Fire Fly
last summer i saw a single fire fly
with the science of our our inevitable extinction
i thought it might be the last one I ever saw
late in June i saw him, blinked and stared
to make sure, and there was another one
two, doubling hope,
a thick vapor of hope
i was for a moment the grandmother
in the choir that thought her baby might walk again
there they were, calling to the Lord for help
there was talk of how the Red Sea had
opened for Moses
now I’m praying for stasis
Buddhism says to accept change
accept impermanence
all you are attached to,
all you love will disappear
it’s not a cynical posture, looking straight at it,
it’s just the way it is
I miss my mother, she cared for me
I had ventured too far on a spring hike in the White Mts.
the snow I had walked miles on was softening,
the crust was breaking with each step
four steps for three feet of progress
miles to go
my surroundings took on a sharper, vivid focus
I really didn’t know if I was going to make it back to my camp
I had never been that tired
I had to completely embrace the task at hand
the next step
I thought of my mother
I heard her say,
“It doesn’t matter”
after some time
my breathing became steady
sometimes you can survive by not caring
just go
just continue
as if surrounded by love
and
just don’t give a shit
4 or 5 hours later, in the dark I made it to camp
so tired I could only curse
in one large exhaled syllable
and lie down and consider if the effort was that extreme
or the result was all that inevitable
my neighbors are setting off fire works, for no particular reason,
if it makes them happy, then i hope for universal happiness
I sit in the dark on the back porch and watch the fire flies
light skidding around the yard
and it makes me happy and I hope for universal happiness
I raise my glass and say
“Slante, here’s to you boys
getting lucky tonight!”
by Cormac McCarthy
Opening Day Fenway Park 2020
opening day at Fenway Park
this year has
started late
the plague has truncated the season
outside the wonders of instant gratification
baseball on the radio is hard to beat
on a summer night you can feel the perspiration through the airwaves
hear the rolling announcements making their way around the stadium
this year has had the feeling of a lousy sci-fi movie
the kind you had to watch on one of the 5 tv stations
the antennae could get
when it was 3 in the morning
and the adrenaline from the gig is still kicking in
this year the offense will be good
not as good as it might have been if the Dodgers hadn’t bought one of our players
for an amount of money that also seemed to be out of a sci-fi movie
the pitching will be historically bad
so bad that I predict women’s fashions and demeanors in New England will
transmogrify into the black garments of the grieved and vindictive women of Sicily
the crowd is a virtual crowd
piped in like a laugh track
but not convincingly in touch with the action
or the building drama of the game
Joe Castiglione has just couched a question that has been bothering me since March
“What effect do you think Purell will have on a baseball? Do you think
it should be considered as a spitball? It is a substance.”
the ex-player with him starts a considered monologue, I start to drift off…
at 9 I remember a neighbor in Ohio
he was leaning on a post in his fence a transistor radio in one hand
a Rheingold Extra Dry sitting on top of the post
his large pudgy fingers wrapped around an Old Gold Straight
he had a beer belly and a flat top short on the sides
he listened to the game, barely moving except for
a pull on the smoke or a pull on the beer
he had a thousand-mile stare
there seemed to be nothing else going on in the entire world
I’ve rarely seen that level of absorption
maybe
once on a musician and once on a man reading a newspaper
baseball on the radio is that thousand-mile stare
we don’t know what’s going to happen next
but, we are ready for it
by Cormac McCarthy
***
Hamlet at 70
He thought he was a goner
a young man who was watching
the end of everything, sister, mother and father, uncle
madness had swept through his family like a spring flood through an arroyo
he couldn’t pick up a coin from the floor
without feeling a sense of treachery looming behind him
the coin lying there as if it were the trigger for a trap
or a bomb
beckoning him to pick it up
and everything that had paraded through his conscious life
told him it was a trick, a heartless gambit
a prank that had waited centuries to find fruition
a coin stuck to the floor,
He had a dog with his mother’s name, they both perhaps loved him
at one time
Artifice is the name of the shadow that walks beside him
when there is no line between love, reality and artifice,
you. start to write sestinas for your mad, lost sister,
emptiness is an essential coloration of an emotional vacuum
when there is nothing, nothing but pain and nothing to ease the
stabbing of the nothing,
perhaps the old man, the mother, the whole family
were not monsters but, were work horses
pulling their skidders thru the wet, muddy snow
perhaps as brave to face every day
as to intensely ignore the horror
absorbed into the blank slate of being new born
with no place to store and hide the searing pain of perception
with no defenses, no hiding place, an invertebrate cooking on a rock in the sun
“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
what we see and what we do
the unsaid, the undone
the old man
thinking he has felt more pain than most
the old man
thinking there is no more agony beyond death
advancing
Hamlet, the old guy in the park
begins to befriend his torment
it becomes the parrot on the pirate’s shoulder
a squawking greek mannequin chorus
madness,
a hovering pain akin to the sound
of a muted dentist’s drill,
becomes a stasis
a constant like an ocean wind so constant
you can lean on it without thinking about it
then life is reduced to an unwitting
walking
down a sidewalk unconsciously avoiding cracks
still knowing to step on one could cause everything
to unravel
getting a cappuccino
a little sugar,
a little cinnamon
breathing in deep through the nostrils
feeling the repetition of disastrous fated events
has forged an optimism
an acceptance of the flaming demon
slow dancing just outside his peripheral vision
feeling the moment
feeling the air
as only a survivor can
feeling an intense loss
in realizing
that none of this was important
not to me he thought
or anyone
what were they doing?
