Conversations Overheard in a Restaurant is a collection of poetry. At times playful, at times moody . . . at times funny and at times atmospheric, Conversations Overheard in a Restaurant`Robert Alan Clanton's first published collection of poems-invites the reader to observe both the universal and the unfamiliar through this poet's specialized lens. Though approachable and direct, these poems are never ordinary, and surprises often lurk around the corner. From his deeply personal memories of childhood and teenage years, to bittersweet stories of love found and love lost, to his reverent and sometimes spiritual observations of earth and nature, Clanton's poems tease the reader into turning each page in search of the next cinematic vignette. Often tactile and sensory, Clanton's imagery beckons us into each place and time: the shrouding snow and bitter chill of Medicine Wheel Passage, Wyoming; the palpable tension between friends in Still Life in Afternoon Light; the playful eroticism and olfactory enticement of Recipe for Pasta Primavera; the harmonious, mystical forces of natural beauty found in Chapel of the Transfiguration; and the idyllic thread of a fourth generation Floridian's love of unspoiled places in Resurrection Fern. Conversations Overheard in a Restaurant is a collection of snapshots, stories and little movies-bound together in the enticing form of the carefully crafted narrative poem, and there are flavors and textures here to please the palate of anyone who savors contemporary poetry.
Conversations Overheard in a Restaurant
POEMSBy Robert Alan ClantonAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Robert Alan Clanton
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4490-4279-0 Contents
Introduction:..........................................................................vAuthor's Note:.........................................................................ixAcknowledgements:......................................................................xiThe Geometry of Clouds.................................................................1Chapel of the Transfiguration..........................................................3A God Named Joey.......................................................................4Confessions to the Mountains...........................................................6Waterspouts............................................................................8Somewhere West of the Cedar Mountains, Utah............................................10New Smyrna Beach, 1980.................................................................12Poem Written on a Gallery Schedule for July-August.....................................14Goldsboro Park.........................................................................16Alligator Point........................................................................18Conversation Overheard in a Restaurant in Poncha Springs, Colorado.....................20Physics 101............................................................................22North of the Caldera Boundary..........................................................24The Presbyterian Pilot.................................................................25Apalachicola Bay.......................................................................27Leaving Your Baggage on the Tracks.....................................................29BBQ is Subjective......................................................................32Journalism Club, November 1975.........................................................34Thirteenth Floor.......................................................................36Conversation With the Waitress.........................................................38Postcards From Spain...................................................................40The Girl Who Could Draw Like Roger Dean................................................42Medicine Wheel Passage, Wyoming........................................................45East Building, National Gallery of Art.................................................47Recipe for Pasta Primavera.............................................................49Envy...................................................................................52Peace River............................................................................53Random Things Culled From a World Almanac & Book of Facts..............................54Snow in Good Hope......................................................................57Navigation.............................................................................59Sunset Near Bainbridge, Georgia........................................................61Greek Restaurant, East Moriches, Long Island...........................................62Tsala Apopka Lake......................................................................64Resurrection Fern......................................................................66Sunday Chiffon Pie, November 1996......................................................68Orange Julius, 1972....................................................................70Moon Rise, Atlantic Beach, Florida.....................................................72Mountville, South Carolina.............................................................74Recipe for Champurrado.................................................................76Crater Lake, June 18...................................................................77One & One & One is Three...............................................................78Aisles of Temptation...................................................................80Still Life in Afternoon Light, April 1983..............................................82Fed by the Gulf........................................................................84A Blush From the Touch of Snow.........................................................85Power Outage, Calhoun County, Florida..................................................87The Cold Chase.........................................................................89Superstitions of the Heart.............................................................91Necessary Clutter......................................................................94Erasing the Hangover...................................................................95Dillon