> Richard Hugo could be a great dark poet (he's one of
my favs) -dc
>
Yes indeed, this thread sent me back to the poems and at the
risk of straying dangerously off topic I'd say the poem below
has most of the stuff I look for in noir/hb fiction
Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg
You might come here Sunday on a whim. Say your life broke
down. The last good kiss you had was years ago. You walk
these streets laid out by the insane, past hotels that didn't
last, bars that did, the tortured try of local drivers to
accelerate their lives. Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner is always in, not
knowing what he's done.
The principal supporting business now is rage. Hatred of the
various grays the mountain sends, hatred of the mill, The
Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls who leave each year
for Butte. One good restaurant and bars can't wipe the
boredom out. The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines, a dance
floor built on springs-- all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat or two stacks high
above the town, two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse for
fifty years that won't fall finally down.
Isn't this your life? That ancient kiss still burning out
your eyes? Isn't this defeat so accurate the church bell
simply seems a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don't empty houses ring? Are magnesium and scorn sufficient
to support a town, not just Philipsburg, but towns of
towering blondes, good jazz and booze the world will never
let you have until the town you came from dies inside?
Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty when the jail was
built, still laughs although his lips collapse. Someday soon,
he says, I'll go to sleep and not wake up. You tell him no.
You're talking to yourself. The car that brought you here
still runs. The money you buy lunch with, no matter where
it's mined, is silver and the girl who serves your food is
slender and her red hair lights the wall.
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