America On $10 A Day
The backroads are pitch black after sundown,
as if the whole state of Wisconsin
has blown a fuse. Or maybe, the people
all exhaled together, crowded around
the same birthday cake. The mini-mart lady
in Eau Claire wanted to adopt me,
and sold me fried chicken for half price,
even though it was less than an hour old.
She let me walk out with two bottles
of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which I would
love to piss into Lake Superior if only
my bladder can hold out that long.
I hitched a ride with a meth dealer
whose sister was dying of bone cancer.
They thought they had a marrow donor
lined up in Iowa, but the deal fell through.
He dropped me off at an abandoned
gas station in Wascott. I'll pray for you,
I told him. He said the same.
(Copyright 2000, J. Gohmann)
Kindergeld
Your love, your absolute affinity
for the German language is rare
in a woman. So rare, it frightens
you - being marked, being set apart.
German - the human voice compressed
like the deepest rock, the language
of mastodons frozen in blue ice - you hold
it in reserve, hidden like a second soul,
an awesome power to be called on only
in crisis. It makes sense to you; the grammar,
the wordcraft, the knowledge that dreams
are not negotiable. They are accepted or rejected whole.
Walpurgisnacht, and sleep, clawed loose
from ourselves, is savored in a deep, guttural feast.
Pale and voiceless, born of the silvered mirror,
the Traumkinder circle our bed,
desperate to wake their sleeping parents.
Mother, father, see what we've
brought you ! Grain and sausages,
apples and cabbage, smoked river fish,
red wine, white wine.
Kindergeld.
(Copyright 2000, J. Gohmann)
[Gohmann's] excellence resides in poems involving real or
imagined characters and events...his bright and meaningful poetry is
derived from chance meetings of anonymous characters in ubiquitous - but
random - happenstance. Recommended. --Tim Scannell, Small Press
Review
...my favorites [from Bathtub Gin #7] have to be Melissa Frederick's
"Perfection" and Gohmann's poetry, particularly "America On $10 A
Day". Great stuff - enclosing $3 for a copy of Bone White & Raven
Black. --Scott Gordon, Staplegun Press
...I like [Bone White...] quite a bit -- a few of the poems left me
hanging but most were right up there with the best from the small press
(which is better than most academic presses) --Leonard Cirino, Pygmy
Forest Press
The combination of haunting feeling with tempered humor makes this one of
the best poetry chaps of the year. This is the kind of poetry I want to see
more of. --Sam Cole, A Word to the Wise
...definitely worth the $3.00. These poems are rich and deserve
attention." --Lindsay Wilson, Unwound
A wholesale florist who writes poetry in Indiana and listens to
Shostakovitch and Patsy Cline - it just proves that poetry flourishes in
the soul of anyone who listens to their inner voice. And this is a mature
voice, one that has worked and moulded poems of elegance and spirituality
in its broadest sense. --Polly Bird, New Hope International
