Poetry: Selections from Jason Gerrish

What’s bad is factory work

 

What’s bad is 2nd shift

and seven 10s, for a month straight.

What’s bad is the drudging spirit of the place;

the obscene hum of 300 people

standing in front of sewing machines.

 

What’s good is thinking about someplace else.

 

What’s good is grasping at curtains.

What’s good is a blizzard.

What’s good is the sheriff,

closing all the roads.

 

What’s good is new paper

new ribbon and knowing that

no one will be stopping by.

 

I work at the Miss-Pu-Pee-She plant

across the river in Kentucky.

Ten hours a day, seven days a week,

they train me to sew leather seats.

They must plan on selling lots of cars.

 

I was running out of money

and I couldn’t write shit

all the crap that was in me

that I thought I could unload with ease

just wouldn’t come out;

all I did was drink,

smoke,

eat,

until my stockpile

was nearly exhausted.

 

 So I took the job.

 

I’ve been smart though

with my dirty green sewing money

I’ve been paying my bills forward, and

I did my research and determined

the cheapest beer and cigarettes

I can stand.

 

I’ll fill the freezer with lunch meat and bread

and rib eyes (when they go on sale).

 

What’s bad is a 30 pack of Keystone.

What’s bad is a carton of Dorals.

 

What’s confusing is factory girls.

The tender one training me to sew

caught me looking at her ass,

round and grown

like a pumpkin.

 

“What are you doing, Hal?  

Do you think you can learn to sew?”

 

She has soft eyes,

pale skin, and high,

rose-pink cheeks.

 

“It ain’t that bad,” she says,

“There’s a lot of couples that work here,

and they’ll raise a family with this job.”

 

I may have asked

if she ever read poetry.

 

What’s good is an apparatus

to get things moving.

 

What’s good is 8 cases of Milwaukee’s Best Light

all stacked in the closet, because

you can’t fit any more in the fridge.

What’s good is being the dishwasher

 

What’s good are the waitresses

and all the half-full bottles of wine

they bring with the mucked-up plates.

I pour them in coffee mugs,

so no one can see what I’m drinking.

 

What’s bad is musculum contagiosum.

What’s bad is wanting someone

more than they want you.

 

What’s good is her dark eyes.

What’s good is her bare neck and shoulders

in the low-cut, blue summer dress.

 

I once lived with a woman in Oakland

she came home each night and told me about her day

I could listen to her every word

every word was unpleasant and promising.

Her feet stunk from standing in worn shoes for hours

I would rub mint lotion on her soles

about her toes

and I would listen.

She insisted we make love every night

and in the morning, we would look on the other

and be cute in her shower

lathering one another up

until it was time to get dressed

and start it all over.

I haven’t seen that woman in years

I don’t even have a photo of her now.

 

What’s bad is drinking heavy at a blackjack table.

What’s bad is doubling down on a hard 12

 

What’s worse is splitting 10s.

 

What’s good is the river

What’s good is a stiff drink

on the bare upper deck of a casino boat,

rolling down the Mississippi at 1am, alone.

 

What’s bad is owing money to people you care about.

What’s bad is borrowing money you don’t want to earn.

What’s worse is seeing people you borrowed from,

out at a bar.

 

I spent a night in jail in Kentucky

there was not an innocent man in the cell.

The guards wouldn’t give me my cigarettes.

A man inside for not paying child support

spotted me several smokes.

The mother of a good friend

drove 50 miles to pay my bail.

 

What’s bad is young men with too much to say.

What’s profound is old men who say nothing.

 

What’s good is a day

that doesn’t demand you get dressed.

What’s bad is socks with holes.

What’s good is sadness

when you know it is all

you are ever going to find.

 

My father lives

somewhere in Rhode Island

I haven’t heard from him in years

I show him alone in a room

 

there are no pictures on the wall

no telephone

only a clock and an ashtray

and a window that is cold.

 

What’s bad is wondering how her eyes finally saw you.

What’s bad is rolling your car off Ginger Ridge.

What’s bad is she won’t take your calls.

What’s bad is watching her walk.

 

What’s awkward is tomorrow.

What’s strange is praying at last.

 

What’s good is bourbon

What’s good is single malt whiskey.

