Jesus in the Ghost Room
by Rusty Barnes
Copyright © 2017 Rusty
Barnes
Nixes Mate Books
Allston, MA
ISBN 978-0-9991882-7-9
Softbound, 63 pages,
$9.95
Review by Zvi A. Sesling
Rusty
Barnes’ poetry is cold, hard, raw. That is exactly what makes it an
engaging read. It is about Rusty Barnes … at times Rusty and his
late father. Barnes is also warm, soft and polished. His poems are
down-to-earth, easily accessible.
In
“Arrow-Fishing” he recounts his days fishing in what was once
fairly deep water and how animals get the best of the quarry he was
after.
Arrow-Fishing
The
pond has become marsh now
but
when it was waist deep I would
go
to the middle in the depths
of
much to arrow-fish for the huge gold-
fish
my landlord had stocked years
before.
I remember brining the bow
to
my eye and sighting like a gun7
along
the top of my thumb the string
tense
in my fingers and the feeling
as
I Barnes f I were going under. I remember
overshooting
as I adjusted my shot
for
refraction. I didn’t make that one
but
eventually the heard heart of the world
won
out and the goldfish became bones
on
the bank killed by coon or mink.
But
I love the tense thrill of the shot still
I
have only to close my eyes to recall.
As
in his other poems, Barnes reflects on his past and in this poem,
“Circus,” he recalls
some
aspects of those days.
Circus
If
the Ringling Brothers were alive today
they
wouldn’t know how to begin.
Freak
shows today are everywhere
if
you know where to look,
there
on the common field of life
with
the tattooed and the pierced,
the
extraordinarily hairy together
with
the unfunny and the trolls
who
try to ruin it for everyone who
is
not so jaded. I can see the tents in
my
mind, the huge spikes that serve
as
pegs and the groups of rope fest=
ooned
with elephant shit and stale popcorn.
It
is pur magic and we only have so much.
What
makes Rusty Barnes interesting is that many of us have, “been
there, done that,” but have not seen it in the way Barnes portrays
it in this book.
In
“My Father’s Hip: 1972 Flood” Barnes provides insight into not
only his childhood and tenderness toward his father, but his daughter
as well. He recalls an important moment in his life despite the
dangers he encountered.
One
day the crick rose a couple feet
after
three days steady rain that brought
logs
ramming into rocks and a couple
dead
dogs floating in the brown spume.
My
dad lifted me up and brought me
to
the very edge of the eroded banks
that
with every rainstorm came just
a
little closer to our house. I don’t recall
what
he said to me but I felt safe next
to
his gritty cheek and the typical cigarette.
Beside
me my brother Joes jumped from foot
to
foot excited as all hell to be a branch
in
that raging water. He slipped down
the
bank screaming but dad never lost
a
beat still holding me he whipped around
and
caught my brother by the back
out
pretty heavily once he was safe
but
sitting on his hip in the driving rain
I
felt overcome by my smallness.
Like
all kids I returned to the site
of
the scene 30 years later, dipping my
young
daughter’s feet in that same water.
These
are examples of Barnes’s recollections of life. In particular his
poetry recollects memories of his father, the death of his uncle and
his leaning on his loving wife for support.
Barnes
grew up in rural Appalachia. He weaves those years with his life in
the Boston, MA area into a book of poetry that moves along at a
rapid, always interesting pace,
with
many poetic stories not soon forgotten.
_______________________________________________
Zvi A. Sesling, author
of The Lynching of Leo Frank
and the forthcoming War
Zones (Nixes Mate Books)
Publisher & Editor of
Muddy River Poetry Review
and Editor of Bagel Bard
Anthologies 7,8 & 12
Poet Laureate, Brookline, MA
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