what were they thinking?
Why did I get in so deep?
I never thought of running away
by Cormac McCarthy
***
Toyed with by the Plague
After taking my dog for a walk in the woods
I was driving one of the back roads that parallels the main road
killing time and enjoying the motion,
feeling the rush I get on the open road, infinite possibles
the mind can drift
there was a woman lying on the ground next to her car
I thought she might be looking at a flat tire or bad muffler
in two blinks of an eye, I awoke from my reverie and turned around
keeping a good distance I asked if she was all right
she said “I’m sick”
I asked if I should call someone she said “no”
I asked if she had a cell phone she said “yes”
I drove away thinking maybe she was recovering from some day drinking
the dope slap came when I remembered there was a pandemic
going on
the one I was trying to forget
I couldn’t go back,
between my age and some ailments
I couldn’t go back
it’s a busy road I thought
good cell reception
lots of satellites
I’m not going to sacrifice myself for someone’s day drinking
I thought
can’t do it.
tonight I was watching a documentary on rabbits
as the harrier hawks surrounded a desert rabbit,
an antelope hare,
I had an exhaustive feeling, a soulful deflation
I thought of the woman on the road
I changed the channel
by May I may find myself watching
reruns of
Lawrence Welk
and Gilligan’s Island
by Cormac McCarthy
***
Low Tide on the River
low tide on the estuary
the shine and sheen punctuated by the heron
and the plovers
the two cormorants “Bob and Weave”
drying their wings
lording over the imaginary vanquished cities of tidal mud
when it is low tide again
i will have forgotten the river
and be in the hours and minutes of work
and my preoccupations
when I am in my right mind
time is reduced to glacial creep
and I am circadian in seasons
and hunger, light
and impermanence
and when summoned,
I would be there in a Mesozoic minute
by Cormac McCarthy
Published originally in Hawk and Handsaw Vol. 2, 2009
***
Schrodinger’s Dog
nobody ever talks about Schrodinger’s dog
he would have chewed his way out of the box and ended the existential argument.
dogs are notorious for obfuscating human quantum analogies
he was a nervous sort, Erwin’s dog
kind of hypervigilant,
head on a swivel, navy seals awake
he actually slept with one eye open
if he actually slept
he kept thinking
“whatever happened to the cat?”
“where’s the damned cat?”
if you see a dog running down the road
slow down and let him pass
he may be running from something
by Cormac McCarthy
***
Sanity
There’s an account of Captain Cook
arriving on the coast of Australia in his ship the Endeavor
he reported that the native aboriginals upon seeing his wondrous ship
and its cargo of aliens paid it and them the same attention
that you would a passing cloud
barely looking up from their essential activities
perhaps these members of the world’s oldest
continuously intact culture
can see things without getting personally invested
assigning adjectives or nouns for that matter
not a philosophy but, a sanity
a de facto recognition of the unknown
perhaps with the same consciousness
of a comet transversing a planet
influenced by a gravitational presence
and nothing more
by Cormac McCarthy
**********
OLD NEWS/PRESS:
Cormac McCarthy Wins “Best Folk” Music Award from 2013 Spotlight on the Arts Awards
PORTSMOUTH, NH— Songwriter Cormac McCarthy won “Best Folk” in the Music category at the 19th annual Spotlight on the Arts Awards on April 18. The Awards are given by the arts community to celebrate the best of what makes the Seacoast a vibrant place to live.
Cormac is currently releasing his fifth album, Collateral, which has been praised as “a new and timely album of singular impact and gorgeous artistry”. The Portsmouth Herald’s Martin England wrote, “Collateral” is a remarkable achievement …McCarthy doesn’t look down on the characters he describes, but rather, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with them, and it’s his clear-eyed empathy that makes “Collateral” so believable”
The jury process used for the Spotlight Awards depends on an all-volunteer jury drawn from the visual and performing arts. Award categories include music, theatre, visual arts, and food (Best Chef), with nominations from the galleries or performance venues, the judges, and suggestions from a range of sources. The process was detailed by a Seacoast Online story after interviews with the senior judge Kim Ferreira who knows the process well after four years as head of the Spotlight Awards’ Visual Art Jury.
