Deliberately: Dale Williams Barrigar

(Note: through Saturday, DWB will entertain us with his Christina Poems. I think you will find them as wonderful as I and The Moving Hoof do-Leila)

(Image provided by DWB)

Deliberately

One thing I can say for sure about the following poem below, everything in it is on purpose, including the line lengths and the capital letters. I lived with the character in this poem, named Christina, who appeared to me in a daydream, for a long time until one day in a field by a river in the wilds of northern Michigan most of the lines suddenly occurred to me.

The year was 2014 and I didn’t even own a cell phone yet – on purpose. My paper and pens were all back in the car, a couple of miles away somewhere down the trail.

So I walked back down the trail humming these lines in my head so they wouldn’t disappear, or rather the lines were as if humming themselves in my head, and they stayed there, they didn’t go away, they didn’t vanish into thin air by the time I’d made it to the car – that was how I knew this poem deserved to get written down.

The list of poets who influenced this poem is long, but a few of the key names include Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Jim Harrison, and Charles Bukowski. I’ll stop there for now because 7 is a magic number. There are four more poems about Christina.

And I would like to say to her here: “Christina. I still see you in my dreams.”

Road Warrior Christina

“I’m a road warrior for the Lords of Karma.”

– Hunter S. Thompson

“My life is like a broken bowl.”

– Christina Rossetti

Christina, at nineteen

In 1991, A.D.,

Was a lone,

Young-hearted

Poet

Who didn’t know

It,

But her fast, moving

Feet showed it, also her

Wild, red-brown,

Messy-long, cut-by-her-ex-boyfriend

Hair, not her boyfriend exactly but her

Boy

Friend, one of

The few.

And now she was

Traveling

Solo,

Traveling far, in her

Battered little car,

Dusty

Sandals

On her feet,

Cut-off jeans shorts,

Baggy T-shirts, sometimes

Black lipstick on,

Red polish on

Her toenails, and her

Heart, and her

Art, they were

Partially

Guided by

Geronimo’s kind

Native star in her

Driving blood

Commemorative:

Her hair, her

Heart, her

Art.

Geronimo, medicine man

Of the Christ

Without end, she wrote,

While driving

On the highway,

On the back

Of an envelope

With a red,

Red pen.

(To be continued…)

Dale Williams Barrigar is an American wanderer who sometimes calls himself The Drifter.

10 thoughts on “Deliberately: Dale Williams Barrigar”

  1. Dale

    So well measured. The complicated presented with a simplicity that doesn’t omit a single idea describes this. I can see her driving and was struck by the guiding beauty of the thing.

    Leila

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  2. honestlyb3ba694067's avatar honestlyb3ba694067 says:

    Sensuous, the redness lingering wonderfully. ‘Guided by / Geronimo’s kind / Native star in her / Driving blood . . .’ Lines that wow. The work of poets like Barry Gifford also came to mind – together with some of the best Native American poets like Linda Hogan, Duane Niatum, Leslie Marmon Silko, Gladys Cardiff, Peter Blue Cloud . . . A lovely read.
    Geraint

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    • THANK YOU, GERAINT!

      And congrats again on your brilliant Dostoevsky essay from Literally this Sunday.

      I’m familiar with Gifford the prose writer but not his poetry; this will cause me to seek some of it out!

      Thanks also for mentioning these Native American voices.

      Your ability to discern the influences, connections, and linkages in writing of various kinds is a one-of-a-kind thing.

      Tolstoy called those linkages “the secret key to art” and your commentary, essays, and stories all display your long and deep knowledge, a massive boon to all who are graced by your words.

      Dale

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