Sample Poems by Julian Miller

---

My Soul

You can barely hear it fretting in
a corner of the kitchen where
it crouches, always hungry.

This soul, and I mean my soul,
is as familiar as my most comfortable sweater.
Except it wears me
and is not sure why.

My soul is here on a mission.
Sometimes it might drop a postcard.
"Call me," it says. Or
a handwritten note
propped up on the dining room table,
"I'm here."

My soul, if there is a "my" and there is a "soul,"
is living in cramped quarters.
It wants to stretch its legs.
It cries at sad movies.
It would rather I were a bird.

My soul, and I'm speaking personally now,
is not resigned to its condition.
It's small (did I mention this before?),
like one of those modern nylon shopping bags
that fold up so tightly they fit
in the palm of your hand.

Our soul, and I mean my soul,
tosses and turns when we're sleeping.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night
I imagine I hear it weeping.

"Don't think," it whispers,
"for a minute that it's your fault."

At dawn, before I'm fully awake,
it speaks to me. Its voice is like
a conversation between a flute and a cello.
It goes on for quite a while.

But not in a language
I can understand.

Our soul,
by which I mean mine and yours,
isn't waiting. I think
it's trying to look through us,
as if we were a smudged pair of glasses,
or a thick fog on a day before the wind
reveals the landscape.

It's there, just
behind the door to the living room,
hiding in the shadows.

"Where are you?" it says.

I can't speak;
I don't want to cross the threshold.
I just stand there, my mother's back to me
cooking in the kitchen, my father, reading the
paper. They seem so normal, oblivious.

"You're a good son," he said to me, once.

I pause, take a deep breath.
"Here," I whisper. "I'm here."

---

The Wind in Darfur

I carry the babies' wail
From one wood and plastic shack to another,
I dry the pinched skin and jellied eyes,
Investigate without scruple open wounds,
Contours of gutted carcasses and amputated limbs;
Carry the dust from the Sahara
That descends in a yellow, drifting bandage
Onto those still weeping, and those no longer able to weep.
And in the night, when the stars
Point with their small white fingers
At the work of man,
I take the clouds, and gently fold them
In sheets of clean linen,
Back over a dark, silent sea.

---

Island Vacation

We all lie on a bed of money in the sun,
The ocean plashing in the distance-
Turquoise, scintillant, diamonds
Glint in the water like flying fish.
We float far from the sewage and distant cries,
Starvation and the smell of gasoline.
We let the sun poach us in oil.

There is no hunger, no pain; we
Work hard on our chaise lounges to
Think of nothing, to let the orange
Bloom of light lullaby through our eyelids.
Here we rest from our labors.

The weather is perfect, a product
Of meteorology and American Airlines.
A warm light descends upon us, cells produce melanin,
Not too much, nor too little. If anyone here
Is thin, it is through will and self-denial.
We know. We have been chosen by some
Unreasoning gods to be, in this moment,

Spared. Sanctified. Students of indolence,
Supported from below, the blessings rising
From the earth, invisible as our
Offshore holdings and capital gains portfolios.
We are moving forward through our lives,
Protected from the suffering of others, and

The sun blesses us with its hot, dry hand.
We lie on our backs above consecrated ground.
A persistent smile floats suspended
Over a sea of simultaneous faces, gently perspiring.
The drinks are cold, the ocean sanitary aquamarine.
Is this where we are meant to be?
The waves slide back and forth, whisper
Yes, then yes, and yes.

---

Satchmo

Out of the bayou
Creole melodies,

African voices,

black faces,
shadows
behind prison bars,

you blew
out of the orphanage,

couldn't stop, Lazy River,
Weather Bird Rag,

liquid brass notes winding
around

old balustrades,
the French Quarter, moon

a yellow silver dollar
spinning, and,
you shook 'em,

blew hot and slow, they
never heard it like that,

the first solos, clean and ornate,
twisting the melody in a velvet furnace,

no team of horns standing and bowing,
just one man,

rising out of Louisiana funeral rhythm,
blow, Lazarus!

trumpet pure, wild, smooth as glass,
they never heard anything like it,

Stardust, Hotter Than That, Potato Head Blues,
a workman's hands playing silk

cellos, that wide smile as if
you knew what was coming,

vocals like
water tumbling beach pebbles in sunlight,

improv style, phrasing they never
ever bip de lee di do bodda

dodda zaah-zee, ever,
scaddey-wah, scat,

what that? ever-Ella, the Duke,
Earl Fatha Hines, Coleman

Miles, Maynard-
they heard you,

you, back then, at the
New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs

with your first Cornet,
playing the riverboats and marching bands,

tugging the future toward you,
blowing jazz into America

and America into jazz,
you, man, yeah,

you.