Pinnacles.......................................................................98Godzilla Versus Opie Taylor............................................................99Burnt Umber, November 1963.............................................................101Dancing With the Wind..................................................................103Weeding Under the Azaleas..............................................................105Miami International Airport, March 1997................................................107Shortly Before Midnight................................................................109The Fun Parts..........................................................................110Ocean Artistry.........................................................................112Liquefying Sunset......................................................................113Golden Gate............................................................................115Conversation in a Restaurant on West 72nd Street.......................................117Sunset.................................................................................120The Wind Above the Garden..............................................................121The Possessions of Sleep...............................................................123A Few Additional Notes:................................................................125
Chapter One
The Geometry of Clouds Weightless somewhere at thirty three thousand feet the ocean foam-colored airscape seems benign: the color of a jolly old man's beard, the color, at least, of a sea of shaving cream. Back on the concrete at Detroit the clouds menaced: We had taxied anxiously through gray air and falling snow. Now, quietly above them, the clouds form lines, patterns- a method to their moist madness-like the huddled queues back in the Northwest terminal. We fly south, geese escaping the bitter air, and underneath we see nothing of Michigan or Ohio save their clouds. Somewhere above the Ohio River I stare into the stunning rich cobalt blue of sky toward the east where the air and the dry vacuum of space dissolve like a liquid dance, and the sun-bleached whiteness of the clouds below stings each retina, burns like jet fuel under my eyelids. But still I stare, scouring, searching for the shadow of the plane which I cannot find among the clam chowder hillocks, ragged valleys, and cotton candy spirals below, the shadow perhaps too dense, too heavy even for the delicate top edge of the foam, too tangible even for the imagined weight against the surface. But the clouds have their lines, their system, and as we break past them over Kentucky, finally Tennessee and Georgia, they give up their ghostly order, faltering, eventually trickling, until they are gone, the landscape below exposed, naked, warmed by the sun, the captain happy to see the smog of Atlanta, the flight attendants hurrying, warning us too late, perhaps, not to stare at what we cannot touch, not to dare to find patterns in what we cannot hold, and not to fall in love with the transient air.
Chapel of the Transfiguration The eyes are drawn to a muscular uplift skyward- plate tectonics straight from the textbook- eleven, twelve and thirteen thousand feet abruptly wedded to a smooth valley floor, while among the crowns clouds undulate, gray courtship among stone steeples, tips obscured are soon revealed as ever-shifting shrouds conceal, then unveil shoulders and peaks draped in purest snow: Grand, Middle and South Teton, alongside Nez Perce, Mount Wister, Buck Mountain, snow falling in ghostly rolling curtains. Where peaks possess patience, mist seems imbued, a silver sky offering more snow, turning crags of bare steely rock to jeweled white as if guided by a deft, painterly hand. In this June drizzle of ice the chapel is a vessel- walls of lodgepole pine, pews of deep aspen, anchored in scrappy soil and earthy greens as the clouds above the Snake River begin to recede, breaking, parting in silence, the fresh snow now radiant, shimmering on canvas of highest stone.
A God Named Joey It was the first I'd heard of death other than the occasional great aunt great uncle one grandparent people wrinkled hunched frail parents dressed in black more food, nicer spread than we were all willing to make when they were actually alive. Third grade, I think, at Upson Elementary, and only the third week of school. Glenn was his name such a great name for a kid in those days, like an astronaut-like John Glenn! -only Glenn was his first name blue eyes crewcut blond hair same color as mine, actually, word spreading during that first hour: Glenn had hanged himself accidentally near the playground swinging silent swaying still bass boat anchor rope around his neck eyeballs popped open like a housefly a couple of friends with him playing Tarzan or some such thing horseplay from that tree limb do you remember that oak tree? muscled thick, gnarled drooping limb a great place for a rope swing Glenn's little neck snapping with the sound of breaking celery or a package of spaghetti cracking in half in my kitchen even now (too cheap to buy a stockpot big enough for the long pasta). You see, Glenn was someone our age, not disfigured from arthritis nor molded through with cancer like old cheese, but a kid who could run pretty fast, third fastest after Kenny Kendrickson and that Filipino kid Manny. As an adult in my apartment in Tallahassee, the whole neighborhood watched the brightly colored spider build her monster web, six or seven feet high, it was, between the magnolia and a little oak, and for weeks we watched her progress, measured her, photographed her, the kids from all over coming on bikes just to have a look, studying her paralyzed food, an impressive collection of impotent prizes trapped: flies, moths, beetles, ladybugs, crickets, all wrapped in inky silken black, cells still alive inside ... then, after three weeks, there they were!: dozen of babies, little spitting images of their mother, all spaced perfectly randomly about three or four inches apart on that web. But the next day, Joey, the kid from next door swatting at the whole radiant architecture with his bamboo pole the other kids screaming at him, Joey just laughing, grinning, an eight year old god under the magnolia, toddler spiders running lost, aunts and uncles dressed in black only the third day of school.
