BIERSTADT'S CHIMNEY ROCK

by Bill Sullivan

on the anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre,

December 29, 1880

From the Collection of Colby College Museum of Art: Albert Bierstadt, "View of Chimney Rock, Ohalilah Sioux Village in the Foreground" (1860).

Eighteen sixty—in his Manhattan studio

Albert Bierstadt studies his year-old photographs

and oil sketches of the Great Plains and foothills

of the Rockies. He then turns to his images of 

the Lakota, the Oglala Sioux and his collection

of their artifacts. He pauses, fills his brush with

oil paint, approaches the board sitting on the easel,

saying silently, "Everything must glow, must shine

like the soft rays of the sun." He adds more dove gray

to the last of the low clouds; steps back, saying, “Yes,

it's all there and more, the luminous amber sky,

the aquamarine river, the lush green bushes

on the bank, the soft shadows, the warmest of suns."

 

And there are the two horsemen in the shallow water,

one with child mounted in front, the other to his right

relaxed, but with a rifle at his side. Far right a woman,

water to her waist, ready to do the morning wash

and on the bank three tepees, shelter for this band

and just beyond another man riding off for the day's

hunt. And all the carefree children and unleashed dogs

scattered about. It is family, clan and tranquility,

life beyond what is and will be and he knows that.

 

Knows that when he includes Chimney Rock—

a storm shaped relic of a violent volcanic past,

a weathered cone that rose some three hundred feet

above the prairie grasses and became a marker for  

the fur traders, Mormons and pioneers tramping a trail

west—to Oregon and California. Knew it when he

and the government surveying team followed the North

Platte River reached the structure, examined the gifts,

messages and drawings left by previous travelers—

determined dreamers who heeded the prophets' call:

"Go west! Our destiny!  God's will! This land, ours from

the Atlantic to the Pacific." Now the creaking oxcart

and wagon, soon the hiss and steam of the locomotive.

 

He places the prominent rocky tower in the distant

background, makes it appear insignificant,

but knows his idyllic world would soon bleed.

He did not conjure up the brutal chapters then—

the butchery, expulsion, internment, deprivation

and suffering. But his life spanned the tale. Yes, he

lived long enough to read the reports of the massacre

at Wounded Knee. Lived long enough to examine

the photos of the corpses—men, women and children—

being tossed into a mass grave—lived long enough

to ponder the photo of Chief Big Foot's frozen body

lying in the blood-soaked snow—his cupped hands

outstretched as if reaching out for his slain followers.

 

And what did Albert say that late December day?

Did he think of that halcyon scene he had painted

thirty years earlier? Did he shrug his shoulders,

conclude that it had to be, or did he weep?       

 

 

Before retiring to Westerly, Rhode Island, Bill Sullivan taught English and American studies at Keene State College, the University System of NH. He has co-authored two studies of twentieth century poetry and co-produced two documentary films. Here Am I, Send Me, The Journey of Jonathan Daniels, aired by numerous PBS stations, streams at PBS.org. His poems have appeared in numerous print and on-line publications. Loon Lore: In Poetry and Prose was published in 2015 by Grove Street Press. 

THE ROAD AHEAD, 2020

by Bill Sullivan

How to know if history is slamming

on the brakes, screeching to a blessed stop

just before the ditch and the cliff--taking

a left turn, leaving behind all the outdated

models, the hesitant and reluctant drivers?

No trumpet blares, theatric announcements,

no once-every-five hundred-years comet

streaking across the night sky, no revelations.

And we wonder if history is on automatic

drive and we're just along for the ride?  Or

if we can remap our route, take detours, back

roads to avoid dead ends and fatal collisions?

Still we keep our hands on the steering wheel, 

step on the gas, sing songs to the night sky.

Bill Sulllivan taught English and American studies at Keene State College before retiring in Westerly, Rhode island. His poems have appeared in print and online publications including: Perigee, Connecticut River Review, the Providence Journal, and The New Verse News.  He is also the author of Loon Lore: In Poetry and Prose.

