[John Riley]

The Thing You Can’t Hide

He knew when the roof boss said it would take two days
to peel off the old shingles that they would have to go slowly
because the roof had been there so long they couldn’t know
the condition of the wood beneath until the layers were gone
that somewhere inside the reservoir of things that float inside
and things that cling outside to the last leaning post until
the scalding dust scraped away the last remnant of wood or bark,
or the skin from all of the bodies lying dead on the last battlefield
of the last war of discontent and leave behind bones shining
when the noon sun appeared, or a fresh moon, and when the clouds of dust
cleared and new men appeared riding even larger horses
to say that the end of the war had appeared unbidden,
like a miracle of the everlasting, that there, inside the reservoir
of things that float and things that cling, he would finally find
what was needed for him to lie down beneath the softening boards
of his retreat, find there what was last, having long forgotten the first,
and wait, minus contentment, for cessation of the last repairs to his next-to-final home.

[Carl Copeland]

John, I can’t help trying to make a coherent sentence of this. I’m derailed by “that” at the start of L5 and never manage to get back on track. “That” seems to follow from “He knew” at the start of L1, but the clause it promises never pans out: “He knew … that somewhere [something happens?]” There’s no reason, I guess, why a poem can’t frustrate my grammatical expectations—inner speech may be a lot like this—but it had my head spinning until I decided I’d better just relax and let the wall of words roll over me. Sorry if this comment misses what you’re doing altogether.

[Matt Q]

Hi John,

I like this a lot, John. It rewards rereading. The more I read it, the harder I found to summarise it. I'm seeing an old man, in his "next-to-final home", with his final home, perhaps, being the grave. I can see him, on a literal level, not being able to sleep, though that might be because I'm familiar with insomnia being in your poems. Perhaps he's just not yet able to lie down in the sense of give up, stop fighting against the inevitability of death. He seems to not yet know what's coming. What's last. And what's needed for him to rest, or a least stop, since rest might imply contentment, which we're told he won't find. I like the way the list of what might be found when the roof is stripped back continues on and leaves me hanging there, waiting for the sentence continue. That waiting seems very apt.

I have very little by way of nits, beyond that last line seeming maybe overlong. I wonder if it could be broken thus?:

and wait, minus contentment, for cessation
of the last repairs to his next-to-final home.

so as to emphasise "cessation", and waiting for cessation.

Carl,

I'm reading, "that somewhere inside the reservoir of things [...] he would finally find what was needed". It's a quite a gap before the promised clause arrives, but I'd say it does.

best,

Matt