Episode 06: Vestibular Awareness & The Common Man…in Another Small Fire

In this episode kick back and contemplate. We have a wonderful discussion on the awareness of the writer’s vestibular space within physical, mental, and even spiritual engagement.  By a similar fashion, I offer a brief talk on how I came across The Common Man by Maurice Manning. And in What’s on My Desk This Week, Adam Love’s chapbook Another Small Fire from Tired Hearts Press. Read below for both the poems discussed in this episode. Thank you again to River Pretty Writers Retreat. Above all, please enjoy!

Robert Vivian is the author of two award-winning books of meditative essays, Cold Snap As Yearning and The Least Cricket Of Evening. He is also the author of The Tall Grass Trilogy–The Mover Of Bones, Lamb Bright Saviors, and Another Burning Kingdom. His most recent published novel is Water And Abandon. He’s also written many plays that have been produced in NYC, many of whose monologues have been published in The Best American Monologues for both men and women. He wrote an adaptation of Ibsen’s Ghosts in 2006 that premiered at Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo. His essays have been mentioned numerous times in The Best American Essay Series, and his stories, poems, and essays have appeared in magazines and journals like Harper’s, Georgia Review, Creative Nonfiction, and scores of others. In 2008 he was the first American ever to teach at Ondokuz Mayis University in Samsun, Turkey; he currently teaches as associate professor at Alma College in Michigan. He’s just completed two new novels, The Town That Burns Eternity Into Your Soul and Return To Hush Moon Lake.

A Prayer to God My God in a Time of Desolation

I guess you know about it all,

my woman trouble. That’s what I call it,

though in a way I should say the trouble

has been with you. It’s pretty bad,

but tell me when was it pretty good?

I ain’t complainin’. You like that ain’t,

an uncouth ain’t in a prayer to you?

He thinks he’s tough now, don’t he? No,

I’m gentle. If there’s a rough old cob

round here, it’s you, and I like you for it,

you sneaky old hidden son of a nothing.

Hey, do you remember what’s her name?

She was such a little thing. She chirped

so perfectly I told her we

should live in a tree like a couple of birds.

It sure was fun to feel her flutter.

Is it okay to call it fun?

Because I like it, though what I wanted

was what i thought the flutter should

have meant–a little time with you.

That was a stretch. Those were the days

when I believed you wanted me

to find a woman who wanted to live

in a tree, two birds of a feather,

all love-covey. Well, it turns out

not many women want to live

in a tree, because not many women

think of themselves as birds. They’re women,

people, and i don’t get along

so well with people, thanks to you,

who bent my heart from the beginning

to creatures with four legs, or wings.

Have I told you you’re a weirdo? You

should have made me a horse and been done with it;

I could have drawn a plow and scratched

my hide against a tree or cribbed

a fence in a pasture. Or better yet,

I could have been an owl and combed

the hair of night before she lays

her head to sleep. How’s that for gentle?

I used to think it was you and me,

but now I think it’s only you.

You’re on your own, so be it. If that’s

the way you want it, alone, amen.

—Maurice Manning

Frank Stanford Turning 30

final echo of heartbeat as he raises

the pistol to his chest and sheds his skin

he will never feel his hands again

tapestries of wild orchids paint the moon

on the battlefield where only it can say

I love you poor Frank he wants to know

why but already knows the answer

tears in his napkin sobbing only brings

out the best in me he thinks goddamn these

bullets their conversations were vacant

the scent of snow in his nostrils

the cool evening waiting

a cooing dove its wing trapped under the tread

of his front tire where its shadow will be

the only light the dead see while the moon

pulls blood from its many lovers

flowers burning in a jar

two women set out a dish of milk

to tell his story to the living

—Adam Love, from Another Small Fire, Tired Heart Press, Originally published in Conte.