Confessions to the Mountains Should have taken that little exit. Should have gotten off the interstate. Should have pulled off the road, walked to the dusty shoulder, stared for a silent moment. Pilot Peak, just inside the eastern edge of Nevada, showboats its muscular chest in majestic eeriness in whispering winds at the edge of the Goshute Range, rising up almost misplaced above stark, minimalist colors of the scrubby green dotted desert on the Nevada side, and the unforgiving radiance of the Silver Island Mountains on the Utah side, and I knew I should have stopped, taken a breath of the dry air, had a proper look. But I kept driving. Must make Reno by six. It would have been easy enough to have taken the little dusty white road near where I stopped briefly at Wendover to gas up, grab some chips and a Coke, stare at the argument between the store clerk and the driver whose truck had broken down just outside:
You can't leave it parked here. My truck ain't going nowhere. Yes, but you can't leave it there. It's thrown a rod fr' Chrissakes. Yes, but you can't just leave it. Fifteen, maybe twenty miles driving north on that unnamed gravel road toward Grouse Creek with the white sand dunes and the Silver Island Range shining off to my right, and the glistening spires of the Pilot Range to my left, and I could have been there, right at the edge of the foothills. What communion would I find there? What nutrients would I absorb in the holy solitude of such a shimmering place? Perhaps I would even confess things-strange truths, common misdeeds-like my Catholic friends to their priests ... anything, just confess something, perhaps on my knees, or maybe simply leaning, an elbow stamped onto the dry swirls of a fence post, whispering the way men
try to whisper near the thin shadows of someone's barbed wire fence, the fence there to discourage trespasses of others, keep out the silver reflections of guilt.
Waterspouts We counted seven of them, toy tornadoes, tall as nimbus dreams, gossamer spirals, elegant as blown strands of green glass, dancing slow as ghosts along the beach that day. A ballet of pale turquoise sifted through a straw, the clouds sip, drink from the water's gray edge, salty geysers in the slow motion of gravity in reverse- water vapor lifting skyward in a tubular dance into the underside of brooding aroused clouds. Does the sky massage the ocean's choppy surface? Or does the ocean tickle the sky? Perhaps it is lovemaking, interplay between
below and above, the sky's penance for all the angry lightning, and the ocean's reward of all its patience, eons collecting the wash, filtering the runoff, the inevitable melting of every clenched mountain chin. A dance between up and down, a waltz in the cold air of the beach- the waterspouts fade one by one, slipping into transparency, transient and thin as a cloud's spiraled dream.
Somewhere West of the Cedar Mountains, Utah The high school kids write their names, initials and loves with stones and beer bottles in the crystalline white frying pan flatness of the salt flats, little graphic signals to the vast sky above and to the passing drivers who by unforgiving daylight rush across the plain at seventy and eighty-
nothing here to see- not stopping to play as the teenagers do at night, the kids just shadows on salty earth, dancing singing swaying across the dried saline smoothness, endless as the eye can see, only the roadbed and the headlights breaking the perfection of the emptiness of land and the cool dark dome of night sky over the Utah of midnight. The kids dance among their headlights, write their messages to the truckers' eyes to the stars above to a glancing God smiling down at the naked energy of youth and the salt bleached purity of time.
