Verbless
/Maurice Ferguson
Every reflection, mirrors or otherwise,
Whether in this moment or in another time,
The visage of echoes upon wrinkled waves,
Always, the mirage of the desert oases
Or last utterances at twilight
And the giraffe-necked silence,
Cornucopias in rainpools of blossoms
In starry puddles of ink,
Intimations as divine as zigzagging
Fingers on charcoal windows at 4 A.M.,
Then, pursuant thunder, a note
About the tight noose of failed principle
And, likewise, the throats of tugboats,
Cobwebs and fog, metal-footed clocks,
The hum of insomniac mechanics
And glib-tongued forked mouths,
Well as the infant’s first full-flush squall,
Falsetto lilts and death’s base rattle,
Whether a brief or lengthy interlude,
Crescendo and diminuendo of it all;
Moreover, flags at half-mast, strewn feathers
On doorsteps, teardrops of downtown mannequins,
Chimneys homeless in untrodden woods,
Hypotenuse of shadow and trees and angles of triangulation,
Sounds of rats on rounds of vacant factory floors,
Ghost towns and hieroglyphics, hailstones like bullets
Through rattling corn, always the hypotheses of
Gods, lovers, bridges, rainbows and crocks of gold;
Plus, smell of gangrene in Nam paddies, turpentine-
Tinted pine seabreezes, breeches in levees
And the delta’s long-protracted anticipation,
A full moon in the oak in the fullness of time;
Furthermore, dust motes and cotton in the eyes
Of newborns and that unsettling glob and buzz
At last gasp, crepuscular wings of darkening,
The grasp for the intangible and Ariel dawn,
These poems in quest of verbs, spaces and unfilled blanks,
Niche, cranny and nook, the cunning dotted line,
Awestruck mystery and strangular explanation,
Cracked pots, abandoned boots and perforated souls,
And last, the possibility of maracas-jangling macaws
And caterwauling cheetahs, imagination’s grope
For the most revered and most powerful verbs,
For voices in moss and in old stones, for elixirs of surprise.
Author’s note: Rob Clark, the proprietor of Cantos Books on the Roanoke City Market, supported the arts and often scheduled poetry readings. Kelly Cherry read on St. Patrick's Day 1999. Ms. Cherry expressed the importance of powerful verbs. Lisa Ress insisted a poem could not be written without verbs. This rankled me, and I bet her that I could write a verbless poem and not only verbless, but also all one sentence. The key had to be connectives, conjunctions, and gerunds converted into nouns. I originally titled it "A Poem in Quest of Verbs" then changed it to simply what it is—"Verbless." It took me going back and forth over seven months before I felt I had the poem where it needed to be. My conclusion: yes, powerful verbs are important, but great imagery is more important. Now, read me Thomas Stearns Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and I will love you for eternity. When questioned about J. Alfred Prufrock, Eliot replied: "He's a furrier from St. Louis, Missouri.” Rob sells insurance now. It's a shame. We need great independent bookstores in America, and Joni was correct: "We are stardust/We are golden/And we need to get ourselves back to the garden." Did I fail to say I'm an old hippie from the 60s who has a peace symbol on my Yellow Submarine, capitalized because my Beetle is a proper noun?
Maurice Ferguson lives in Buchanan, Virginia, with wife and a menagerie of stray animals. He retired after working 26 years for outpatient and inpatient substance abuse and alcohol treatment programs. Since retirement, he has volunteered at the V.A. Hospital, the Fincastle Jail, and the Transitional Living Center. Over the years, he organized and conducted a poetry and prose contest for the Virginia Department of Corrections and collaborated with Janet Lembke in publishing a poetry anthology of prison writing titled “The Walls Crumble: A Prison Anthology.”
He has published poems in several journals, including Artemis Journal, Roanoke Review, Piedmont Review, Inlet, and Foreword Magazine. He has also been the literary editor for Artemis Journal for many years now. He keeps composition books with him at all times and keeps copious notes, some of which becomes the fodder for future poems. He participates in an ongoing poetry group that meets 1-2 times a month at Hollins College. He has read his poetry at numerous colleges, including James Madison, VMI, Virginia Wesleyan, and Roanoke College.
