Hard Blessings by Patrick Carrington

Hard Blessings
Patrick Carrington

Main Street Rag
P.O. Box 690100
Charlotte, N.C. 28227
ISBN 13:978-1-59948-115-9
$10.00

Carrington’s story poems my not resemble our story,
but it is certain, the reader will relate to some of
the poems in Hard Blessings. His unique definite
lines, the sudden stop from end to beginning;

“that most unexplainable thing

to me, to be magical enough
to raise her hands and lead me,
like Moses through water”

The sassy voice, a voice which defies the usual pin to
black velvet board; his voice flies over, around,
straight up, straight down. we land on solid ground
and just when we think it is time to rest we find
words blowing, pushing toward a perceived truth,

“…where you see yourself
in window of every dead end,
among the Maytag’s and moderate dresses,
and let’s say, for the sake of consumers,
you need more bang for your buck,…”

Patrick Carrington takes us on his ride, the chrome
spokes on his Hudson, the ignition start with love,
“you have woven them onto the map of your body like
silk.” we trace the highway, “this moving from nowhere
to nowhere else makes that person hard to keep…” this
persistent look out the back curve, glass. the speed
it takes, the destination, and all the pull over rest
stops, all anticipation, the relief, the refills, the
restless stretches, all the stuff packed in the trunk;
the poems carry us, “the sound of your spirit
crunching like saltines,” and I wonder who is driving?
the proverbial parents, or society, or ”the toes that
creep to the edge with cheap perfume of salvation in
their nostrils…”

Irene Koronas
Poetry Editor, Wilderness House Literary Review
www.whlreview.com
reviewer, Ibbetison Street Press