"The 5-2 : Crime Poetry Weekly": Charles Rammelkamp

April is National Poetry Month, and Gerald So, of The 5-2: Crime Poetry Weekly, marks the occasion once again with a blog tour. Gerald asked a host of crime-fiction bloggers to choose a poem from The 5-2's archived list of poems and discuss it on their sites. My choice is "Home Again" by Charles Rammelkamp, and I'd like to single out three parts of the poem that, for me, bring it close in spirit to the dark, achingly human noir that I love so well.

Here's the blog tour's complete schedule. But first, the poem:

HOME AGAIN

We didn't exactly rape her,
but Harlow did bring Susie to the New Year's Eve party
with the idea that we'd all fuck her,
Susie one of those girls who "pulled trains."
Why not? I was a college freshman
home like a returning warrior
from my first year on my own
at the state university a hundred miles away,
reuniting with the locals who'd stayed behind.

"Why do I always end up in the bedroom?"
Susie asked plaintively as I pulled on my pants
and Danny entered the bedroom.
I felt like a sneak thief zipping my jeans,
grabbing my boots and easing out the door.
I never saw her again.

Now, forty years later,
I come home for Christmas
from across the country
to find Susie pushing my mother
in a wheelchair,
helping her bathe and dress,
cooing soothing words to the frail old lady,
a day care provider for the elderly.
We do not acknowledge our acquaintance —
does she even recognize me? —
but my self-consciousness hangs
between us like a curtain,
suffocating as cotton.

Notice the shocking first line. I'm an impatient reader, often putting a book down if the first line does not grab me. Rammelkamp's makes me want to keep reading.

Next, the opening lines of the second stanza. How would many crime writers portray such a victim? Beaten, perhaps; bloody and dazed into pain, helplessness, or self-reproach, possibly; shocked into muteness, maybe. But Rammelkamp loosens her tongue instead of tying it, and her introspection is touching.

Finally, the third stanza. I don't much like self-consciousness; it's too self-conscious. But that unsettling, anti-climactic ending, the sort of thing that lingers in my mind after I close a David Goodis novel, makes this noir, because no one gets the easy out of dying.

© Peter Rozovsky 2013

30 Days of the 5-2: A Month of Crime Poetry

April is National Poetry Month, and crime has a place at the table once again, thanks to Gerald So.

Gerald assembled a list of bloggers, authors, and other persons of interest and asked each of us to write about a poem from The 5-2: Crime Poetry Weekly and pick a day to post our thoughts.

My choice was simple, because Randall Avilez's "Outlaw at Peace" combines the resignation and grim humor that makes real noir fiction so attractive with the simple but deep self-knowledge that characterizes some of the Westerns I've been reading recently. And, like much of the rawest noir, particularly the melodramas of the 1950s, Avilez's poem is narrated by a first-person protagonist whose forthrightness is inextricable from his less-admirable traits. He may be a bad guy, but he knows himself, his world, and his place in it.

Some crime writers muse at great length upon justice, law, and the differences between the two. Avilez wraps that up quickly: "I asked what exactly an outlaw was / they gave me vague answers." And the self-knowledge and blunt assessment of the world don't get more much concise than they do in Avilez's last two stanzas.

If you lack the time to lead a life that brings you to resignation, doom, and perfect insight, read a Gold Medal paperback. And if you don't have time for that, try "Outlaw at Peace."

OUTLAW AT PEACE

when they asked me about the law
i told them i was an honest man
i swore on the bible but they did not care
life for them must be hollow

i asked what exactly an outlaw was
they gave me vague answers
i lit a cigarette not particularly worried
they read my sentence

a few years on drug possession, trafficking didn't stick
no one chokes on swallowed pride
the judge looked hard and mean
as i walked, i said, i regret nothing and god is forgiving

nobody tells a drug addict to be a drug addict
they just let him commit suicide in silence
and i liked that
slowly dying under blue skies

(Here's a full schedule for the 30 Days of the 5-2 Blog Tour.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2012