“The ghost behind these haunted and haunting poems is the bittersweet and stunningly detailed memory of his formative years in blue-collar Detroit, echoed sometimes in his present home of Pittsburgh. The latter (much less the former) isn’t Paris, he admits, but then, ‘Fuck Paris.’ With The Human Engine at Dawn, Jim Daniels remains among this country’s most gifted and engaging poets.” —William Trowbridge, author of Call Me Fool
More info About the Author: Jim Daniels’ latest books include Gun/Shy (poetry), The Perp Walk (fiction), and the anthology RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music (coedited with M. L. Liebler). A native of Detroit, he lives in Pittsburgh and teaches in the Alma College low-residency MFA program.
Book Event Don’t miss out: Daniels will be visiting White Whale on June 7th to help celebrate Sophie Klahr’s newest release, Two Open Doors in a Field!
Today My Bank Sent Me a Birthday Message
and spelled Happy with three a’s.
It said to the one and only James.
It said Hooray. And get the party started.
My mother was sleeping when I called
to wish that she might wish me
a happy birthday. Hospice had just left.
When she is sleeping, you do not
wake her. She never spelled words
with extra letters to try and be some-
one more hip in her neat measured
script I’ll never see again. Once, we
combined our cash into a CD when the rate
was over 10%. Free china, too, and she let me
keep it all. Her new medicine causes
constipation, so they gave her a laxative.
My father, 91, fumbles for the word
laxative. Everyone tries to make her
comfortable. Last time she was lucid,
she offered to give my daughter some cash
for a trip she’s taking. She says she still has
some. My mother wants to go with her.
Semi-lucid. As good as it gets. A blessing
and curse, lucidity. I’ve got a million phrases
to toss over the phone lines to keep static at bay.
She is blind. We see. We are all waiting.
It’s your special day that’s all about you,
the bank says. They no longer give away dishes.
A whole stack of those silver-rimmed plates
once tipped out of my cabinet and smashed
on the floor. I still have the smaller plates,
and the shallow bowls that are frankly
the wrong size for anything. Plus,
not microwave safe. My father fashioned
braille buttons on the microwave for her
at an earlier point in her demise. She
is failing. Dying. We call it many things.
Got a birthday check in your pocket?
the bank asks. There are many Jameses
in this ill-formed world. When I used to call,
back in the great state of Clarity, she’d ask,
Is this the famous James Raymond Daniels?
A joke between us—I’ve always been
Jim. I will call again tomorrow
when she is awake and it’s no longer
my birthday. I believe she will be alive.
I will never see her again. She has not
seen me for years. These last days, she is not
even one-A Happy. Interest rates went down,
as everybody knows. Why am I so certain?
Maybe I should make the drive one more time
to hold her hand and play along with the script-
less prayers. My father talks about a D-Day
special on TV. New footage of the blood
and horror from other countries put together
with our bloody American footage. All
for my birthday. Blood and money together.
He calls me Jimmy. The bank wants to know
if I’m running low on celebration cash. Oh, bank,
I want to say, but it says DoNotReply.
To protect my privacy some pictures in the message
have not been downloaded. I download confetti
and a birthday cupcake. It looks like gingerbread
or bran, with a swirl of frosting on top,
and a candle photoshopped into lit. Bank,
my mother would have told you I want
devil’s food for my birthday. Bank,
why are you such a bummer on my birthday.
Party on. Keep the fun going.© Bank,
I’m not very Haaappy. The cupcake floats
in white space. It would sit nicely
on one of those small plates.
My mother says DoNotReply today.
Thin as a candle and burned down
to nearly nothing.
I dare not blow.
THE HUMAN ENGINE AT DAWN
I drove my daughter downtown to Greyhound
in the new year’s first snow, 6:00 a.m. flakes
ticking hard off bare streets, the scruff
of rough love that hurts without meaning to.
*
In half-light, two altar boys drag boots
through light fresh snow behind the grade school
yet to be plowed, on their way to 6:00 mass
to prop up Father Andrews with his bald insect head
and stick frame stooped beneath heavy robes.
We rang bells random to keep him upright—
those dark souls kneeling in grim semi-dark
rose from the dead for communion.
*
My daughter’s watch kept me on edge
over snowy roads, the weighted freight
of her battered suitcase, the dashboard’s
dim-lit instruments. We are in this together,
my daughter and I, my childhood friend and I,
through the snow gathered, gathering,
regardless of belief or love or traffic.
*
A lot can happen at 6:00 a.m.
or nothing at all. Blessed are the sleepers.
Look up and see the cracked chandelier.
6:00 a.m. forever up there.
If you are alone and awake at 6:00 a.m.
forever feels stamped with the authority
of silence and ceremony.
*
All well and good to say
“Stop Making Sense”
as some pronouncement from on high.
But even that is impossible
if you’re making sincere attempts.
In the land of unbelievers,
don’t run out of gas.
*
We believe in gauges, warning lights
and—oh, the human engine.
Snow, 6:00 a.m. A bus revs up,
ready to take her.
The stiff arms of trees spread
and tremble like Father Andrews
giving his blessing. We didn’t
know it would be his last mass.
Do this in memory of me.
Forgive me, father, for ringing
the bells this morning
and every morning I am awake
this early, this late. When
will I see her again? My daughter
breathes smoke, half-waves goodbye,
hurries forward and away.
Hard flakes circle
in the wind between buildings.
These poems are published here courtesy of the author and publisher and should not be reprinted without permission.
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