Beyond the South End

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.

SNOW MOON

For Shubhra

A foot of heavy shoveling snow                       

every time clouds

let down their

heavy white tears

after shoveling, supper

a walk in the crisp moonlight

wearing boots, not sandals

kids sliding up the street

something I did at age ten

and came back

to the same warm house

with moon looking in on

a worn carpet

where now we have

bare spruce wood

Thai elephants

and calla lilies

from the supermarket

our two tiny tigers

prefer the heat

after years outside

someday, in full moon

you will meet them

Kendall Merriam, Home, 12/16/13  6:42 PM

Listening to a CD “Folk Songs of the World”

SOLSTICE MOON

                     For Ruth Barnett

As we were walking

To Joan’s house

For a pre-Christmas dinner

The full moon rose

A golden globe

Up from the harbor

Now, later on, it’s silver

Casting its light

On three feet of snow

Tomorrow we leave for Florida

I wonder if they have

A moon there

To glisten over the orange tree

In Nick’s backyard

In whose house we will be staying a week

He told us on the phone yesterday

It was in the 80’s

Here it was 6 degrees

And the plumes of sea smoke

Reminded Phyllis of of pictures

She had seen of Old Faithful

There are so many

Moon sightings

On Mechanic Street

I fill books with them

I think you are in England

Doing important work

For the Roma and Sinti

What do they offer you

As moon lore

Please write and tell me

So I will be accurate

Kendall Merriam, Home, 12/18/13   10:46 PM

Listening to Phyllis feed Girl Cat

SKY RIDE

Did Li Bai

anticipate airplanes

or did he fly on

heated yellow wine?

Would he be able

to dash off a poem

above the clouds

and receive bags

of silver

from merchants

who cannot write

but want something

to prize

for a long life?

Kendall Merriam 12.26.2013

Aboard Southwest Airlines between Orlando and Baltimore

POEM FOR VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY

I’ve sent poems to this town twice

They were ripped up

By girls who didn’t know

How to put a bullet through the heart

Here in my black and yellow blouse

You laugh at the radish

And don’t know the hole

You tore in my undershirt

I don’t curse you, you unknowing

You who have lost the key

To my identity

I am just filing a complaint

To the Complaint Bureau

To get back my poems

Since I still own the literary rights

You, Brik

And you, Lila

You have stolen my words

And for what

Not the revolution

You don’t care a fart for that

Not that

But to give me grief

And to hold on to some other man’s

Body in a tantric trance

You, your husband, the publisher of goatskin books

Who drinks light beer to my dark

He has never gripped your hair in his face

As I have

Or cupped your Swedish face

In his bad left hand

This town has a jail

And I’ve been in it

And while I told of my orchidectomy

You or some representative of you

Screamed in the next room

“My God, My God, I didn’t know, I didn’t know!”

No you didn’t, how could you

My sweet whisperer of secret prayerbooks

Not found or given to Checka by your husband

If I returned to Kiev

And read your secret prayerbook

On stage with Burluik and the piano

Who would laugh then, these bourgoise

These apple eaters, horse beaters

And if I added my own words to yours

They would knash their teeth to splinters

To hear us fight

Out of loneliness

And not of love

You have offered me nothing but a glimpse

Of your breasts beneath your undershirt

While I have immortalized you

In words

God’s precious ants

If you burnt it up

That’s not my fault

For me,

I’ll have a raspberry liqueur

Kendall Merriam, time, place, date unknown

Published in Contact II  NYC