This week's Outdoor Poet, Dana Gioia, served six years as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Of the second poem he says, "It's not about nature, but it is about human nature, and it is more fun than most poems."
California Hills in August
I can imagine someone who found
these fields unbearable, who climbed
the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust,
cracking the brittle weeds underfoot,
wishing a few more trees for shade.
An Easterner especially, who would scorn
the meagerness of summer, the dry
twisted shapes of black elm,
scrub oak, and chaparral, a landscape
August has already drained of green.
One who would hurry over the clinging
thistle, foxtail, golden poppy,
knowing everything was just a weed,
unable to conceive that these trees
and sparse brown bushes were alive.
And hate the bright stillness of the noon
without wind, without motion,
the only other living thing
a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended
in the blinding, sunlit blue.
And yet how gentle it seems to someone
raised in a landscape short of rain –
the skyline of a hill broken by no more
trees than one can count, the grass,
the empty sky, the wish for water.
from Daily Horoscope (1986)
Film Noir
It’s a farm town in the August heat
With a couple of bars along Main Street.
A jukebox moans from an open door
Where a bored waiter sweeps the floor.
A bus pulls up by Imperial Fruit.
A guy gets off in a new prison suit
He’s not bad looking. Medium height.
Full of ambition. Not too bright.
He’s a low life. He’s one of the lost
Who’s burnt every bridge he’s ever crossed.
Just out of the slammer, a ticking bomb,
The Wrath of God and Kingdom Come.
It’s the long odds on a roll of the dice
For big stakes you can’t bet twice.
The cards get dealt. The wheel spins.
At the end of the night the house always wins.
He sees her alone at the end of the bar,
Smoking and hot like a fallen star.
She’s a cold beauty with a knowing wink.
If she shot you dead, she’d finish your drink.
Some guys learn from their mistakes,
But all he learned is to raise the stakes.
There’s something he forgot in jail—
That the female’s deadlier than the male.
It's tough love from a hard blue flame,
And you can't beat a pro at her own game.
It's the long con. It's the old switcheroo.
You think you're a player, but the mark is you.
She’s married but lonely. She wishes she could.
Watch your hands! Oh, that feels good.
She whispers how much she needs a man.
If only he’d help her. She has a plan.
Their eyes meet, and he can tell
It’s gonna be fun, but it won’t end well.
He hears her plot with growing unease.
She strokes his cheek, and he agrees.
It’s a straight shot. It’s an easy kill.
If he doesn’t help her, some other guy will.
It’s a sleek piece with only one slug.
Spin the chambers and give it a tug.
The heat of her lips, the silk of her skin.
His body ignites. He pushes in.
They lie in the dark under the fan—
A sex-drunk chump, a girl with a plan.
This poem first appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review.
About The Author Michael Dana Gioia (born December 24, 1950) is an American writer, critic, poet and businessman. He initially worked as a marketing executive for General Foods Corporation, where he is best known for his role in promoting Jell-O snacks. He was also writing while working at General Foods, and resigned in 1992 to write full-time.
From January 29, 2003, until January 22, 2009, he was chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. government's arts agency, and has worked to revitalize an organization that had suffered bitter controversies about the nature of grants to artists in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In August 2011, Gioia became Judge Widney Professor of Poetry and Public Culture at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California.
He has sought to encourage jazz, which he calls the only uniquely American form of art, to promote reading and performance of Shakespeare and to increase the number of Americans reading literature. Before taking the NEA post, Gioia was a resident of Santa Rosa, California, and before that, of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
The Outdoor Poet is edited by Robert Sward, author of numerous books of poetry including, most recently, New and Selected Poems: 1957-2011 (Red Hen Press). He lives on the Westside with his wife, the artist Gloria Alford, and a poodle mix named Cosette. Participation in The Outdoor Poet is by invitation.
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