Poet: Sid Miller, Portland, OR
Smalldoggies Poetry Feature #19: Sid Miller, Portland, OR
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(like a brown bird nesting)
Like a brown bird nesting in a Texaco sign,
I’ve got a point of view and some sunflower seeds.
But on my back hip I have a flask full of Old Crow.
And if not for the bourbon and salt on my tongue,
I wouldn’t have passed the blue heron
and climbed on top of the forty foot boulder
to where the Salmon River hits the Pacific.
I am not drunk enough to forget the tides.
I am not drunk enough to try and wrestle
the clownish seal asking for it to my left.
Oh city boy, look at what you climbed over!
Oh city boy, kill the squawking gull! Eat it for dinner.
* italicized section is quoted from lyrics by David Berman of the Silver Jews
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(no one should have two lives)
No one should have two lives.
Now you know my middle names are wrong and right.
But I forget in which order.
And what means what.
The ditch I was born in was difficult to climb out of.
My little baby fingers trusted in the sandstone.
Please hand me the bottle of bourbon.
Tonight I want to learn what’s it like to pray.
Please hand me the plate of cocaine.
Tonight I’m going to learn how to love you.
* italicized section is quoted from lyrics by David Berman of the Silver Jews
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(what could appear in the morning mist)
What could appear in the morning mist,
in all of the associated risk
that formed from last night’s
fire and spilt whiskey,
still socked in out in the living room?
What waits out there, waits with seething
nostrils. It waits on a crumbling cliff.
In this bed with you next to me,
the pile of blankets pulled up over our heads,
our combined breaths keep us drunk
and asleep, safe, because no image
can appear in this absolute.
Are we like captive chickadees
whose neurons die after two days if not used?
Maybe the task of having to remember
where we hid food
on each other’s bodies will keep us alive.
* italicized section is quoted from lyrics by David Berman of the Silver Jews
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(we’re like plug-in reindeer)
We’re like plug-in reindeer,
whose cords can’t stretch enough to fly.
But don’t get me wrong
there’s plenty of romance in this story too.
At least until the day that
a Tawny-bellied Cotton Rat
gnaws through our wires
and then some Goth kid comes by
and kicks our heads in
with his steel toed Doc Martins.
But even then we might still
get sold to some crazy old lady
who decorates her corner lot
with beauty unrecognized by others.
We could nestle between
a naughty little girl gnome
whose rump is up in the air
and a bird bath. Our legs
could support a rogue vine
of scarlet runner beans.
Children could look at us
with wonder. Until of course
the old woman dies
and the whole lot of us,
the flamingo, snow globe,
plaster lion’s head
and unicorn, get tossed
into a big metal garbage bin.
But even then darling, even then,
while we sit at top a trash heap in Abilene,
we can rest our noses against each other.
And wait, wait,
with sun kissed fur,
for a tornado to come
from the sky and lift us.
* italicized section is quoted from lyrics by David Berman of the Silver Jews
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Sid Miller's poetry has appeared widely. He is the author of Nixon on the Piano (David Robert Books) and Dot-to-Dot, Oregon (Ooligan Press).
He lives in Portland, where when not changing the shitty diapers of his newborn twin boys, he serves as editor for Burnside Review, and director for Crow Arts Manor.
Sid Miller was a feature reader at the Smalldoggies Reading Series PDX013 Anniversary Show.