ALL RESPONSES |
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On Saturday, August 27, 2005, at 4:26 P.M., the midway at the Minnesota State Fair was packed with people. A legion of seasonal employees ran the machines, accepted the tickets, and ensured passengers were buckled in safely before take-off. On the Thunderbolt, John Wayne Larson manned the controls and kept an eye on passing women. He was drunk. For the last eleven years, that had been his normal state. He had a friendly smile that hid trauma, was kind to the children, and never stole anything. But he was drunk and in need of a bath. As machine operator, one of his tasks was to inspect the structural integrity of the ride. He had done this the first day, but thereafter lost interest. John Wayne Larson was not detail oriented.
The ride had been underway for several minutes when a critical bolt fastening the spinning seat assembly began to work lose. As the assembly started to swing upward in its calculated trajectory, the bolt popped out; and the mass of metal and flesh went airborne. Untethered, free from mechanical restraint, it floated over the heads of nearby revelers like a five-ton feather. The event registered itself in the instinctive autonomic systems of those who observed it, but it happened too quickly for anyone to make sense out of it. Most people have no convenient frame of reference from which to interpret the sudden appearance of steel and screaming humans several feet overhead. For this reason, it remained, for those present, a surreal snapshot that was garbled on its way through their cognitive filters.
The laws of physics have no courts, judges, or lawyers. They are not enforced by police, as they cannot be broken. They are subject to interpretation and analysis but cannot be changed. Intricate and powerful, we are often at their mercy. In accordance with these natural algorithms of motion, the apparatus was released at the precise moment when the forward momentum barely overcame opposing forces. With only a slight amount of spin, and with barely measurable velocity, the amputated appendage landed with a thud 33 feet away from the main carriage of the ride. Not only were the physics favorable, but by some quantum quirk of human intent, no one was in the immediate vicinity of the landing. No one was injured; not even those in the detached seating. They sat stunned, not sure of what had happened. The scores of people who had witnessed the event stood frozen, mouths agape, trying to associate the image with the paradigm of Minnesota State Fair with which they had been so comfortable only a few moments ago. This lasted for a few seconds before total bedlam broke out. The crowd converged on the scene, expecting the worst; but injuries amounted to little more than a few bruises, as well as a few cases of soiled underwear. It was later said that several unique safety features built into the ride had played a role in saving the riders. As for why no one on the ground was struck or crushed -- this was a topic for philosophical conjecture among bystanders for years to come.
Randy Frankenthal and his girlfriend, Jenny Waltham, had been standing closest to the landing site. He had seen the blur, had felt the pull of the flying body as it passed a few feet above him. Later that day, Randy decided to break off several covert relationships he had been engaged in; and proposed to Jenny a week later. They were married in October.
Fransesca Braun was also close by during the incident. She had dropped out of her sophomore year in college to pursue a lucrative career as a dancer in local night clubs. In the fall, she re-enrolled as a biology major, graduated with honors, and began her practice as a podiatrist several years later.
John Wayne Larson quit drinking. He is now the produce and dairy manager at an upscale grocery store.
A writer and photographer named Michael Ramberg had been standing where the structure landed only a few seconds prior to the accident, trying out different angles for a photo. Later that year, he completed a novel that went on to become a New York Times bestseller for six months.
One of the riders is now an administrator for a regional literary website. He wants to do it again.
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In response to Cemetery in Kirksville, Missouri
Epitaph
His earth life was a word search.
Death has spiraled out his notebook,
snatched all those pens,
those reams of paper,
lined and unlined,
and smashed his hard drive.
No matter.
He is discovering trumpets.
Harps, even,
and a moving finger.
Look.
He writes on the twilight sky,
renders night music to the stars.
Every night is open mic
and all the words have been found.
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For the photo, Three Things
The mountain turns clouds
into air, trees into clouds,
changes aeonic
our questions turned upside down
are still questions in the end
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On the Midway
Sometimes she feels like a machine
on the Midway, her hair a crow’s nest
of lightning bolts, her forehead marked
by a Harry Potter sign. You’d think
someone would notice. Not the two
lovers, she wouldn’t expect attention
from them, but maybe, in the crowd,
one or two pair of eyes might glance
her way. But no, she might as well be
Medusa, conquered, all statues to her
disfigured, upturned, drowned, too,
for good measure. So why not
sell off her collection of Z-bolts?
Or turn ‘em over as state property?
Maybe she’d meet, in some stale office,
a Cupid flying around; with his predilection
for arrows he might invite her to party
with her favorite trio: Alexander
the Great, Wonder Woman and S-s-s-s-
uperman, clustered around their cups
of coffee, shooting off blunted bolts,
glorying in the old, long-gone entertainments.
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1. You can find a spot at the curb, cleverly avoiding the eager homeowners who appear to want you to cram your car into an incredibly narrow parking space on their front lawn-- a fate that has Door-Ding written all over it.