 

What’s good is pretending

that she hasn’t changed.

angst

out of the shower at 10 o’clock

and answering a phone call from the boss

“Shit,” I say, “I overslept. Be right in.”

“We start at 7, Lavoie.

I want to be done pruning, today.”

“I know,” I say,

“I’ll be right in.”

 

wanting some coffee, but the can is clean

lighting a smoke, and downing what is left in

the bottle of Riesling on the counter

then starting the car

and snaking down Roush Hill

to the river

and the vineyard.

 

forcing a corner

at 40 miles per hour

swerving to miss

a large something, in the road

running the passenger-side through a ditch

cutting the wheel hard

to get back out.      

 

throwing open the car door

and shifting to my feet

witnessing the front tire

quickly going flat  

scowling, but, plodding back,

to move the large something off the road  

 

a snapping turtle.

 

reaching to seize him by his shell

his head and neck extending

further then I thought possible

pinching and severing

a bit of flesh from my

fingertip. “Motherfucker!”      

jaws open and hissing at me.

 

bleeding and throbbing at the stubborn

fuck still possessing the road, but

finding a long stick and

pushing him, across the blacktop      

rolling him, into the ditch.      

watching him, watching me

through a cross, speckled eye.  

 

jacking up the car

changing the flat tire      

making it to work

as everyone else is taking lunch

no one saying, “Hi”

no one asking where I’ve been

while dressing my torn-open finger.

 

working late alone

to keep up with the schedule

pruning the vine

for fruiting, and for renewal

pruning the vine

diligently and

deliberately.

 

cleaning and honing my shears

oiling them and putting them up

sneaking coffee grounds

into a Ziplock bag

and two bottles

of chambourcin

into a five-gallon bucket.  

 

returning at dusk

maneuvering passed

the many white churches

climbing Roush Hill

remembering the turtle

then, parking in the gravel

beside the rusting house trailer.

 

uncorking the wine

and cleaning a glass

for reading and suffering

these poems written

nights before; and feeling

somethings creeping about

 

a cockroach.

         

inching his way across

the yellowing kitchen floor

sensing

maybe

that he is being judged

and considering if

it is safer, under the stove.

 

flattening him

with my foot

hearing his body give

under the weight of me

pouring more wine

leaving the roach where he lies

crushed.

 

sitting drinking

the typewriter mocking me

the bookshelf, staring me down

Bukowski, shouting that I don’t have the guts

Larry Brown, consenting that I’m just too nice

Carver, finishing a vodka

and looking entirely stoic

 

Wantling fighting off his demon

with a six pack and codeine

Hemingway

reminding me

it starts with one true sentence

and if I can’t find that

I don’t have the disease.  

 

remembering my old man’s dimly lit rented room

the smell of soiled laundry and cigarette smoke

finding him in the dark reading my notebook

approaching me intensely

pleading

“Please, don’t write

any more of this shit.”

 

one bottle gone, and uncorking another    

noticing something going on

in the middle of the kitchen floor

ants, dismembering the dead roach I killed    

watching      

briefly

then killing the ants as well.

 

two bottles gone and

more ants needing killed

switching

to whiskey

their dead corpses growing in number

drinking and murdering            

all night.  

 

dozing, barely

in the wing chair

waking there

at five,

facing

the typewriter

understanding

 

there will be no rite

of passage but

ambling to the bath

in need of a shower

pushing the curtain aside, then

leaning into the tub and starting

the water.

 

“Jesus Christ!”

 

 a spider

     

rapidly crawling out of the drain

propelling forward with

great eagerness

trying to escape the

rushing torrent.

 

trying to crawl up

the walls of the tub

thrilling, though

unsuccessful

but trying

again

 

trying

 

failing

 

trying

 

failing

 

stopping

maybe resting

maybe learning

 

…again.

         

remembering how  

I’d been thinking her drowned        

studying her

looking closely

 

seeing the shiny black body

and the red spot on her back

she’s a widow

 

and it’s unfortunate

I’ll have to be killing her

for being true to the widow she is

but first

rising

walking to the kitchen

and making some coffee. 

Jason Gerrish attended Morehead State University, where he earned his BA. His first collection of poetry Old State Road, in collaboration with photographer Brad Daulton, was published by UnCollected Press, in April 2021.