let’s  
Skip the arguments. 
I already know how the story ends: 
A not so cryptic message – 
Don’t be naive 
You could only gaze into the distance at my life. 

— from 24 to Harwood and Cropsey — No Road Back Home by Tom Turner

######

A Brother Lost

Now that it’s daylight at five,
I am awakened by the
Soft sounds of morning doves,

Delaying for a moment
My feet hitting the floor —
Just long enough

To think about my brother
Who no longer writes,
Calls or returns mine.

There’s no reason.
He has never needed
A reason to not call —

For him,
calls need a reason,
even made up ones —

Sharing a quote,
Name now forgotten,
Need to reach out.

Now lost in the northwest,
Imprisoned by his mind,
Lacking courage to create.

Now each day, I live with
Words no longer spoken,
Words no longer written.

— kenne

Lummi & MCLAC Thomas R. Turner (May 23, 1942–November 13, 2014) — Photo-Artistry by kenne

This posting is the first of several I will be sharing from a long poem written by Tom
sometime around 1980 after his wife left him. Today is the fifth anniversary of his death.

24 to Harwood and Cropsy: No Road Back Home
(Taken from a Brooklyn Bus Route and the Title of a Blues Album.)

Standing above me in Smith's room 
Awkwardly looking down through a clipped hesitancy 
Our lives came together. 
TURNER 
With all the ambiguity that last name usage implies 
Was what she called me. 
Mannerisms of ingenuousness and a tendency toward the atypical 
Bespoke your ambiance  
                                     (Ineffably I wanted Her) 

That voice - 
Falsetto 
Laced in bursts of Peter's guffaws 
Seemed contrived with a dreamed-of authenticity.  

                                      (Your mouth, my love,the
                                       thistle in the kiss?) 

From within mutually cancelling 
Vignettes of naturalness and gender-cliche' 
She kissed through closed lips of 
Pristine openness. 
Innocently I loved. 

Through summer notes of vulnerability 
Together we embraced an entangled growth of uncertainty  

                                       (Our fictions were tempered in
                                        a painful and inward time) 

Desperate needs equivocated against ordained directions and 
Dead-end holdings of night-bakery-work. 
Even then yours wasn't other-directed but 
A need to keep the Self-absorption of your Ann Arbor soul on a 
Pedastal of conforming difference. 
Eliptically we lived in the interstices 
Between an illusion of  
Fulfillment and letters etched with 
"Know what?"