2. The Epiphany Diner is open for a hearty breakfast and you need a ramp-up meal for your day’s indulgence in one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
3. Dodging is infinitely easier. The crazy hoard of inattentive humans with deer-in-the-headlights expressions drawn by fried foods heavenly-scenting the air, hasn’t invaded for the day. And baby strollers are not yet wielded as the weapon of choice.
4. Neither the Tater-Tot-Hot Dish-On-A-Stick or Candy-Bar-On-a-Stick stands have lines.
5. There’s no danger yet of a sweltering mid-day sun bringing on excessive sweating. Therefore, there’s no need to seek with vengeance the few air conditioned buildings, where you have to pretend you really are interested in purchasing a new fireplace or a lovely log cabin up north, just to soak up the cool.
6. You pretty much have your pick of seats for the roller coaster.
7. With no one else around, the hawkers in the Midway direct their act mainly at you, making you feel what it’s like to be wanted.
8. You can get a good seat in one of the band shells, listening to polka-music in relative peace and contentment.
9. For hours, you can sit on the tractors, the new cars/trucks and four-wheelers on Machinery Hill, imagining they're your own, before someone else comes along and ruins your beautiful dream.
10. You can go heckle the World’s Largest Sow, making sue-y noises to your hearts content without worrying about an audience.
11. The Corn-On-The-Cob stand only has a line the length of the Milk Run.
12. The Skyride is not busy. Oh, wait a minute-- it’s never busy.
13. If you’re lucky enough, between bites of your foot-long hotdog slathered in fried onions, you can watch Princess Kay of the Milky Way’s likeness be sculpted in butter while you make funny faces at her, trying to spread a real smile across those creamy little lips.
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For the photo, St. Anthony Cemetery
say a word
over & over
enough times
and you go still
beneath your skin
when my sister
whispered mother
had died
there
was
nothing
even the carnation
wept, it’s petals
littering the ground
like blue confetti
after a noon parade |
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For Three Things
Love requires three things:
Wind to blow away each cloud of doubt
so the sky above washed clean by yesterday’s rain
holds nothing but clarity, but light
so that we can see our way to each other.
And a patch of grass to lay upon, to kiss you
and feel the earth sigh, while the trees
shade our hunger, our yearning. And a blessing,
that when night falls, I fall with you,
our bodies orbiting, spark & ignite
create new constellations,
the pull of you, my everlasting tide.
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For the photo, Utility Pole
Something of the stark grace
of this utility pole
reminds me never to waste a day
through inactivity,
because those hard working lines
are going somewhere in life,
receiving and sending messages,
sometimes even coupling.
I’m not sure what it all means:
how they work together,
the splices, transformers, repeaters;
and why some service loops
seem so clogged up, twisted,
rolling in upon themselves.
But really, I’m just content
with the mystery of it.
And when the afternoon
cools into shadows
that grow the utility pole
colossal
across the wheat field,
it becomes, for me, the God of Power
tapping into answers of the universe,
strung up in bird-wires
and nicely insulated bundles,
just waiting to be asked.
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The day before
I went into the convent
I wandered the state fair
with my quiet boyfriend.
I didn’t understand what
freedom was or how easy
it could be given away.
For ten years after that day
I would not be free.
If I had understood then
I would have eaten
two more corn dogs,
would have spent more time
circling on the carousel,
and on that small boat
through ye olde mill, more
quick kisses in the dark.
For me that fair was a jagged dream.
Bleachers, stands were angular eruptions
from the steaming concrete.
The streets were crowded with teens
who were going back to college,
to jobs at the phone company,
who were holding each other
on the roller coaster.
I wanted to not be ordinary.
Ignoring my own date’s misery,
I was already beyond the familiar
my heart left and leaving
sent forth the way loons swim
underwater like arrows, slowing arcing
toward what I thought was freedom.
That night he gave me a crucifix
wrapped in a blue bow.
I packed it and the next day
carefully placed it on my small dorm bed
surrounded by white curtains,
an unlikely memento on my pillow.
This I thought was happiness;
this I thought was love
but I had to go deeper and deeper
further in.
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We stopped on the way to the beach
to see his grave. I had not taken any of them
to Lakeview Cemetery, to the plot under
the tree where his body was buried
a cold January morning when frost stopped
our breath, lined his grave.
There is no view of a lake, although it sits
on a hill, the view is of strip malls and
the community college, of homes
built where fields and woods
stood when he was still living.
It was August and the sun had turned the grass
crisp and yellow, the color of old newspapers.
I walked to the tree, just south of the road
and searched for his grave. It was not there.
Another road, another tree, no sign of him.
Panic rising, my boys and husband in tow
I heard one of them say, why can’t she find him?
I walked away, face to the sun. He is not here,
a crow cawed from above, crooning what I knew
all along.
I will not find him. It has been too long.
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For Utility Pole
Woke this morning to pounding rain.
Power was out for over an hour.
I ate a cold sandwich and a coke
while I watched the storm
from my screened porch.
The outage brought me back
to a pleasant childhood memory.
Karen and I were the same age,
preschool,
she spoke Finn and I English.
Somehow we understood one another
well enough to play,
to the amazement of our parents.
Karen and her family lived on an old farm
with her grandmother.
