This Recording

Our ongoing series asks poets to talk about music. In our second edition, we visit with the poet Clay Matthews.

When the Wind Picks Up

by Clay Matthews

I usually listen to a wide spread of music—sometimes my CDs, sometimes the radio, sometimes old records and sometimes a themed music station on my TV.

Right now in my car I’ve got Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited playing. It was a warm day for winter yesterday, a record-setter, and that album, I think, made a nice soundtrack for the day because it has both a feel-good and ominous sound/statement to it.

Before that I kept playing the new CD put out by The Oxford American and underwritten by CMT—it’s good stuff from top to bottom, and a nice, rangy mix.

“Killing Him” – Amy LaVere (mp3)

“Anti Love Song” – Betty Davis (mp3)

“Karen Daulton” – Katie Cruel (mp3)

“Cadillac on 22s” – David Banner (mp3)

“For the Good Times” – Kris Kristofferson (mp3)

I just rebuilt this old record player that was my great-grandfathers, so at the house I’ve been playing many of my records. I’ve got one of Willie Nelson doing all Kris Kristofferson songs, and I really love that one.

Also, a bunch of Leon Russell on record—some solo, some duets, but he’s just got one of the most special and singular voices I’ve ever heard, and since he’s a bit of a local here in Oklahoma, he sort of helps tether me sometimes when the wind picks up.

Then, from one day to the next, I’m always coming back to good blues—John Lee, Bonnie Raitt, Son House, and on and on.

portrait of the author with a young pony

My dad got me the DVD of Clapton’s Crossroads concert in Chicago, and so that’s nice to put on and watch some and listen some and generally just enjoy.

Clay Matthews has recent work in H_NGM_N, The Laurel Review, LIT, Court Green, Forklift, Ohio, and elsewhere. He has two chapbooks: Muffler (H_NGM_N B_ _KS) and Western Reruns (End & Shelf Books), which is available online. Superfecta is forthcoming from Ghost Road Press in 2008.

Crownhead

by Clay Matthews

I stare at the television and watch a man
travel to another country and eat their food
while a woman in the kitchen stirs the deep
pot of beans and says I like it when people
dream in my house. I am neither here
nor there. I am replaying a song in my head
and loving the words and feeling the words
tug me a little, as I go down, and out,
a ten count, and this fight’s over. They raise
his arm in victory. They raise the dead
for an autopsy. Is there something sinister
about having once been alive or else
is it all just too much as the body
makes record of the being too much.
So the host is feasting and drinking
some clear South American liquor,
a glass to the lips, a potion for what ails thee.
I look at the bottles on the shelf but today
I have decided to leave them alone.
There was a big, ugly kid in middle school
with a shirt that said the same thing: Leave
Me Alone. We put messages on our chests.
We put burdens there, too. I mean it,
we’re serious, we’ve all got something to say.
The woman on the television smiles
and somehow even lights up the room
in which I stand. I want to kiss her teeth.
You can believe that someone is happy
right now. You can believe that someone
just was. And another never will be again,
or will be forever, these things we really
don’t know. But consider the body and the bones
and the magnifying glass of a man or woman
who wants to know—who needs to know,
is being paid to know, has a family waiting
somewhere that is confused and sad
and playing checkers as a means of getting
by. Last month a computer determined
a strategy to win or tie every game of checkers
possible. A fact? Yes. A solution? No.
They’re still jumping from one space
to another—making kings, moving pieces,
forgetting. And I am leaning over the back
of the couch, watching as this man dips
an enormous spoon into some dark soup,
and takes it in, looking content,
looking holy, even as it burns.

forthcoming from ghost road press in the spring

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Molly shared her feelings about Owen.

Ambassadors from the future.

You think the dark won’t hide it.