The Man Not Right
to the memory of Azel G. Manning, 1878-1952
For several decades
The sun seemed dark for sorrow, his monument
By the side of the road reminder
That he tied his horse to one parking meter
Downtown (I saw this) to preach and sway passersby
To follow the Man who scarred his hands
For their life-stories,
As they might forgive themselves
To hear his – Azel’s – tales of woe untutored
In his art as fourth-marriage vows,
While the new-made bride
Waited for short spaces to breathe
Her story free of tedium
Of his purge,
His wild looks binging
Deep in the churchyard’s quaking
Graves: he called himself the “High Knocker of the Lord,”
While his beard trembled before and after times
He unhooked the bridle from his horse
That clopped for Muses that sang for nearby privies.
Dogs liked him.
And why not.
His little Bible in his hand he also traveled in trains,
As listeners tuned their ears to his spells
Grounded in throes for those whose lives
Missed his mystical proportions; he swore by circumstance
Never to lose his soul to houses of gold.
He made his living selling produce.
My Sweetheart
My sweetheart writes from Mule City,
A non-rodeo town, a pity,
She says, underneath all the straight
Shoving she does under her skirt
Of off-white and the clownish
Socks she likes to wear and wish
I would own up to some lunacy
Which lodges memory
This side of life, while the religious
Folks strut with their bodies
Safe from God’s hindering blush,
All that strengthening rush
Of blood without those Depends
Her mother wears like a thin
Veil between what mortal gulf
Lays down its bridge in gasps
When the preacher asks if we
Believe in heaven and hell
And I do not arm myself
To say along the way that shelves
Fill up with views on prayer.
Listen: this speedy age needs a sprayer
To do tricks real as the adult lovers
We are, plus free-footed fretters
Proclaiming Eve is palindromic
Substringing this world’s a bone
Since so much porn makes the news all day,
The story of Stormy and DT who says
There is no one hardrock position
That might leave old people in a situation
They cannot avoid without prayers
Unrestrained from life’s soothsayers
Mumbling about how life’s too long
Anyway to keep dogs off leash in the wrong
Field, especially when the play
Down becomes exactly what we are trying to say.
Shelby Stephenson was Poet Laureate of North Carolina from 2015-2018. His recent book of poems: Slavery and Freedom on Paul's Hill (Press 53, 2019).