Grandma Lidia refused to learn English,
she lived in a dark room off the kitchen
with only a curtain for a door.
She rarely left her room,
it was filled with her bed
a huge rug loom and boxes of rags.
Lidia would have nothing to do with
electricity out of fear.
So Karen’s family lived by Kerosene light
and an old wood cooking stove.
It was like stepping back in time.
A humble farm house with a bed
in the living-room and a narrow
stairway that lead to bedrooms upstairs.
I remember the warm subtle light
of lanterns as we giggled.
Power outages always remind me
of how much we rely on electricity.
Can’t even have a warm meal.
It seems wrong somehow.
to be so dependent on something
so unnatural.
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For the photo Vernal Falls
If we had done this when your mother,
with your mother, the last summer—
her hand went here sometimes,
and she’d as soon have screwed
this ring off wrong-way and snapped
the finger with it as have me lie
this silent, on my back again—
the things, the things your mother felt
I never wanted her to say—
I bit down, swallowed back, turned away,
sweat it out until the only thing I felt—
every day I wished that even at the end
we’d have our green-gold moment,
learn love, leaf out, grow old,
at the end of summer as we slowed and cooled—
but nothing bare, nothing gold, nothing green,
nothing stays. Let’s go.
I’m sore from so much lying in this spray.
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For the photo, Calvary Cemetery Statue
What is there left to will?
Give us something to punctuate
Where the seams fray.
Give us a breath,
Bequeath us a ghost
In this isolate ponderousness
Where the eye is as stone
As the cheek.
I have come to blaspheme this garden.
As the vespers shade
Man’s craving for fraudulence,
Anything I cannot show, I will see
Anything I leave, I will never believe
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For St. Anthony Cemetery
Drinking hot Sumatra on a Saturday morning
I sit on your lap, tilting the cherry chair back,
we are making a home, claiming old for new
tilling dirt, digging beneath the line…it’s ours now.
We are one, pressed into a dimension of mystery,
burying past pain like the dead.
We plant seeds, and you turn a flower out of me,
I pray that when the Creator takes you away—
I am already there, like an angel’s wing kissing the horizon
as we finally enter together, Perfection.
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For the photo, Calvary Cemetery Statue
He was always gone or leaving.
“I love you,” he said long ago.
“When I am dying it will mean
most to me that you were my friend.”
Like Lot’s wife I watched him leave
in the long line of those who have gone,
then searched, thinking something
would tell me why he left. I never found it.
Turned to salt in the middle of my life,
silence meeting the silence inside,
some call it a desert, scourge and vinegar.
It was all about his face on my soul.
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For St. Anthony Cemetery
That morning, I went to visit her,
bringing libations and spring flowers.
She blushed at the rising sun.
I washed her feet with gin.
Then, the sound a beating heart
makes in your ears.
Her face changed again.
She turned, looked at me, and smiled.
I handed her the irises.
They were the same color as her skin.
We spoke about the things we would do together.
Her shadow was in me,
her tongue red with my blood.
The sun descended.
She turned to stone, again.
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For the photo, Atop Vernal Falls
Gorges love rushing
water loves sand
beaches love the edges
of your feet, and the prints
they leave imbedded
in my memory
are warm and smooth
like your lips
& I love them
& looking into your eyes
as deep as a gorge
& just as easy
to get lost in.
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For the photo, Three Things
a cloud, a tree, half
a stone dome i own
because i see them,
co-exist with them
they are mine, only
through the wind-
shield can i lay claim
to a world there is so
little left to control
between where i
was and where i
am is the locus
where my giving
and my taking collide |
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For the photo, Tree and Lines
...love was like being robbed, and the relationship a campaign to get your things back.
- Michael Ramberg
Blue soul smoke
from rubbish bins
you sitting a little apart
a step below talking
about the wedding
I with the keys
the bone fingers of the cottonwood
half-clasping
ruled across by power lines
both wire and tree trafficking
the one by copper and post
the other in roots
while the chickadees
that nest in the attic hop
from one to the other
and I love caressing that
sun-struck leg of yours
from the short jean skirt to
your ankles and also watching
that tottering smoke column
collapsing as we sit
a little apart, I with the keys
you talking about the wedding |
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Response to Kirkwood Cemetery
graves on a hill
rock collection
stone deaf stone blind stone broke
stony lonesome
granite limestone marble
tilted askew
not flanders’ field row on row
symmetry left to bones below
rock collection
hearts of stone
ground of being
stones cast
first and last
steppingstones
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Icons of bolts remain
Of antique divine
Greco-Roman fury
Though no one drops
Off sincere offerings
To faithless gods
Any more than kings
He laughs still at irony:
Spinning rides for the petty brave,
The pretty women in twirling skirts
The tiny dramas, the preludes to tragedies
Epic as spilled ice cream and lost keys
Forgotten as a terror
Surviving immortal as stories
Needed more as luxuries than laws
All is fair, all is fair,
The horror, the horror
He mutters, turning back to the house
Where Hera dwells,
Waiting with a dusty sigh for all his flaws.
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