“Commitment is imperative. Members of the all-volunteer jury (work) throughout the year, then share their experiences and converse for months. In addition, the jury requests submissions from area venues, including dedicated alternative spaces that hold regular, ongoing exhibitions”
Each award category has judges who are considered expert and experienced in those categories.
Produced by Seacoast Media Group, publisher of the Portsmouth Herald and Spotlight Magazine, the Spotlight on the Arts Awards show was held at The Music Hall in Portsmouth and gave recognition to star actors, musicians, chefs and artists for their accomplishments over the past year. Bill Humphreys directed this year’s awards, which were hosted by Christine Penney and Dan Beaulieu.
This release quotes substantially and derives from stories written by Seacoast Online reports by Joey Cresta jcresta@seacoastonline.com, on April 19, 2013 2:00 AM and by Jeanné McCartin news@seacoastonline.com April 16, 2013 2:00 AM.
Collateral, The New CD from Songwriter Cormac McCarthy!
Singer-songwriter Cormac McCarthy’s fifth album is a milestone in his notable career as a singer and a songwriter. Time and experience have drawn this talented artist to a new and compelling crossroad.
“Many of the songs on this album are a bit of a musical stretch for me,” says McCarthy. “R & B, ballads, gut bucket blues, German theater music, bluegrass and even a protest song.”
The result is “Collateral,” a new and timely album of singular impact and gorgeous artistry. The 10 songs on this album are not so much a departure as a logical next step in the career of an observant, impassioned artist. This time McCarthy explores that territory where people struggle to survive. Lives here are shaped by the recession and frustrated efforts to stay afloat. For many, the territory will be familiar.
McCarthy’s national fan base will recognize the signature voice, the ironic wit and insight, and McCarthy’s rousing guitar playing, but they will also discover, as they listen, new and resonant themes.
“There’s a lot of talk about the middle class,” says McCarthy, “but no one’s talking about the great difficulty of moving up into the middle class – about the working poor. Many working people are just one minor disaster away from being homeless. The songs I write are inspired by what I’m seeing and what I’m not hearing.”
Collateral, as McCarthy sees it, is that thing of value, that thing you put up in order to get something else. It begs the question, not just of material goods but of things you’re willing to do spiritually, emotionally — what you’re willing to ante up and put in the pot.”
The repercussions, the collateral damage, is where these songs live.
McCarthy’s singing and guitar playing on “Collateral” is complemented by a number of talented singers and musicians from the Seacoast and Boston area including Kent Allyn: bass; Gary Gemmiti: drums; Duke Levine: electric guitars, lap steel, dobro, mandola; Rick Watson: mandolin, percussion; Joyce Andersen: fiddle, violin; and Cecil Abels, Dennis Brennan, Sammie Haynes, Jennifer Kimball and Rick Watson on back up vocals.
Cormac McCarthy
CD Release and Concert
The Stone Church
5 Granite Street, Newmarket, NH
www.thestonechurch.com
Cormac McCarthy’s last CD, “Picture Gallery Blues” was called an “unassuming masterpiece” by the Boston Phoenix and word has spread that his new CD release, “Curious Thing” outshines it. Even before its scheduled release, “Curious Thing”is getting high acclaim from fellow musicians and radio personalities alike.
McCarthy is established as one of New England’s finest singer songwriters. “I rarely issue directives but, next time he comes within 100 miles you must go hear him!” (Seth Rogovoy – special to The Boston Phoenix). The Phoenix also chose his as one of the Top Ten concerts (which included Bob Dylan and Ani Defranco).
Two-time nominee for the Boston Music Awards, McCarthy tours nationally sharing his delightful humor and performing his finely crafted songs. He has what The Boston Globe calls a “devastating wit and enormous writing gifts, capable of putting chills into your spine or a silly grin on your face.” Cormac’s songs reveal some of the magic of real life in a truthful, superbly literate style, delivered with a soulful baritone and a hot guitar.
Recording at drummer Billy (from Twinemen, Morphine fame) Conway’s studio Hi-N-Dry in Cambridge, Cormac pulled in some local and national talent from the area: Billy on drums, Duke Levine on guitars, lap steel, dobro and mandola, Kent Allyn on keyboards and bass and Jennifer Kimball, Dennis Brennan and Kris Delmhorst on vocals. “A stellar ensemble” is what McCarthy calls them.
The new CD, Curious Thing is scheduled for its international release party at The Stone Church in Newmarket, NH. The concert location is a sentimental favorite: Cormac McCarthy introduced his first album there early in his career. Kent Allyn, Billy Conway, Bruce Derr and Sammie Haynes (from MAINESQUEEZE) and other members of the “stellar ensemble” are included in the inaugural concert. Curious Things is the latest CD form one of the most brilliant songwriters to rise out of the contemporary folk scene.