{"id":45453,"date":"2019-06-02T19:21:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T01:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=45453"},"modified":"2019-06-02T19:24:22","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T01:24:22","slug":"brian-staker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/brian-staker\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Staker"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>READ LOCAL First\u00a0represents Utah\u2019s\u00a0most comprehensive collection of\u00a0celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This month we bring you Brian Staker, who received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Utah in 1993.<\/p>\n

Since then, his poems have appeared in numerous literary publications, including Western Humanities Review (WHR) and Otis Nebula. His art and music reviews appear in City Weekly, SLUG Magazine, and Blurt Magazine. His podcast, The Awkward Hour<\/em>, features local musicians, comedians and artists. He is the author of two self-published novels: Cough<\/em> and Already In Progress<\/em>. Last year, he collaborated in the performance piece “DiSPLACEment” at Wellers Books with English professor\/poet Alex Caldiero.<\/p>\n

Among his work below, “Meditations” originally appeared in WHR in 1994. And The New Yorker accepted “Neil & Me” for publication, but as far as Staker remembers, the piece never did appear in print.<\/p>\n

 
\n 
\n <\/p>\n

Tomato Plants<\/strong><\/h4>\n

After the frost, and the leaves wilted on the vine,
\nI brought the tomato plants inside the house,
\nto see if they had enough life
\nleft in them to power through
\nto the last, fall fruits opening.<\/h4>\n

I had missed the first night
\nthe icy air had inched below frigid,
\nhad neglected to bring them in.<\/h4>\n

At work, the cup of olives inside
\nmy plastic grocery bag didn’t leak
\nand also the bag itself
\nremained intact.<\/h4>\n

Then at lunch I had to pull
\nmy car up past the window
\nat the McDonald’s because
\nthere was a delay
\nmaking my order of fries.<\/h4>\n

I ordered my Diet Coke
\nwith light ice, but the
\namount of ice in the cup
\nmelted together into
\na single intractable floe.<\/h4>\n

At my workplace,
\nI look at the machine
\nat which, several years ago
\na woman was working
\n(I didn’t even know her name)
\nand found out her boyfriend
\nhad died, I don’t know how.<\/h4>\n

She had to take time off work
\nand was disciplined,
\nand let go, and I never
\nsaw her ever again. Later
\nanother woman was brought in
\nto run the machine. At some point<\/h4>\n

the machine broke down, was
\nrepaired. It stood silent,
\nbetrayed nothing. Then at some point
\nstill later, it is dismantled and removed.<\/h4>\n

 <\/h4>\n

 <\/h4>\n

The Postmaster General<\/strong><\/h4>\n

What happens when postal workers take too much LSD?<\/h4>\n

The morning mail, glistening with dew even inside its envelopes, encloses a portion of the mystery of the universe\u2014exotic filigrees and arabesques of ink. You are licking the postage of your mind. But where are you sending yourself? From what are you seeking deliverance? Will the circuitous route you must travel take you to the mystery house, never to escape (its mistress conceiving in its very design endless staircases and trap doors in order to deceive the ghosts she is certain are haunting her)?<\/h4>\n

It feels like fall has finally started with the descent of colorful leaves, letters to home. Each leaf is meticulously stricken with veins, infected with the affliction of life. The Postmaster waits for a special message stuck beneath the fly leaf of a book, a sheet not only to read but also to eat. He eats pages of many books in expectation. Without effect. But still he has his toys to play with\u2014the Mexican punching puppets, the battlefield simulations.<\/h4>\n

Much of the mail is superfluous, ads and junk, but secrets may be hidden underneath, promiscuous missives from one address to another. The most seemingly innocent mail-piece may contain intelligences more arcane than you could imagine.<\/h4>\n

What color was the sky when you made that mudpie? When you and your lover ran through the field naked, caked with earth, glistening in the sun?<\/h4>\n

The way words adhere to paper, what keeps them from flying off the page? Who has clipped their wings? Is it the Postmaster, pasting them in his scrapbook filled with the foreskins of dwarves and his collection of postage stamps from the middle-ages depicting scenes of the plague year, death everywhere?<\/h4>\n

During his meal of archaic artichokes and human hearts, making a dessert of DNA he contemplates his many enemies, plots and counterplots, consults the oracle, stamps from an imaginary country, reads communiques from his various agents. The war is not going well. Even the clouds appear to conspire against him, with their devious shapes and the shadows they cast. And yet, there is <\/em>still hope.<\/h4>\n

