THE BARRY HANNAH POEM

These lines a naked pretext for two words.

If you haven’t heard them lately,

don’t they sound good? Don’t they sound good

if you have?

         The English language fell in love

with Barry Hannah, bodily.

                                                Sparks flew—

        from pen

                       to page

                                    to eye

                                                to ear:

All the great bullies I used to see on our front

are dead or wounded past use. . . .We saw victory

and defeat, and they were both wonderful.

Barry Hannah is a treasure you can loot

for selfish gain, more Rabelais than Welty, 

trace elements of Clemens and O’Connor

(The Truth and Reconciliation Tango).

‘Southern Writer’ fits him like a glove

that doesn’t fit. He’s been misread for his

loyalty to Ernie. Name meets Name meets Name

meets Name—meets Ralph Eugene Meatyard

meets the Family and the Genus and Species.

Faulkner drove McCarthy from the South.

Barry Hannah settled in in Bill’s backyard.

Where the ghost of a committee sued his pants back on

for Word Miscegenation (genre mixing),

for counting flowers on the wall in piney woods.

He pled pilots!

                       planes!

                                 bad painters!

                                                    swamp of lust!

Mixed doubles on a Harley-Davidson!

Appearing for the plaintiff, an old established firm,

Sex, Race & Class. (Revenge & Ridicule, of counsel.)

Exhibit 1:   A rocker and a townie,

                   carnal in the moonlight,

                   spread out across Mr. Faulkner’s grave.

For the defense:

Airships, Ray, Hey Jack! and Never Die,

his solitary western, which ought to be discussed

in an amphitheatre at the Sorbonne: “Era’s End: 

The Wild Bunch Meets Empire Burlesque.”

He took sick then he got better. Pull for him,

among the kudzu and magnolias and John Grisham,

and his wife, and his dogs in Oxford town.

(Somebody better investigate soon.)

                            *

Time has dealt the final ace; sentences

he writ across lined yellow pads live on.

Barry Hannah is the father and the mother of this poem.

The man. The myth. The man. The palindrome.