Kevin Clark Poetry
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“For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn’t know I already knew.”

—Robert Frost

“In the midst of our happiness we were very pleased.”

—Gertrude Stein

“A work of art is never completed, merely abandoned.”

—Paul Valery

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”

—Satchell Page

“Poetry begins where certitude ends.”

—Eavan Boland

“Poetry is a dream dreamed in the presence of reason.”

—Tommaso Ceva

“The art of running the mile consists, in essence, of reaching the threshold of consciousness at the instant of breasting the tape.”

—Paul O’Neil

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.”

—Mark Twain

“Keep your eye clear and hit ’em where they ain’t.”

—Wee Willie Keeler

“Let’s play two.”

—Ernie Banks

“There is only one plot: Things are not what they seem.”

—Jim Thompson

“I like restraint—if doesn’t go too far.”

—Mae West

“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”

—David Hare

The Wanting

The Wanting Cover

Winner of the 2016 Spring Is the Mischief Contest

Published by Five Oaks Press
Buy at Amazon

Description

Winner of the Five Oaks Press chapbook prize, The Wanting is Kevin Clark’s hardscrabble poetic sequence about war and its effect on marital love. Immersed in the grit of war as well as the essentia of love, The Wanting offers a sequence of lyric narratives rendering the psyche of a former long-range reconnaissance infantryman who finds temporary solace while surfing. In poems recalling the persevering enemy as well as menacing members of his own platoon, frightened villagers, generous friends, fellow surfers, and his loving wife, he examines the inner demons that threaten his once-ideal marriage.

Praise for The Wanting

The stunning achievement of Kevin Clark’s The Wanting insists that it be placed on the bookshelf alongside Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage. This sequence of poems sets forth a vision of the American warrior so vivid, disturbing, and compelling that it could be realized only by an artist of extraordinary empathy, depth of psychological, historical, and cultural understanding, and absolute integrity. The truth of the Vietnam War has never been set forth more devastatingly.

—David Huddle

Sample Poem

Whoever You Are

Swear words are like instant cortisone shots
All of us need the pain to stay up
I learned quick from the older guys floating

the calm between sets      The perfect statement
of each word in stoned exhalation
was like some irreverent Zen practice

offering infinite license       That’s where
I learned how to tell stories about women
One day at Zips’ house his father came home

late      honked from the street      then Zips’ mother just
slipped out     a smooth slide into the front seat
Johnny Mathis’ “Chances Are” as loud as

the 4-barrel on that blue Impala
The one I’d worship in a fast few years
I asked Zips     where they goin’     he just shrugged

said no one knows      they won’t be back      not till
the weekend      Ike and I’ve got a gruntload
of frozen food to cook      Want some      Later

in Nam we all had to swear with mortal
devotion because if not you’ll die in
some fucking firefight you fucking faggot

said the sergeant to every FNG
I don’t any more     It was as if some
ghost rose from the unspeakable vapors

of the jungle floor      angelic      silent
floating dead center in my line of sight
Who are you I asked      her arms like warm water

her words in my head before she vanished
So I came to know that way of talking
is a sin against the man we’re always

waiting to become      Humping mud outside
Da Nang I made no sound when the flash
cauterized my eyelids     I thought

I’d gone blind from the good light of the lord
But that’s a lie too     what I told myself
I dropped to muck      hugging myself     groping

for the shard that must’ve split my ribs     freaked
silence     I couldn’t hear a single round
Later another grunt laughed sideways      told me

I was tearing at my shirt like I’d rolled
through black ants     I never once thought
of my own parents     white Pacific sun

flashing off the ocean through the giant
plate windows      face gone red as he slams
down cold vodka      she slouched in her soft chair

and dreamed at him like his was some foreign
face of the man she married       I’d step back
Then feel myself drifting into shadows

as if they’d not seen me       Then the drop
into good weed till I’d dream      Whoever
you are      I’ll do anything if you’ll

stay with me      I played that same slide show
The one I watched as dark shut down the night
a half instant before you held me alive

I described Zips’ mother while every guy
stared shoreward as if they’d heard it all       But
I knew they listened like it was poetry

Like it was god      An oceanic moon
lighting the world     A cream skirt slowly
riding up her legs     Then that long lean across

the seat for the kiss     Finally her fingers
in his hair      Then sure as the car      his black
eyes aimed straight ahead      And that’s how I left

it      nothing more      No need       Clean waves or
choppy      we all knew that one center line
was a map to the last best promise on earth


Note:

FNG: fucking new guy

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