Michael Chitwood is a free-lance writer and a lecturer at the University of North Carolina. His poetry and fiction have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, The New Republic, Threepenny Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Field, The Georgia Review and numerous other journals. Ohio Review Books has published two books of his poetry--Salt Works (1992) and Whet (1995). His third book, The Weave Room, was published by The University of Chicago Press in the Phoenix Poets series (1998). His collection of essays, Hitting Below the Bible Belt, was published by Down Home Press in 1998. Gospel Road Going, a collection of poems about his native Appalachia, was published in 2002 and was awarded the 2003 Roanoke-Chowan Prize for Poetry. In 2006, he published a collection of essays and short stories called Finishing Touches. His collection of poetry From Whence was released in March 2007 from Louisiana State University Press. Tupelo Press published his book Spill in October of 2007. Spill was named as a finalist for ForeWard magazine’s poetry book of the year and won the 2008 Roanoke-Chowan Prize.
The following poems are from Michael's collection published by LSU Press, From Whence.
At the Wilco with some Founding Fathers
Down the Havoline, Quaker State aisle
goes Jefferson, if his shirt can be believed.
The red stitching over the right pocket
proclaims this man to be a namesake
of the author of the Declaration of Independence
and if you can’t believe a man’s shirt
what are you going to believe?
Hamilton, what a strange coincidence,
doubts aloud that the cashier
cannot access the safe and Franklin,
spook me out, is eyeing the better wines
while recommending the Appalachian spring water.
It’s all here—White Rain hairstyling spray, tic tacs,
flashlights, corn chips and nation-makers.
And now Jefferson, who wanted to be remembered
for penning Virginia’s statute on religious freedom,
says a standing silent prayer over a chili dog
before taking a bite and heading out
through the calibrated doors, he’s nearly six feet I see,
into the republic of Friday morning
Down the Havoline, Quaker State aisle
goes Jefferson, if his shirt can be believed.
The red stitching over the right pocket
proclaims this man to be a namesake
of the author of the Declaration of Independence
and if you can’t believe a man’s shirt
what are you going to believe?
Hamilton, what a strange coincidence,
doubts aloud that the cashier
cannot access the safe and Franklin,
spook me out, is eyeing the better wines
while recommending the Appalachian spring water.
It’s all here—White Rain hairstyling spray, tic tacs,
flashlights, corn chips and nation-makers.
And now Jefferson, who wanted to be remembered
for penning Virginia’s statute on religious freedom,
says a standing silent prayer over a chili dog
before taking a bite and heading out
through the calibrated doors, he’s nearly six feet I see,
into the republic of Friday morning
Basement Barber
Here were said the words men say.
The oil stove winked its slit black eye;
it knew they did not have their way.
A whitetail made for the edge of the page.
Vitalis came before the talc.
My father’s dark hair began to fade.
Barrelhead Thurman palmed my scalp,
knuckled my ear when he was done
just to hear a little boy yelp.
They rode, hats off, through years of lies
on bus seats the county junked,
out-fished, out-hunted the ones who’d died.
My father’s dark hair began to fade.
The oil stove winked its slit black eye.
It knew he did not have his way.
The dead grow long and beautiful hair.
They have said what they had to say
to stir that basement’s damp, sweet air.
Morning Walk, Holden Beach
for Tom Andrews
Ghost moon in the upper right-hand corner
where we used to write our names—
Is it quiet there, Tom,
adrift from your drift of ashes?
I strike out towards the rising sun,
your blank blue, your murmur in surf
to my right, dunes and salt-blasted beachfronts
to my left. I can still see
the scribblings sand crabs left
in their nightly scurry for the day’s discards.
This page, like all the others, will be erased
soon, but for now there’s a line or two.
The waves unscroll their best bond,
a finish like a mirror under the sandpipers.
You’d like that, I think, text as pure reflection,
no scuff of us to mar the brief recording.
There are no hills here to look to for help
though the ocean seems upgrade at the horizon.
I sing a little under my breath, as the saying goes—
old JT, Dylan, even that God-awful
song about West Virginia where your urn lies,
my honest friend, at Point Pleasant.
