Dream Sender

Poems

David Huddle

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780807160145
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

""Huddle is a source of light in an often gray world."—Booklist

"[Huddle's poetry is] luminous and majestic."— Philip Deaver, The Southern Review

An account of spiritual survival through the practice of literary art, the poems in David Huddle's eighth collection, Dream Sender, move among a variety of poetic forms and voices. Here, a bear wonders why he could not have been a raccoon, a bird, or a meadow; and a five-year-old thrills to the forbidden taste of whiskey as he eavesdrops on his parents' after-dinner conversation. By turns outrageous and pragmatic, Huddle's poems acknowledge the powerful and disturbing currents of the contemporary world as they also explore the comfort and familiarity we find there.

Huddle's poems illuminate the nature of relationships between family, friends, and even animals, celebrating their shortcomings, embarrassments, and eccentricities. At once frank and compassionate, Dream Sender finds both humor and poignancy in human imperfections.

1

Domestic Strange

do-mes-tic

1. of or pertaining to the home, the household, household affairs, or the family: domestic pleasures.

2. devoted to home life or household affairs.

3. tame; domesticated.

4. of or pertaining to one’s own or a particular country as apart from other countries: domestic trade.

5. indigenous to or produced or made within one’s own country; not foreign; not foreign: domestic goods.

strange

1. unusual, extraordinary, or curious; odd; queer: a strange remark to make.

2. estranged, alienated, etc., as a result of being out of one’s natural environment: In Bombay I felt strange.

3. situated, belonging, or coming from outside of one’s own locality; foreign: to move to a strange place; strange religions.

4. outside of one’s previous experience; hitherto unknown; unfamiliar: strange faces; strange customs.

5. unaccustomed to or inexperienced in; unacquainted (usually followed by to): I’m strange to this part of the job.

—Dictionary.com

Concert

Drumming rocks our neighborhood most afternoons:

A college kid in a basement apartment,

tactful as drummers go, generates a not

unpleasant rhythmic undercurrent

for yard work, wandering the house, reading,

typing, having a snack. It’s a sound track

that transports our hero to his school band

practicing Sousa marches, then makes him dance

around the dining room in remembrance

of Charlottesville frat parties. Now he’s in

the kitchen, playing the counter like Ray Charles,

and look, the camera’s zooming in—he’s

staring out the window, seeing how his life

sweeps him there to here and won’t turn him loose.

Service

An old man who buys flowers for the house,

I find the right vase, cut their stems, fix them

to generate happiness in the heart

of anyone glancing their way. Sweetheart

roses this morning in the dining room

revise my problematic history.

No prize as a young husband, I’ll be buying

bouquets on into my nineties. A trick

I’ve learned is to water these posies daily,

fluff and spritz them, cheer them up on their way

to dropping their petals. Did I say I’m retired,

seventy-one, a grandpa, and don’t want

a long life? See how nimbly my fingers

spruce these babies up? I want my flowers now.

Cardinal Rules

Half light’s what cardinal and his wife like

best, so dawn and twilight those two are first

and last birds of the day,

Mr. Brazen

and Ms. Subtle, where there’s one the other’s

likely to be nearby, monogamous

I guess, and sometimes he’ll pick up a seed

and place it in her beak, damned saccharine

if you ask me.

Cardinals don’t fly

in flocks like crows and sparrows. They do sing

though it’s far from melodious.

Not dear

like a wren, not a bully like a nuthatch,

not elusive like a warbler, not sociable

like a chickadee.

A girl once told me

she was pretty sure cardinals are Catholic.

Shot at Costco

Small room, bright lights, a desk, two chairs—I take it

upon myself to close the door, strip off

my green shirt and my purple shirt, then sit

in the corner chair. So quiet in here.

Alone in my undershirt, I’ve committed no

crime, I’m just waiting.

A tall young woman

in a white coat enters with a small tray

and a red plastic half-gallon jug. She kneels

beside me. We make a burst of small talk

while she swabs the fat of my upper arm,

pierces the skin, plunges in the juice, pulls

out and tosses the syringe into the jug.

You’re fast, I say. She’s out the door hummingbird

quick. I dress, leave, go about my business.

The Ten Thousand Errors

On any given day the average adult

commits from fifty to several hundred

unnoted mistakes, little drops, burns,

paper cuts, losses, stumbles, bumps,

misplacements, typos, trips, overturns,

forgets, swerves, skids, misremembers,

toe-stubs, misinterpretations, wrongful

statements, confusions, slips, wardrobe mix-ups,

errors of judgment, zigs instead of

zags, math mistakes, insensitive remarks,

unbuttoned buttons, open flies, and inadvertent

revelations of basic idiocy. Hey, you

klutz, train wreck, complete mess!

How about lunch later today?

Blinds

Up for me, down f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1. Domestic Strange
• 2. Dream Sender
• 3. The Bat