Malcolm Miller Poems

Malcolm Miller was a Salem poet. His main entry is Miller, Malcolm H.

Thanks to Rod Kessler, English professor Emeritus from Salem State we have some of his

Salem-Centric poems shown below.

Malcolm Miller’s Salem Poems –an incomplete compilation [13 February 2016]

Standing on the Salem-Beverly bridge gazing seawards at four in the morning March 1990

to the right the final

part of Salem shines

with spaced lights curving

towards the end

of our power

to the left Beverly

like a finger lit

by many gold

rings points

towards some union

out beyond

our marriages

out where only dark

bigger than all our lights

seem to call

I am going

I am going

will I see

will I see

you there?

[INTO THE HIGHER AIR, 1992, 72 pages, p.8]

Witch Trials Salem Mass. 1692

the trees were stark

to begin with

and the choppy sea

often grey and cold

Indians had strange

ways and eyes

their arrows could travel

a long way and accurately

far off the English king

could not be relied on

rumors spoke of changes

not to their advantage

order is always maintained

by a form of no

the haunches of women even young

shake fire in the thatched-roof cabins

fire is a dangerous element

and a moral god insufficient

there are always reasons to kill

many wished for more than twenty

[INTO THE HIGHER AIR, 1992, 72 pages, p.33]

A clean Well Lighted Place In Winter

it’s 3 in the morning

the fatal lapsed hour

I am the sole

customer here

in this Dunkin Donut on

the coast of Massachusetts

the coffee is all right

the donut not bad

the music being offered

only fair

and behind the counter

the young woman

who quit high school

out of boredom

is yawning

a mute kind

of weary-eyed goddess

but a goddess none the less

in this god

blessedly open place

or don’t you know

don’t you know yet

about closed up towns

in cold dark times

[FURTHER AND FURTHER POEMS (1992), 72 pages, p.65]

ZONE 3

I used to buy a ticket

from Boston that said

to Salem Mass

now it says

to Zone 3

I used to have moments

of joy now I have

no problems

I used to be free and easy

now I am acceptable

and do the right

thing for

the situation

I used to be loyal

to something I could not

define now I am

a good citizen

[FURTHER AND FURTHER POEMS (1992), 72 pages, p.16]

State College Canteen

on his last day of work the guy

by some quirk of inspiration

profit or satire

loaded the huge soft

drink machines with beer

the price was right and the day

spring-like

never have students learned more

about religion

Dionysius was dancing in the halls

and singing in the corridors

never did the philosophy professor

a master of logical positivism

seem more absurd

his much praised sobriety was found

to be a sort

of living death and all the English

instructors by afternoon were being

booed from the building

for not knowing how to teach

young people how to return

to the sun

[POEMS THAT NEED YOU (1993) p.41]

there is a sign in a bar in my

home town that is like modern life

do not hesitate to ask for credit

it says

our way of saying no is very polite

[Unsatisfactory Fragments of Lukewarm Fire, (Jan. 2004) p. 57]

College Girl in Massachusetts

in the winter dawn a girl bound

for history class sure

footed and neat with

the grace of morning

her face almost fresh as

recent snow the night’s

full twinkling moon over

Salem harbor

college girl bearing your proud

unchallenged face towards

the necessary war of all

the living I go

with you

I go with you clear-eyed sprite

your earnest brow of morning

even over here I feel

your unique breathing

the privateness of your being

descended from trees and birds

and from darkness kind

to all its stars

I go with you lovely scholar

and may you find on

your way however

buried the gold

of unteachable joy

[The Taste of Inexplicable Nothingness, 1994]

