Glenn Sheldon
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Glenn Sheldon is a widely published poet and critic. He is the author of the critical monograph, South of Ourselves. His first full-length poetry book, Bird Scarer, was published by Cervena Barva Press (W Somerville MA) in January 2008. Currently he is an Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Toledo. One of his favorite courses to teach is “Food and Eating in U.S. Culture”
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Bird Scarer
1.Lost in thought by the Lincoln Park Zoo,
I startle pigeons feasting on bread crumbs.
They scatter in four or more directions.
“Bird scarer,” an old woman hisses at me.
I feel cursed for the year. She sits to wait for
the return of those who count on her blessings,
gray rats with wings, citified albatrosses.
2.I can’t go home (I’m a bird scarer). Better to
hit a dance club, that loud denial of reality.
Carol’s Speakeasy or the club down
the street that changes its name weekly?
Yes, that one. This week it is Pegasus
and not The Bat Cave. The bouncer nods
as if a Pope, in training, and I enter a world
Without clocks or bill collectors (but for
the bartender). I’m here wherever that is,
where everyone dresses in black like vampires.
3.For seven days I seek that old lady, but she is
gone, vanished in a city that wears ambulances
like costume jewelry. Her pigeons remain,
sure of the bread that will be theirs – sooner
or less sooner. This bird scarer leaves
the park to the scattering feathers that grip the light
and own the joy of movement that human
architecture, even at its best, will never know.
I intend to scare myself. I begin writing again.
Island Landlocked
There is a boat in the attic.
It’s too narrow for the hall and stairs
that lead upstairs to the forgettable.
Perhaps the home was built
around it while stranded in the air;
nails and wood offer mercy
spoken of but rarely demonstrated
in holy books, where sketch artists
are given free reign. The Boat
floats above the tree line, but not
too near the moon’s deserts.
It’s not a yacht hatched in a nest,
but also not a rowboat stuttering
It’s way to dreams of distances.
It’s my attic, if not my boat, not yet.
Is the sea an inheritance for
DNA sailors? Or are some
Inarticulate math problems: boat,
attic? Am I the fourth wise man,
auditioning? Sometimes, I sit
in the boat to hear the wind and
make the attic’s flaws obvious. Other
times guests join me, and we hurry nowhere
at all, a great pleasure. The attic is
kind to the boat, keeps it in place.
Less intimate friends want to reserve
their rides in recondite spaces. As if. . . .
As if the attic is the boat and
the boat consumed by the harboring.
As if . . . not. Not the elusive nature of
real spaces crashing upon the imagination
Is there a boat and is there an attic?
It feels good to ask questions in
this age of the post-post-something.
My house is full of mystery, as were my lovers
who refused to believe there is ambiguity and
a backstage in theaters. Why do favorite
novels and poems have to end? Most
séances disappoint and rarely validate
parking tickets. “Nail the damned door,”
I say in a dream. This I report over
a breakfast of mimosas and croissants with
friends. Boat and attic beg for me to burn
down the house, to give them at least a taste
of air, as if the sea is mine but not mine to give.
