Fugueazi

In college, I took a class called Poets In Massachusetts, where we studied sometimes localish poets but sometimes stretched just what it meant to be "in Massachusetts". For one of the final projects, we were asked to take a poem by an author we'd read, and ask several non-poetry readers what they thought of it. We, then, posted the answers and collage-type images onto giant whiteboards and displayed them on the walls of the classroom during the final weeks.

I chose Mark Doty's "Long Point Light" from Atlantis. If I still had that stupid whiteboard, I might have cheated and posted some of the quotes here and called it a day. The project certainly created "an interaction".

Instead, I've gone back to one of my favorite Doty poems, "Gross Fugue", and put my own spin on what a fugue would look like as a poem. I might come back to this poem and give it a more satisfactory ending, but I was really feeling Doty's last line There is no resolution in the fugue​.

---

The Fugue Electric, Unfinished
​Adam Stone

I go for three weeks without
power because i will not be
home for most of them and
when i am home it will be
daybright and the breeze
keeps everything cool enough
          There are boats
          perched Obese
          vultures
          precarious in
          exhausted trees
          still dizzy from
          hurricane So not having
          power seems trivial
          Our house stands
          Our trees bereft
          of anything but birds and
          unmoored trash
I have a battery powered lamp
for camping but no desire to camp
outside of my home Finally
this little lamp has purpose
                    Daylight is for the kayaks
                    The rubber rafts
                    claim the 9-5
                    We do not need electricity
                    at night we have fire
                    and all the appropriate snacks
                    to eat like spoiled scouts
          The ladder to the zip line
          still standing though half
          the tree it was moored to
          collapsed into the climbing wall

all i do is talk these days . those days . all days . but i won't bring anyone into my powerlessness . too dark . of course . too phosphorous my faults . the apartment shambled by a lack of light . piles of laundry . sleep in the daytime . talk to no one but cats . no one needs to see

                    Cliff is the only one of us
                    not allowed a lighter
                    A book of matches
                    Allowed to carry wood
                    to the clearing but not
                    place it in the flames
When i am awake during the day
i leave the house lit by the sun but
barren I go off to the cofeehouses
to charge my technology for the
coming darkness
          How fortunate this
          hurricane in august
          The camp asunder
          The boathouse
          secured before the storm
          The canoes The kayaks
          The grub tubs The sunfish
          all safe But the windows
          lanced by branches and
          a door flown off
          the archery shed
                    Cliff set fire to the fields
                    behind our camp last summer
I forgot to take my name off
the account of a previous address
          How long until the boats
          collapse what's left of
          the trees?
I never bothered to call
the electric company
                    It burned for an hour
                    before anyone noticed
Now I'm paying for it
but with insomnia
instead of money

there was also the summer we cottaged next to our cousins until our new house was finished . a full summer of pond but no shower . minnows don't survive long as pets . flushing because at least running water if not light . but a real house just next door . also empire strikes back sleeping bag . generic flashlight . unscary ghost stories . the only jokes that stayed with me were unfunny and racist . surely someone told a joke without prejudice . lunches in the gazebo . a terrified parakeet . watching dragonflies fuck . ghost stories in the empty cottages . canada geese alarm clocks . big hiss . no electricity but access to a motorboat . jet skis . too young to waterski . cookouts on the other side of the lake . people who used the word cottage to describe houses bigger than any i've ever lived in .

                    Cliff never told me
          Raking the branches
          off the beach
                    how the fire smelled
Every mattress seems
alive with crumbs
                    why he did it
          Plastic over windows
when it's too dark
to examine
                    even though we
                    shared a tent
          Paid overtime for
Insomnia because of
          clean-up crew
                    He didn't want
                    witnesses even
          The satisfaction of
too much darkness
                    after the fact
          a job must done