HAWTHORNE

Nathaniel Hawthorne you never went

to a brothel

drank but not to excess

were not athletic and agile but sat

your large domed skull hid

subtle and at times sinister thoughts

you married one of Salem’s Peabody sisters

and never committed adultery

at dusk in Salem after Bowdoin

you went walking in dark heavy clothing

your face impossible to read

and children were fearful

your sunless body did not discover god

what pleased you you enjoyed but life

was at bottom a sort of wretched thing

lightened by family and comfort

Melville your temporary friend by far

was a holier more extraordinary spirit

his work outlives yours but still

the best hotel in Salem is the Hotel Hawthorne

in it one can eat the Scarlet Letter lunch

the menu boasts sinfully unpuritan desserts

a huge statue of you looms on Hawthorne Boulevard

nobody around here notices it much

midwestern schoolteachers snap your photo

busloads of them file through the streets

the House of Seven Gables is a must

making the city a lot of do re mi

talent you had and intelligence to spare

what was lacking was lacking almost fatally

[THE TASTE OF INEXPLICABLE NOURISHMENT ( 1994), p.10]

good night Irene

I have a cousin

Irene

she often stands downtown with

a severe condemnatory look

as if the world

has disappointed her

she doesn’t know who

Walt Whitman is

if she did

he could be in

for a real good

talking to

Jesus Suspended In Stone From the St Joseph Church Salem Mass

Son of a distant desert people

what are you doing up there

hanging like some penance

or warning of what can happen

if you speak well and directly

and don’t flatter the top dogs

your body hangs huge

as a statue from Easter Island

a continual embarrassment if noticed

a terrible mistake like Stalin

in Red Square kept alive

by technological skills

and a lot of money

you seem hooked up to a sort

of pillory by puritans or sadists

what did you do anyway

and how weary you must be all

these centuries hanging there

gaped at by foreigners who

can’t really tell why

they keep you on view

as they go about earning more TV

channels and winter trips to Florida

you’re more or less like a prisoner

captured in a war who just got

lost in the shuffle and never

made it back

to your own people

[THE TASTE OF INEXPLICABLE NOURISHMENT (1994), p.33]

at the campus of one of the lesser

state colleges in Massachusetts

a disgusting perhaps degenerate

professor is eyeing the tan

new bodies of poor

quality students

most hardly made it out

of high school and many so

unscholarly will fail in

a year departing on these long fitness

crazed legs he ogles and wants

wrapped around him

a disgusting professor is eyeing

some of the greatest bodies in

history that will not be able

to cope with Shakespeare or calculus

Kierkegaard and even Picasso

might seems European rock bands to them

the disgusting degenerate prof

is eyeing them

hips sinuous with strength and

beauty the gods would rock with

may they live forever the poor

quality students with miserable

IQ’s and long shining rich

hair in the wind their skins of

magical entrancement and their

fine shaped skulls that do not

bother with history or ethics

or expository prose

the disgusting professor is eyeing

them day after day

he is paid 34,000 per annum and

worth every penny

[THE TASTE OF INEXPLICABLE NOURISHMENT (1994), p.56]

BEFORE SUNRISE DUCKS SALEM HARBOR WINTER

part of black

water and still

darkness in air

the eerie normal

cluck as you pass

they hug shore

vague neat clumps

sealed in

who they are

yes but who

are they

[THE RIVER OF MUDDIED WATER BEARS GOLD (1994), p.36]

SALEM HARBOR

the great sailing

vessels that used to reek

of mid

ocean brine and china

spices and teas

strong black pepper born

in Java split mahogany

trees to adorn

and enrich Massachusetts

who remembers them now but

museums full of

paid customers

some tame pets of pleasure

cruisers litter

the harbor flushing their god

damned toilets casting

garbage ashore cruddy

with bacteria

too many mediocre

spirits have hung about

these streets too

many generations for

anything but humdrum

to happen

a handful of intelligent

people are going about

their business suspected

of whatever crime is

in the air

[THE RIVER OF MUDDIED WATER BEARS GOLD (1994), p.51]

