Paul E. Nelson
(USA)
Death of an Indian (Birth of a Shaker)
November 1881
to the Great Spirit Chief
Squ-sacht-un
had been a bad Indian.
Drinking & hard-living had left
his body weak
& open to evil spirits.
A Squaxin (Sahewamish) logger
worked hard/drank hard
was said to’ve broke his neck
& five
Indian Doctors w/ scallop-shell rattles
& feathersuits & in
can
tay
shuns
five Indian Doctors w/
a healing song from Duncan (perhaps)
a vowel-laden Full Moon canto howl’d
into November Skookum Bay
(Hammersly Inlet)
air
no use.
The bottle’d won.
Broke his neck.
Left his body at Skookum
and his soul –
Maybe in a
clam basket
the Giant Ogress keeps,
maybe in a canoe
headed to sea, maybe
Coyote knows…
Whe-Bul-eht-sah (Mary Thompson to settlers)
bedside &
(niece) Nancy George
in the corner
bit of red suspender
wrapped around Squ-sacht-un’s
(John Slocum’s)
head.
Only weeping now,
send two men off to Olympia
for the finest pine.
Tell the cousins
Squ-sacht-un
was no more.
Tell the Uncles
drinking won
Squ-sacht-un’s neck
lost.
See the robins make the snowberry branches
bob.
Hear wind kiss
November evergreens.
Hold this moment in time.
Let grief well up
from the
large intestine & slow
take over the neck &
all skin.
Squ-sacht-un.
His last breath
left him.
Soul lifted
by bright light upwards
met by a procession
angelic.
Meanwhile
somewhere beyond the veil
somewhere
under obsolete constellations near a
silver river
where no demarcation between tendons
and star stuff
comet tails
& entrails
embutido y
nebulae
Squ-sacht-un had some explaining
to do.
Past a picket fenced yard
stands a house.
Door open
house empty ‘cept for what he knew as
a presence.
Another door open
a well-dressed man asks:
Do you believe in God?
(This is no trick question.) One cd end this way
spin the meat wheel again again climb
back on start over
again, carne roulette
I coulda been better
agonies again
I coulda
been free of ligaments and tendencies to change myself
into a shape that’s less than spirit
THIS
all Squ-sacht-un was now. Skin without
a boat.
Meat about to climb back on
the wheel.
It ain’t home
but somewhere close.
I hear Charles Lloyd play
Migration of the Spirit
& Salish singers
w/ similar songs
cued up to wail
beside pine but
NO.
There is another door
& on the wall a large photograph
of that bad Indian
Squ-sacht-un
drinking
fucking
puking in snow.
Glass crash
fist fight
every bad act
of his 40 years
whiskey
tincture of Jamaica ginger
gambling
reenacted
wicked technicolor
for him to chew on
for a few long moments
of purgatory.
Down
down
down
some furnace in the basement
bodies of drinking
buddies
cracking in the fire
ashes to ashes, tendons to
stardust.
Start again
wicked Indian
you need this skin boat
no more.
(Who’d not want to haggle
right about now? What would you do
if all the lovers of all your years
passed by at midnight
dressed in the flesh
they wore when you
last loved them?)
Denial turns to dealing &
this offer comes straight from
the angels (or God)
a spirit great and benevolent.
Some luminous divinity
capable of showing
Squ-sacht-un
his wicked Indian
fornicatin’
ways
to offer mercy
mercy
mercy.
Offer sobriety
&
upright morality, take
the white robe
candles & bells.
This is a bell-ring.
Take II.
Death of An Indian (Birth of a Shaker)
Led to a room upstairs
& then the roof
the view
an ancestral homeland
all coast
a giant glaciated breast
& game
& clams
& kingfish
stick games and songs.
Enough cedar for
80 armadas, enough
huckleberries for
mountains of pie.
Enough
Which way is heaven now
Siab?
This is not blackness.
Only black plasma &
imagination
just behind the curtain.
Back at a grief-struck bedside
sisters weeping, Nancy
sees
Squ-sacht-un’s toe move.
