I Will Sing the Monster to Sleep And He Will Not Need Me
In memory of Toni Keller
Late at night, unable to sleep, I let my body guide me down
the dark stairs, the night pressing from all sides. Why not
just trace the words burned remains on a cold glass
of milk, and then, with eyes closed, down it. The white
cross at the edge of the park bears only the word TONI,
already fading. In the photo, his face appears as common
as stale bread, tossed at a Canada goose. On top of a stuffed
bear, another’s burden, I place three late October sunflowers.
So this face, one of our own, is the source of the sleepless
gnawing at the edge of lampshade. Note my patient avoidance
of his name, age, address, smell of his flesh. As if a broken
sonnet could say one of our own, and erase all trace
of owned confusion. I keep turning back to the sunflower
tattoo on your chest, Toni, letting the petals press from all sides.
| John Bradley |
|
levelheaded: I Will Sing the Monster to Sleep And He Will Not Need Me
If you don’t know, Google will tell you about what happened to Toni Keller. We are, for lack of a better phrase, too small to make any contribution to making sense or alleviating such sad circumstances. We lack the authority, and the wisdom. For what is possible to express through art in face of such tragedy, we defer to you–writers and readers of poetry–while trying to provide a stage and shed some light on the literary aspect of things. It is a frail attempt.
Under circumstances such as those that led to the writing of this poem, it is an achievement to be able to express anything artfully at all; to be able to capture something–a feeling, a struggle, a memory. John Bradley manages to capture all those, while maintaining a sober clarity, and while operating under the burden of the necessarily heavy tone.
The most shocking details often require the most mundane images if they are to come through. For readers and writers as one, such simplicity is a defense mechanism. That is why “burned remains” are mentioned with the background of a “glass of milk[.]” That is why the speaker lets us know he will down it. The drama of this sentence as it would have emerged if it ended with “eyes closed” is shifted, almost turned upon, by this decisive, factual ending of “down it.”
All that happens in this poem is told in the first six words. The rest is snapshots (past or present) surrounded by tension, the “pressing” of the night, the “burden” of the stuffed bear, the “gnawing” of the lampshade. There’s a great admittance of the futility of artful expression, saying, “As if a broken / sonnet could say one of our own, and erase all trace / of owned confusion.” What can a poem say at all and why should one bother? Attempting at advocating the value of art when the value of life is on the other arm of the scales usually ends up with despair, and uselessness. Yet it often turns out that poems that understand that terrible inability to answer such a call are the ones that answer it the best.
Perhaps the most painful and seizing image of the poem is that of the sunflowers. Once again with word choice that balances tragedy and the mundane, the sunflowers at the poem’s center are not, say, planted, or reaped, nor have they withered, but simply, they have been “place[d]” on top of that “stuffed bear[.]” These sunflowers come back at the poem’s closing. The speaker remembers them from Toni’s chest and is no longer able to avoid speaking to her directly. She who “[let] the petal press from all sides.” He who lets them do that now. Us too, through the hours spent writing this piece, alternately staring at the picture of Toni’s tattoo–we let the petals press. Can a poem succeed more than that?
– The Editors