The sun’s up now, full, and gulls yuck
at their own stand-up. I smell coffee
and turn, my back to the sun’s hot yolk,
to head for home, following my shadow.
Men Throwing Bricks
The one on the ground lofts two at a time
with just the right lift for them to finish
their rise as the one on the scaffold turns
to accept them like a gift and place them
on the growing stack. They chime slightly
on the catch. You’d have to do this daily,
morning and afternoon, not to marvel.
The One Day
We were behind on the job
so waited out the rain in the pickup.
Because the backhoe would mire
he shouldered the four-foot pipe joints
and brought them to us in the ditch.
The red mud clutched and tugged at his boots
and Bill laughed at his “Swan Lake”
as he fought through, lurching and staggering
when the mud would suddenly let go.
But he kept them coming, lugging the red joints
to us and then slogging back for another
while we slid on the gasket and fit the pipes together.
You can see how, pushing like that, he wound up,
two years later, with the tiny plastic piping of IVs
feeding into both arms and the three drainage tubes
snaking from under the patch on his chest.
His skin was a shade away from being same as the sheet
when I saw him in the ICU,
and he couldn’t have lifted the drinking straw
on the bedside tray.
But that one day he brought two hundred yards of pipe
and even the red earth couldn’t stop him.
Here were said the words men say.
The oil stove winked its slit black eye;
it knew they did not have their way.
A whitetail made for the edge of the page.
Vitalis came before the talc.
My father’s dark hair began to fade.
Barrelhead Thurman palmed my scalp,
knuckled my ear when he was done
just to hear a little boy yelp.
They rode, hats off, through years of lies
on bus seats the county junked,
out-fished, out-hunted the ones who’d died.
My father’s dark hair began to fade.
The oil stove winked its slit black eye.
It knew he did not have his way.
The dead grow long and beautiful hair.
They have said what they had to say
to stir that basement’s damp, sweet air.
Morning Walk, Holden Beach
for Tom Andrews
Ghost moon in the upper right-hand corner
where we used to write our names—
Is it quiet there, Tom,
adrift from your drift of ashes?
I strike out towards the rising sun,
your blank blue, your murmur in surf
to my right, dunes and salt-blasted beachfronts
to my left. I can still see
the scribblings sand crabs left
in their nightly scurry for the day’s discards.
This page, like all the others, will be erased
soon, but for now there’s a line or two.
The waves unscroll their best bond,
a finish like a mirror under the sandpipers.
You’d like that, I think, text as pure reflection,
no scuff of us to mar the brief recording.
There are no hills here to look to for help
though the ocean seems upgrade at the horizon.
I sing a little under my breath, as the saying goes—
old JT, Dylan, even that God-awful
song about West Virginia where your urn lies,
my honest friend, at Point Pleasant.
The sun’s up now, full, and gulls yuck
at their own stand-up. I smell coffee
and turn, my back to the sun’s hot yolk,
to head for home, following my shadow.
Men Throwing Bricks
The one on the ground lofts two at a time
with just the right lift for them to finish
their rise as the one on the scaffold turns
to accept them like a gift and place them
on the growing stack. They chime slightly
on the catch. You’d have to do this daily,
morning and afternoon, not to marvel.
The One Day
We were behind on the job
so waited out the rain in the pickup.
Because the backhoe would mire
he shouldered the four-foot pipe joints
and brought them to us in the ditch.
The red mud clutched and tugged at his boots
and Bill laughed at his “Swan Lake”
as he fought through, lurching and staggering
when the mud would suddenly let go.
But he kept them coming, lugging the red joints
to us and then slogging back for another
while we slid on the gasket and fit the pipes together.
You can see how, pushing like that, he wound up,
two years later, with the tiny plastic piping of IVs
feeding into both arms and the three drainage tubes
snaking from under the patch on his chest.
His skin was a shade away from being same as the sheet
when I saw him in the ICU,
and he couldn’t have lifted the drinking straw
on the bedside tray.
But that one day he brought two hundred yards of pipe
and even the red earth couldn’t stop him.
