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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
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      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
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  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
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      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
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      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
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    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
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Patrick Sylvain

Stanzas & Sawdust 

          For Grandpa F. P.
 
 
Our birthdays were two days apart; we were distant
Gemini.  I was always cheery and you were gloomy like
An overcoat of mastic.  Uncle Ed told me you used
To joke; you were your employees’ sap and heartwood.
 
I wish I had known the non-acrid you, the unfurrowed
Brow of your impossible face that I grew reluctant to read.
I wish I had played with those aging knuckles and callused
Hands that shaped happiness and pain. Presidents sat on
 
Your chairs, signed contracts on your desks, and hung their
Vests inside your flawless mahogany armoires. You were
History. In the 1950s, you were among the top five carpenters
In the country & commanded two hundred employees, until
 
A whirlwind swept in as dictator a man you once denied
A seat.  Memories of the past went foxhunting.
You were high-yellow & successful, his brand of Noirisme
Was sawdust in the people’s eyes. It was 1957.
 
By the time I met you, the workmen were long gone
And you had been hauled off to the penitentiary. A short stay,
Powerful clients pried open the system and implored you to
Make a chair. A signatory cane cabriolet armchair for the Doc.
 
We laughed at how tough you were with your six-foot thin frame.
I remember you smelling of wood- at times pine, cedar, mahogany.
At other times, it was the scent of glue, red chestnut.
With you, the barnyard of my childhood vanished as idleness was
 
Mutinous. A man’s life ought to be upright and dignified. Poets
And politicians were blurry. My father was a poet who loved
Politics and couldn’t use tools the way you did. You were cynical
And the dictator’s spectacle chiseled your bliss to the bones.
 
If you had known of my compact to poetry, that I never inherited
The clamoring gift of turning poles into smooth tapering shafts,
My creativity would have been suffocated in a whirlwind of sawdust.
To you, hands were not made to construct stanzas.
 
Warm touches only for finished banisters & fluted dowels.
I used to watch your hands run blades over planks, curled
Shavings flipping under the motion of your brawny arms.
They formed an ocean of golden waves engulfing your feet.
 
Now, I know why you used to quip, shut off the radio before
Duvalier blared.  You preferred the cascading of sweat on your brow
As you measured your joints to fit frames. Some of your poet friends
Vanished while trying to unveil the sun in metered forms.
 





--
Patrick Sylvain is a poet, social and literary critic, and photographer. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Published in several creative anthologies, journals, and reviews. Sylvain has degrees from the University of Massachusetts (B.A.), Harvard University (Ed.M.); and Boston University (MFA). Sylvain is on faculty at Brown University’s Africana Studies. Sylvain is also the Shirle Dorothy Robbins Creative Writing Prize Fellow at Brandeis University. Sylvain’s poetry chapbook, Underworlds, is published by Central Square Press (2018).

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
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    • Submission Guidelines
    • Submit Here
  • Features
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  • Previous Issues
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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022