New Smyrna Beach, 1980 Our arrival was just after dark, the ocean calling to us, a churning, low roar on the east side of the house, but, courage blunted, bullied, in the moonless, windy cold- eerie shadows and moving phantoms lining the narrow, sandy path between sea oats, toe-headed palms, and elderly wire and slat fence twisted, half-buried in a chaos of angles along dark drifts of sand and brick between the door and the ocean, the old house drafty as a barn, but warming once the stove and fire settled in with flickering, glowing reds and oranges, ripples of heat wafting through mildewed air while outside the chill factor dropped, sinking like a stone thrown past distant breakers, windows rattling, whistled groans between doors, a dark song of drafting, paint-peeled edges. We sipped hot chocolate, nibbled from bags of salty junk, spread pimento cheese on wheat bread, toasted and dry, stared at the fire. Two girls, two boys, a house not used since September, but now the January chill so potent, biting, only the sleeping bags and blankets call to our youthful drives, but still eyes twitching at the first dare: who wants to go skinny-dipping? Finally a brave volunteer, she'll test conditions first, and maybe we'll follow, but when the door was opened, air tested,
Holy Mother of God she rasped between chattering teeth, black hair thrown weightlessly in the relentless wind, unforgiving darkness like a blanket of ice as our flashlights stabbed blackness and howling gusts of bracing air, her clenched towel flapping like a flag. We retreat from the kitchen door. She made it only a few steps on the path. Back at the fireplace we pretend not to watch as she dresses quickly, a few brief seconds of her nude form burning into my eyes, memory, skin backlit by the golden reds of the fire, goose bumps rippling across taut olive skin, sparkles of ash and embers cascading in moving air as a renewed draft draws through the chimney. Startled by the fireplace's groan, she steps away, blue jeans, sweatshirt half on, brown eyes bright with stunned excitement. She sits by the fire and tugs at her socks. Sometime a little past midnight everyone finally tucks themselves in: two twin beds, two sofas, only crisp fire and the slow, achy tune of the wind through ancient window frames to sing us to sleep, bundled near dying fire, fading heat.
Poem Written on a Gallery Schedule for July-August The echoes off the marble and glass move like sparrows through open sunny air, flickering here, flitting there under the patient, tireless rotations of the winged Calder design and bits of conversation on stairs: a middle-aged Asian woman with her younger companion,
you know what this kind of sculpture is called in Mandarin Chinese? but in a blink they are gone- six, seven steps up as I walk down, so I never hear the words, never know her complete thought. Later on the escalator there is another fragment, another fleeting eavesdrop, ear turned toward this gray couple:
I know there's an elevator up here that takes us to the Picassos, right up there past the water fountain and the ugly thing. But before I can correct them (I found the Picassos earlier) they ascend past me, hands gesturing toward the mezzanine and the massive Frank Stella jutting colorfully out of a smooth marble wall, and I want to correct that point too, because perhaps the Motherwell is ugly, but not the joyous layered Stella. Back downstairs children's voices ricochet off glass and chrome and over vast bright spaces where light shifts from high to low as two young women sit and tinker with a small silver camera, snapping pictures of themselves at point blank range. Thermals continue to move Calder's puzzle pieces overheard in a ballet like slow conversation, echoes of thoughts, voices trailing on wisps of chattering air.
Goldsboro Park The roundabout is painted green, squeaking on Saturday and Sunday afternoons when the children twirl, spin, caps flying, hair spilling outward, a sort of backward gravity before they plunge laughing headlong into space and across the brittle winter grass to the fence near the tennis court where their little fingers-some mittened, some bare-clutch the diamond mesh, climbing, then descending, rattling jangly dry metal in the cool gloaming. I have walked from Ponce DeLeon, across Fairview and along the colors of Oakdale-colors muted this day, no longer fall- but drier, weathered, almost sepia now with the approach of colder weeks, the start of that damp Atlanta chill. Kids have flung their jackets onto the dry grass, little heaps of hue- nylon purple, cotton green, polyester red- bright spots in a near colorless landscape. A window in a house is open, and sounds drift toward the street: infectious, cheerful reggae from a mildly scratched vinyl record, music tumbling where I walk, rolling down brick steps and hexagon sidewalk stone where Euclid Street forms a triangle tapering toward Little Five Points. The children are laughing, shrieking, and I feel a sweet shudder as an otherwise impassive Autumn sunset lets out a moment of giggle.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Conversations Overheard in a Restaurantby Robert Alan Clanton Copyright © 2010 by Robert Alan Clanton. Excerpted by permission.
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