Beyond the South End

Kendall Merriam

South End Poet

Kendall Merriam was born and raised in Rockland, Maine. He has a history degree from Gordon College in Wenham, MA and graduate studies in military and maritime history at the University of Maine at Orono and Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Conn. He also received grants to study historical research at Colonial Williamsburg and the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Merriam has been widely published, including in Katyn W Literaturze(Katyn in Literature), a Polish anthology of literary works about the WWII Katyn Forest Massacre by 120 international authors, including Czeslaw Milosz. Merriam has written more than twenty books and plays. Most of Merriam’s work has a definite muse – family, friends, and strangers – with life’s larger themes of work, love, loss and death. On April 29, 2010, Merriam was appointed Rockland, Maine’s Inaugural Poet Laureate, an honor from his hometown Merriam cherishes.

OUT, OUT, OUT, OF AFGHANISTAN

 

For the People of My Country

 

Out, out, out, of Afghanistan

My country

With its arid hills

And green valleys

You have no business here

Chattering away with your machine guns

Coming in with your jets and helicopters

The blue mountains of home

Are being fouled by your presence

Others have tried before

And have left by the passes

North and south

We are a poor country

With only ourselves

To carry on before God

We do not seek your so-called wisdom

Your politicians win elections

In our grief

Just to prove they are he-men

But they are not

If you put in 400,000 troops

You will not subdue us

For  the passes are narrow

And we have eyes like eagles

And will pick you off

One by one

Until all 400,000 are gone

You know well that it was the Saudis

Who flew the planes

You know well it that it was Americans

Who trained them

Surely the camps of our small nation

Cannot compare to Dix or Pendelton

Where you train to kill us

Is your God so cruel

That it must take a revenge

Against nothing

Just to make your giant country

Sigh with relief

You won’t

Allah guides us

Gives us a brilliance

In the warfare of the mountains

Where you trip and stumble

We are lightfooted

We do not need body armor

We do not need telephones

In our helmets

You are all so obvious

Because this is our land

Not yours

So, take this warning

Get out while you can

And let us live

With our own freedom!

 

Kendall Merriam,   Home  January 3, 2009  10:41 AM

Listening to Santana  “Greatest Hits.”

 

WHY I AM FALLING DOWN THESE STAIRS

 

For Edna Saint Vincent Millay

 

As I am floating, wheeling

Down the Steeple stairs

You may wonder why

I am doing this to myself

I am not tired of living

In spite of being captured

By the morphine, booze

I am not ashamed of

What I have written

Even though my body

Was never electric

Had never traveled to Cathay

Some poems will live

My red hair will be remembered

As will my bewitching beauty

I was a star

First seen at Whitehall

1912

One poem the gate

To the Pulitzer

I have had a full life

Many loves, many loves

I defended Sacco and Vanzetti

With my strongest words

I challenged Hitler

And the harm done

To lovely old England

Its all there in my poem

“Conscientious Objector”

Shorn of rhyme

That so many

Newer, lesser poets

Dig my grave with

Perhaps I should

Have drifted out to sea

From my beloved island

Naked, giving my flesh

And bones

To that Atlantic

Which helped my recognition along

This is my intellectual birthday

So, I urge no poets to follow me

Live long, quiet lives

Get published if you can

But if not, be satisfied

With an honorable life

Stay away from the temptation

Of stairs

And live a pleasing life

As a part of an honest Universe

 

Kendall Merriam, Home, 8/27/12   3:44 AM

Listening to the creaking of my father’s table

AGONY

 

                             A Prayer for the Children, Parents, Teachers

 

                             In the beautiful little forested town

                             Evil struck unexpectedly

                             Cutting short precious lives

                             The world turned upside down

                             One young man

                             Crushing lifetimes

                             Of children, teachers, families

                             As the nation mourns with them

                             We ask what penetrates

                             A mind

                             Whatever brought that on

                             We must support

                             Those in agony

                             With music, poetry, psychology

                             To comfort those who have lost

                             The sparkling souls

                             Nurtured with love and kindness

                             These mere words

                             Cannot bring solace

                             But one must try

                             By giving love

                             That people across the world

                             Are doing right now

                             Leaving flowers and teddy bears

                             At thousands of memorials

                             Making us think

                             Decades of sadness

                             Will never be gone

                             But we must honor the dead

                             By keeping them alive in our hearts

 

                             Kendall Merriam,  Home, 12/16/12   12:31  AM

                             Listening to Fleetwood Mac  “Say You Will”