Mary Thompson says stop looking at the body!
Next a hand twitch
then his head,
then
Squ-sacht-un delivered from evil
sits up
regains consciousness
his broken neck
healed,
his need
WATER
(but not from the vessel that
“belonged to the Sin.”
WATER
Weak, he won’t go back to
his old bed.
A white robe
for a new morality and mission.
CONFESS he urged
(make all right)
lest the burning furnace,
lest yr spot in heaven be
denied
&
then build a church.
Forget the coffin now
just around the riverbend.
Heaven gave him eloquence/ability
to hear voices:
You shall live on earth four weeks. (Get busy.)
Bells.
Candles.
Crosses.
Flags.
Albs.
Holy
pictures
would festoon churches from
Squamish
to Yurok.
From Chemainus
to Tolowa
Nanaimo to Nez Perce
Quileute to
Umatilla
Hoh
to Cowlitz &
Siletz & Klamath
to Muckleshoot & Snoqualmie
Quinalt & Skokomish
to Tulalip &
Musqueam.
Songish Colville
Cowichan Swinomish
Hoopa Chehalis
Squaxin Lummi
Upper Skagit
Wasco
Warm Springs
Nooksack
Makah
Clallam
Yakama
.
Cascadia, gets its own religion.
Squ-sacht-un had a body
w/o a soul
had a light
like a sun
trying his soul
had
four weeks
&
one last chance.
A year later
Squ-sacht-un
sick again
& remember Mary?
(Whe-Bul-eht-sah) bedside Mary?
Mary got the shakes.
Not from drinking, no. Not
from not drinking, no.
This shaking a healing shake a fit.
As in the Spirit Canoe Ceremony
Waterman wd talk abt.
Power enters poles drummed on roof boards
or planks conducting like lightning rods
or Whe-Bul-eht-sah, Dear Sweet Mary
here to shake the daylight back into
Squ-sacht-un (John Slocum).
Shaking (noetic illumination) Shaking
(direct experience of divinity) Shaking. Shake that bell.
Carry that rhythm. Loan yr throat out
to the all too silent antepasados.
Shaking (widdershins) Stomping
smoke-free and sober.
Why’d this
scare the shit out the White Man?
Settler prehension one
regulation at a time.
Punishable by torture
or slaughter.
Notice to the Shakers: You are hereby permitted to hold meetings… under the following conditions: on Sundays not longer than three (3) hours at one time and on Wednesdays not longer than two (2) hours at one time. The following REGULATIONS to be observed: 1st, Keep windows or a door open during all meetings. 2nd, Use only one bell to give signals. Not continuous ringing. 3rd, Do not admit school children at night meetings.
7:25P – 1.21.12
Whitley Center
SJI
____________________________________________
Paul E Nelson – poet/interviewer
To what do you train your attention?
Paul E. Nelson founded the Cascadia Poetry Festival which embraces Washington, Oregon, Northern California and British Columbia. He has served as President of the Washington State Poetry Association.
Over 26 years, Paul E Nelson has interviewed poetic luminaries such as Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Robin Blaser, Sam Hamill, Wanda Coleman, Eileen Myles, Jerome Rothenberg, Sam Hamill and George Bowering. As host of a whole-systems public affairs radio interview program, he also interviewed authors and activists who understand the shift from a mechanistic ethos to one of process, partnership and interconnection.
Now, you can hear some of his visionary interviews online, find resources for Organic Poetry , or book a workshop with Paul and bring him to your community. His workshops are transformative experiences for writers of all skill levels.
About Paul’s most recent collection of poetry, A Time Before Slaughter (Apprentice House, Oct ’09), Michael McClure said: “Here’s one more big hunk of the American shoulder, as Olson carved his from the North East, Nelson takes his from the Pacific North West. It’s beautiful time-space in new words.
* * *
Paul has written a 17 syllable sentence every day since the first day of 2001. Read more about the form he uses at American Sentences.
***
Paul has produced over 500 hours of interviews.
See http://paulenelson.com/americanprophets/