SONG OF WATERS RUNNING RED

by Bill Sullivan

“Spirit, help me to see

their broken stories…”

                                                                   The Wound in the Water, libretto by Euan Tait.

And the oceans, seas and rivers bled, then and now.

                                  1

So many unshackled black bodies,
hauled topside, dragged to the rail like sacks
of trash, worthless cargo when breathless or ill.
Unshrouded, unblessed, tossed to the sharks.

Lost: your freedom, your fields, family, friends,
songs and dances, your chanted village score,
your matching parts. Separated and silenced
you descend to the unknown ocean floor.

                                    2
Now a coyote says, “This far and no further;
A raft is there by the Rio Bravo.” Death threats,
and poverty marched the family north to the churning
spring waters, hoping to elude the border’s net.

“We will not be separated, will stay a family,”
Mid river, the rapids sank the raft, the dream.
Four will never know the opposite shore. Lost—
father, daughter child, and infant, swept downstream.

                                  3
The Mediterranean Sea, the reddest of borders,
graveyard for countless non-Europeans fleeing torture
and war.  First an embrace from the host, then rejection.
For a time, heroic rescues at sea, then cessation.

Thank the Turkish soldier who kindly retrieves
the lifeless body from Bodrum’s shore, who cradles
Aylan, in his arms, a three-year-old Syrian Kurd. Mother,
sister lost at sea; only the broken father left to grieve.


                                           4
Who knows who first pressed the knife’s tip in, opened
the wound? But slave trader, captain and merchant pushed
it deeper.  And despots, dealers, war lords, smugglers twisted
it more than a turn or two—then, hope and story severed.

If you don’t turn your head, you will see children confined,
crying out for their parents, drowning in a sea of abuse,
but also gaze at the perp’s or the collaborator’s eyes,
black and blank, a passageway to the dying soul’s cries.

                                          5
The spirit, the sea—eternal and universal; every creature
a part of the tale.  The sea, the womb; life’s origins.
Joined, at birth, our ties soon severed by Mammon’s legions.
Exiles and lords, cast apart, songless in a wounded sea.

Who in that sea will sing the first note of the song
that sparks the afflicted, that turns the cruel and greedy,
that invites every voice to join, that note by note stops
the bleeding, purifies the water, rewrites the wrongs?

Bill Sullivan taught English and American Studies at Keene State College. He co-authored two studies of twentieth century poetry, co-directed two documentaries.  His poems have appeared in a number of print and online publications.  His Loon Lore: In Poetry and Prose was published by Grove Street Books in 2015. He retired to Westerly, RI and turns to the ocean and gardens when times turn bleak.

WIRE CUTTERS

by Bill Sullivan

"Cutting Barbed Wire" by Toyo Miyatake (circa 1944/1945).

Somehow Mr. Miyatake was able to smuggle in his lenses,
build a makeshift box camera out of what scraps were available
in the Manzanar Internment Camp. Confinement could not
constrain his ingenuity, his spirit, his need to document injustice.
So we have a black and white record of this shameful action
as well as photos of a resilient, proud people to absorb and remember.

               I am looking at his image of a raised arm, a hand
clutches a wire cutter, as if it were a lifeline, its blades open,
ready, eager, one senses, to sever a strand of razor sharp barbed wire.
In the top left-hand corner, we see the guard tower looming
over the scene. Yes, a given time and place. A dark piece
of our past, but it could have been taken at one of the Nazi
concentration camps, a Siberian gulag, any one of too many
political prisons. Clashing symbols; the desire to be free
and the drive to imprison.

               I am thinking of the suspicion, fear and greed
that led to the confinement of Japanese Americans decades ago
but also, the recent images of Central American children separated
from parents, crammed into cages, lying there on concrete
or thin pads, alone, sobbing, some silently, Brown children, vermin
to some, quarantined, held as hostages to convince their parents
to return to their countries and to deter other asylum seekers
from crossing the border. All that cruelty to assure the whiteness
of America prevails.