TOURISTS

what have they come to see

so many hundreds of miles slowly

across droning repetitious highways

and inching traffic jams

steering evenly up to gasoline pumps

children smashing each other

with kleenex boxes in the back seat

and to end up dressed undistinguishedly

in some inferior hotel with water

that barely goes down the basin

finding a twisted cigarette

butt and a condom in the drawer

later to trudge after a row of arrows

to gawk at a museum where cruel

people once killed harmless women

and the kids proudly wearing t

shirts with the city’s name

rooked for too much money by smiling faces

the universal ice cream cones

jammed towards their mouths in exotic flavors

evenings wondering what to do next

missing home and the reassurance of custom

a kind of ordeal has them in its grip

days to go and almost every hour

money ebbs out of them like blood

from a wound

and the newness of the never seen

shining at times like something dreamed once

they don’t always like

to wonder about again

having come so far to find

what is not really here anymore

or perhaps anywhere

[THE GOOD RAIN OF CANADA 1994, 72 pages p.46

SANDLOT BASEBALL

nobody had any money to speak

of and nobody had any jobs

nobody had any heartache or cancer

nobody ever saw such good baseball

nobody knew what time the game began

god was the umpire god the rain

that stopped it and god

the dust of the basepaths

non-artificial reality grass green

as if the sea overflowed and firm

with the right stuff of earth

white ball white ball you are but a dream

we played with a ball taped

black as tar and sticky and not

altogether proper and round

even Babe Ruth could not hit a home run

but the Boston Red Sox did not hear

more angels than we in the darkening sky

the ball lost in twilight still

joyous we did not dream the white ball dream

[THE GOOD RAIN OF CANADA (1994), p.23]

my mother has to go to the rehab hospital

I come to her old place

to pick up a few things

mail and the like and out

the window see

in the park under

the low hanging shade

trees a woman sitting

in a chair right where mother

used to sit

from this angle and distance it almost

is mother

but she will never sit under

the summer trees again

she is lying in the red

brick rehabilitation hospital

like a doll in its crib

she will never sit under

the summer trees again and the only

hope now is she

doesn’t know it

[The Good Rain of Canada (1994) p.35]

I evolve in silence

on a cold sunlit Thursday having

paid my rent in a hotel

named after a revolutionary hero

I go to bed at noon

in my large

white 2 windowed high

ceilinged room as the radio predicts

accurately winds of 60 miles an hour and more

already the great panes are shaking

the white curtains fill with sun

from millions of miles away

gold splashes on the white walls

I lie in bed on pillows

mute and deathless with attention

the panes of glass shake and boom

like opera singers

outside the wind gusts take

over the town and I stare

at the all blue sky filled to capacity

with bright romping air

nobody in the world is very far away

I evolve in silence

why we are here

always like this with no newspapers

with no thought of food and friends

with no loneliness for

a woman this would not interest

[I Who Am True To You (March 1996), p. 57; MM lived in the Lafayette Hotel]

I Find Myself

I find myself wondering what

became of a dog I used to

see in the early morning inspecting

the neighborhood by the tidal inlet

you know where the tide comes in

over the mudflats and the bulrushes

stir even in seeming no wind

have you seen the dog mostly

brown with long ears

what is he doing these days

what about the small hill he would sit

upon as if surveying his kingdom

if you see the dog or hear

about him would you let me know

he has a white spot on his chest

and goes along with a lope sometimes

[I Who Am True To You, March 1996), p. 66]

THE GUEST

with nowhere to live I camp

out in libraries

books in huge even rows

are strangely silently tolerant

none of the great Russian novelists

care if I hobo by them

only a few English writers would

advise me to clean up my act

and I won’t

mention their names what for?

For a few days now I have been

the guest of the poets

in a state college library

I arrive at early morning opening

trying to look scholarly

I stay until midnight closing hoping no

one officiously eyeing me

narrowly states the case

“you aren’t a student here are you…”

for a few days more I will be

a guest of certain great spirits

whose living testimony sings

out in pages of books

books mostly unopened

[poems (1996) p. 56]