Four Fascinating Prose Poems by Moe Seager

 

Meaning is to become, not to appear. You should dance for life. Rudolf Nureyev.

My childhood would be marked by song and dance. For most of it we had no phone. Dad would briefly bring home cars on their last crank soon to sit squat in front of the house before being towed away. He was equally adept at providing televisions with a life span short as a season opener. His favourite viewing was baseball played out daily on the t.v. from a nearby bar which was in act and deed his true home as ours simply served as a sleepover for his late night arrivals drunk and done with his day.

Mom popped out child after child. By the age of twenty seven she birthed nine children and two miscarries. Wen asked by startled inquirers why do you have such a big family?, I would borrow a response known to Irish Catholics; our t.v. broke.

Lacking the amenities common to lower class families we did however, possess two cherished instruments, a radio and record player. From morning through late night music accompanied, orchestrated our innocent young lives. Never a dispute over which station to listen to Mom fixed the dial to a popular a-m station that churned out the leading tunes of the day; rhythm and blues, rock 'n roll and country, Thus was my initiation into three music genres that shaped my ears and learned movements for a life to follow. This fusion would lead me by curiosity to discover Jazz, Bossa Nova Flamenco and Bach.

Mom herself was a die hard fan of radio play and a very nimble dancer. Confined to a cramped, crowded cluttered house she both coped and celebrated to music. Sweeping floors, doing dishes, washing clothes she did sing along and swing and sway to the hits of the day known as Top 40.

Instinctively we followed suit singing out of key , imitating Mom's steps. In the hot season with windows open we could be heard in chorus belting out to the likes of Elvis, the Beatles and Fats Domino whose hit Let the Little Girl Dance was Mom's anthem. I think I was ten years old when I procured my own radio, a glowing tube lit Zenith I set next to my bed. On Sunday nights the air waves were relaxed and I picked up shows from Buffalo, Fort Wayne and New York City. Listening I felt joined to a larger world, an ambition I was fixed on, confident that I would future grow to reside in. Books served to detail my knowledge of past and present that I aimed to curate. From these formative years at age 12 I attended my first dance in a nearby church hall. The d.j. announced a dance contest. I took a dance partner and off we gyrated, my grease loaded hair dripping like a petroleum spill. I won the dance contest. The prize a Beatles album. Chivalrous I handed it to my cute little Italian partner. Cheers and applause, local boy makes good.

After the dance I flew home excited to tell Mom I had won a dance contest, my pride ebbing sharing the news with her. She asked, where is your album honey? I gave it to the girl Mom. She smiled saying that's nice. I blushed for a moment in her presence. It was as if she and I had won the dance contest.

Show me how you do it son she asked. Suddenly embarrassed and shy to demonstrate in front of my teacher, hesitantly I made a few awkward steps. Mom slapped me on my hip saying C'mon honey lemme see you really do it. She strode over to the radio. In a raised voice that captured my feelings she hollered let's go, turn it up! 

At 10 years old.

 

Directly behind our ramshackle house. The tracks. A diesel pulling 74 freight cars. Its fumes invading my bedroom, distasteful. A wake up stimulant way past midnight. The window rattles, the room vibrating. I don't want to go to school in the thoughtless morning. The squeal of steel weighing upon iron calling c'mon, let's go, get a board, no time for the hesitant. Wheels kneading the rails. Rails a path to who knows where is odyssey. What is known amounts to nothing to hold onto like the boring food from dinner. Promise of the unknown, the currency of risk filling my empty pockets. Awake I dreamed of distant discovery. Sinbad clandestine for the concrete shores of metropoly. Broad lanes, smooth hard metal and bright lights. Buildings so high in the sky my mountains to climb. Dreamy darkness gave way to grey clad morning. Pigeons stirred and coohed the language of resignation. No sight or sound of the rolling stock. I cried that pass by like a train.

One Among Many

I am first born Son of my mother Who married my father Who brooded in shadows As she bore nine children We bury our dead The Plain pine boxes Thinly sewn into pockets of dirt Send off our kin Kin of a neighbour We give of our muscle Our tenuous time Pride in our part Played in the world We work to live, live to love, love to be We walk this earth together. I toil day after day And nights A simple labourer Simply making it. One among many On tired knees and weakly legs What burdens my back can´t carry Weights my shoulders cannot withstand What gifts too rich and plenty For my small hands to hold I share and share alike One among many Dream and dare Embrace the world Colours and tongues Shape our lives Room for all round table High times, low times Sometimes all we have Courage and trust The bond between us Between times We do the best we can For troubled waters Rush and they swirl Rushing and swirling About us all Upstream we surge Surging and spawning Spilling ourselves One among many I march, I run I sit and calm Oh let go, now dance I am rhythmic tic ´o time One among many Relinquished of the vigour, The vital of my spring Replenished in greater meaning This is love One among many I am the grass root.

6:25 a.m. in a place called Paris. //

No one is ever free. Even the birds are chained to the sky. Bob Dylan

Our hands are light blue and gentle. Our eyes are full of terrible confessions. Anne Sexton

My soul has grown deep like the rivers. Langston Hughes .

Obese from experience , the gut of my mind oozing bittersweet. Moe Seager

Moe Seager is a poet and jazz & blues vocalist who sings his poems on stages in Paris, New York and elsewhere and has recorded 2 jazzpoetry c.d.s.

Seager founded and hosts Angora Poets (Paris) World Café,100 Thousand Poets for Change Paris and is one of the coordinators for le Fédération des Poètes Paris.

He has 5 collections of poetry and currently publishes with Onslaught press, Oxford, U.K.  Other poetry collections are issued from the French Ministry of Culture –

Dream Bearers,1990.

One World, Cairo Press –in Arabic translation, 2004 

We Want Everything in French translation, les Temps des Cirises, Paris, 1994

Perhaps, La Maison de la Poesie, Grenoble, France, 2006

Fishermen and Pool Sharks Busking editions, London, 1992

Additionally Seager won a Golden Quill Award (USA) for investigative journalism,1989  and received an International Human Rights award from the Zepp foundation, 1990.

He teaches writing in Paris.

Keep the Beat on the Pulse of Life!

Moe Seager
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