Has a photographer pressed his shutter, captured
the indifference and abuse in this house of horrors?
Has a filmmaker documented the bewilderment
and innocence of children, the anguish of parents?
So that after the wires are severed and they are free
and united, we and our children's children can see,
know shame and anger, reap love from the ashes
of our history.

Shoes and toys left at a port of entry to the U.S. in Tornillo, Texas. Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images accompanying “Toddlers fend for themselves in immigration court thanks to Trump,” an op-ed by Sen. Richard Durbin, Chicago Sun-Times, August 17, 2018. "The policy began in secret. The Trump administration denied such a policy existed. And when it finally acknowledged that migrant children were being separated from their parents at the border, chaos ensued. Only now is the full picture of what happened and why becoming clear." —The Daily podcast presents "Divided."

Bill Sullivan taught English and American studies at Keene State College, co-authored books on Twentieth century American poetry, co-produced two documentary films, and most recently published Loon Lore: In Poetry and Prose.

SMACKED DOWN

by Bill Sullivan

Congress has historically treated drug abuse as a malady afflicting mostly poor, minority communities, best dealt with by locking people up for long periods of time. The epidemic of drug overdose deaths currently ravaging white populations in cities and towns across the country has altered this line of thinking, and forced lawmakers to acknowledge that addiction is a problem that knows no racial barriers and can be best addressed with treatment. —NY Times Editorial, Jan. 25, 2016. Photo: A 20-year-old heroin addict agreed to go to detox through the Gloucester [MA] Police Department Angel program in January after he overdosed. Credit: Katherine Taylor for NY Times, Jan. 24, 2016

blue nails  ashen skin
                                           pin size pupils
barely a breath
                                           another flat line looms
his savior if found
                                           a narcan syringe
white brown or black
                                           a teen or thirty something
or an aging boomer
                                           who went from prescriptions
pushed by physicians
                                           to bags of scag

he might collapse
                                           on a city street
or in a country lane
                                           be clad in a suit
or laborer's boots
                                           be an absent father
or live in lover
                                           once a dreamer
or a pragmatist
                                           now possessed
he rides a demon horse
                                           over a cliff
will it be a hospital
                                           or the morgue
for the man
                                           with the opioid eyes

for years jeered
                                           as a crackhead
or junkie
                                           he was left to die
or tossed into a cell
                                           but when the disease
infected the suburbs
                                           the country lanes
the club house
                                           and the gated estate
it was rehab for the addict
                                           progress no doubt
but too late for the poor
                                           who had no care or aid
who filled a grave
                                           or crawled around
a prison cave


Bill Sullivan is from Rhode Island where in the past five years over a thousand residents have overdosed on opioids, mainly heroin.  He is the co-author two books on twentieth century poetry, co-producer of two films and his poems have appeared in a number of on line and print publications.  His latest publication is Loon Lore in Prose and Poetry.

EMPTY PLATES: A RHYME

by Bill Sullivan

Image source: CNN

Betsy says there's food galore
but too few souls who will share.
Billy says that when he's in a store
he wants to grab a peach and a pear

but he doesn't dare.  Eddie fears
another fruitless day and night
but never a whine, never a tear. 
Bobby shouts,"It just isn't right."

An ignoble lady, long ago, said,
"Let them eat cake."  Our portly
rich say, The takers are over fed
on fillets--it's so unsightly."

Slash the food stamps and meals
the pols on farm subsidies demand.
Children quake at such a cruel deal,
scrape plates, reach out hands.


Bill Sullivan taught English and American studies at Keene State College before retiring to Westerly, Rhode Island.  He is co-author of two books on twentieth century poetry and co-producer of Here Am I, Send Me, a documentary film on Jonathan Daniels, a slain civil rights activist.  His poem have appeared in a number of print and on line publications.