Malcolm M. Sedam
(1921-1976)

Malcolm M. Sedam

Poetry Memorial

at

Stone Gulch

  

 
Mr. Sedam's
Poetry Collections:
 
Linda Sue Grimes
 

 

  

The Man in Motion

 

 

The following poems are from The Man in Motion, Chronicle Press, Franklin, OH, 1971. Sedam writes in his Preface: "Let me speak for my own poetry—that it happened to me—that I lived, enjoyed or suffered every scene and that these poems are the essence of these experiences.

"Hopefully, for art's sake, the poems will give pleasure and satisfaction both to the critic and the average reader, but in a test of belief, I seek that man, any man (critic or average reader) who values flesh and blood feelings above clever word manipulation."  —Malcolm M. Sedam, Miami University, March 1971

 

The Quick and the Dead

 

As friends of the deceased

we stood outside the plot

and spoke of many things;

I said that I was a teacher

and it came out he was too,

somewhere up North, he said,

good community—good school,

no foreigners, Negroes, or Jews

in fact, he said,

no prejudice of any kind.

 

 

Saint George

 

He says he has a problem

and I say:  Tell me about it

because he's going to tell me about it anyway

so it seems he was making love with his wife

                           last night or thought he was

when right in the middle of it she stopped

and remembered he hadn't put out the trash

                  for the trash man the next morning

so he asks:  What would you have done?

and I say:  Get up and put out the trash

                                     which of course he did

but he still doesn't know why

                                      and I reply:

You must slay the dragon

before there is peace in the land.

 

 

Faces

 

A funny thing happened in the war

                and you'll never believe it

but there was this Jap Zero

                at ten o'clock low

so I rolled up in a bank

and hauled back on the stick

                     too fast

               and nearly lost control

and when I rolled out again

there was this other Jap

(He must have been the wingman)

flying formation with me.

 

We flew that way for hours

             (at least four seconds)

having nothing else to do

but stare each other down,

and then as if by signal

we both turned hard away

and hauled ass out of there.

 

We flew that way for yours

             (at least fours seconds)

and when I looked again

                         he was gone—

but I can still see that oriental face

                           right now

           somewhere in Tokyo

standing in a bar

there's this guy who's saying:

a funny thing happened in the war

                 and you'll never believe it

but there was this American . . .

 

 

Experience

 

Then there was that night in Baton Rouge

Jack and I went out on the town

              looking

                                  two looking for two

And we saw these two broads at the bar

                                            and I said

There's two Jack but yours doesn't look so good

                                        but he was game

So we grabbed them and wined them and dined them

                     with champagne and steak

                                        I remember

                    forty-four bucks to be exact

And when we walked out of that place

I slipped my arm around the pretty one

                                        and whispered

            let'go up

And she said

            whadaya think you're gonna do

And I said

           not a goddam thing

                                         and left her flat

And Jack took the dog-face one home

And made a two-weeks stand of it

              and come to think of it

I never chose a pretty girl after that.

 

 

Nostalgia

(For Lee Anne)

 

Call it the wish of the wind

                                flowing

             from a dream of dawn

through the never-to-be forgotten

                  spring of our years

                                 running

                   swiftly as a lifetime

                                      flying

Slim Indian princess wedded in motion

                 dark hair streaming

                        sunlight and freedom

                floating on a cadence song

                        drifting shadow-down

                              into the distance

my daughter riding bareback

                 on a windy April afternoon.

 

 

Desafinado

( For Allen Ginsberg, et al.)

 

Through this state and on to Kansas

more black than May’s tornadoes

showering a debris of art —

I saw you coming long before you came

in paths of twisted fear and hate

and dread, uprooted, despising all judgment

                                                which is not to say

that the bourgeois should not be judged

but by whom and by what,

Junkies, queers, and rot

who sit on their haunches and howl

that the race should be free for pot

and horney honesty?

                                                Which I would buy

if a crisis were ever solved

in grossness and minor resolve

but for whom and for what?

 

I protest your protest

it’s hairy irrelevancy

I, who am more anxious than you

                                more plaintive than you

                                more confused than you

                                having more at stake

an investment in humanity.

 

 

Joseph


Some things were never explained
even to me, and of course
they would tell it his way
but I believed in her
because I chose to believe
and you may be sure of this:
A man's biological role is small
but a god's can be no more
that it was I who was always there
to feed him, to clothe him
to teach him and nurture his growth—
discount those foolish rumors
that bred on holy seed
for truly I say unto you:
I was the father of Christ.

 

 

To Moses at Sinai

 

At least part of your message is clear,

thou shalt not kill

except in certain seasons

and thou shalt not commit adultery

except in certain regions

and thou shalt not lie

except on incredible things

like carrying five tons of tablet stones

                           down mountains.

 

 

Indian Country

 

Can it be enough to wake the morning

    to find in a land above all others

        the generosity of spring

             a summer's desire

the sky like a psalm unfolding a season for lovers?

 

Stay, do not be afraid

     walking hand in hand with me

          through the gentle wilderness

              the glorious heart of it

I know this country better than I know myself

                                                        better

let me share it with you

               this immortal scene—

how can you close your eyes?

Thank you for visiting the Gulch