Monday, May 18, 2009

A.Poulin Jr. on Radiators in the Dark

The late Al Poulin Jr., poet and publisher of the esteemed BOA Editions, gave a reading where I worked and struck me as the sort of man who, like, likes to consider the magical elements of every day and the mundane world unseen but who hasn't the time for a language that clouds the sensations, not clarify them. It's a fanciful musing to come across, how those sounds you hear only when there is nothing else in motion seem extraordinary and odd; rather than consider the noises as merely the natural sounds a structure makes as its framework shifts or sags due to the demands of gravity and its own weight,. Or, in the case of this poem, the knocks and hisses, and muted clicks a radiator seems to make only when the lights are out. I rather like the language and don't mind a reference to "In unlighted corners, angles/opening to blank space,--" and, in fact, see the description as purposeful. The noises Poulin speaks of seeming unusual and resonate more in the imagination because there is no other sound to blend in with--they resonate in those blank spaces, the knocks, squeaks, and hisses in the dark resonate longer, more profound, with more texture. It makes me think of those sketchy memories of being in the house, in bed, the house entirely dark, imagining every squeak and creak and groan of the night being the passage of creatures from another realm who passed between dimensions in those hours when all were supposed to be asleep. Poulin's lyric is an adult fixation, sure, but he shows this is a habit that hasn't been entirely relinquished to adulthood.
The Angels of Radiators by A.Poulin Jr. Every night when my wife and daughter are asleep and I'm alone in this old house lost in landscapes somewhere between the points of stars, my furnace fails like heaven. The water that will turn to steam and turn to heat and rise as grace runs out. In unlighted corners, angles opening to blank space, radiators, cold and white, are silent and dead angels, incarnate where they fell. Every night, every winter, I have to go down cellar, turn the valve until the gauge is full of water once again, until the furnace starts to rumble with its resurrection. Then the house begins to move, and through the winter night that threatens us like Hell, by God, the pure spirit of the fire roars blue, veins ring, and radiators, a whole chorus of Dominions, sing and dance wild alleluias warm as spring.

1 comment:

  1. You know what? Asian carp may have breached electronic barrier...

    ReplyDelete

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