When your postman has leprosy it’s hard to tell if it’s really his skin melting as he hands you your mail, or if it’s the acid you’ve just eaten.<\/h4>\n

Remember the time, driving home after a long camping trip, you stopped to look at the Indian relics. Your father taught you about arrowheads and their value, worth even more than your stamp collection. You can feel one of their opaque points piercing your skin at this very moment.<\/h4>\n

Think, later, of melting toy soldiers with your magnifying glass. Now you <\/em>are the miniature and the lens of the sun is focused on you.<\/h4>\n

And now look at you\u2014all the writing instruments have run out, and you are hurriedly scribbling notes on toilet paper in your own excrement. This is all the better, for these epistles to your beloved are perfumed with your own essence. The postal service, in all its efficiency, has infiltrated the sewer system, so you can flush your letter down the toilet and be assured of prompt delivery. And your father, long dead, still receives your letters, indictments, rebukes and rebuffs, forwarded by the postal system with its occult knowledge of zip codes.<\/h4>\n

Where is the Postmaster now? Is he off with the woman you thought was yours, dancing in the field the slow, choreographed dance of the cinema?<\/h4>\n

You find yourself alone, in the labyrinthine estate of the Postmaster, left to your own devices and the ones he has discarded. In the parquet-floored corridors of power, you can roll your marbles down the hall all day long.<\/h4>\n

 <\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Neil and Me<\/strong><\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

We were at his place,
\nknocking back a few brews,<\/h4>\n

and all that was on the radio
\nwas a Stairway to Heaven weekend.<\/h4>\n

Then I had the idea to go visit
\nthe old poet\u2019s gravesite, only he was so dead<\/h4>\n

even Neil\u2019s heaviest feedback
\ncouldn\u2019t wake him up. Let\u2019s go<\/h4>\n

poke around Wynona\u2019s place,
\nhe managed, the girl we named<\/h4>\n

the Rambler after. Another one of his
\nfume-fogged notions was to cut the lights<\/h4>\n

and engine, just glide
\non the downward grade. And it was OK<\/h4>\n

until the dull thud of the animal we hit.
\nI kept telling myself it was already dead,<\/h4>\n

but I just can\u2019t forget the noise
\nof its body dragging all the way down.<\/h4>\n

The sound didn\u2019t stop until we crashed
\ninto the church. The next thing<\/h4>\n

I knew, someone was telling me to keep talking,
\nas if it would keep me alive, while they pried<\/h4>\n

my foot from the metal. Neil
\nwasn\u2019t as lucky. Oh, he survived,<\/h4>\n

but he never did find a heart of gold,
\nand for noise he\u2019d have to stick to the guitar.<\/h4>\n

 <\/h4>\n

 <\/h4>\n

Meditations<\/strong><\/h4>\n

intimate with the inanimate\u00a0\u00a0 your TV family\u00a0\u00a0 I can see four miles\u00a0\u00a0 the ornithology of ideas\u00a0\u00a0 seizure salad\u00a0\u00a0 maximum overdraft\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cchemotherapy, kemosabe\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 fifteen minutes of flame\u00a0\u00a0 the futility of utility\u00a0\u00a0 pyroglyphics\u00a0\u00a0 the pall of mall\u00a0\u00a0 writing disease\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cKim said immortality was the only goal worth striving for\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 medi(a)tations\u00a0\u00a0 ack(lack of)knowledgments\u00a0\u00a0 exocentric\u00a0\u00a0trance-indental meditation\u00a0\u00a0 deep dissatisfaction or deep dish satisfaction?\u00a0\u00a0kitchen logician\u00a0\u00a0 maninfestation\u00a0\u00a0 Lust For Light: Van Gogh’s S.A.D. Story\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>normalescent\u00a0\u00a0 thought are things\u00a0\u00a0 her sponsor spawns her\u00a0\u00a0 is this the pork you pine for?\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cexcramation pt.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 let’s stir Thoreau\u00a0\u00a0 when words collide\u00a0\u00a0 lamps of dubious wattage<\/h4>\n

Dark Ardor\u00a0\u00a0 the olfactory factory\u00a0\u00a0 what do you call an expert at Thanksgiving cookery? A Master Baster\u00a0\u00a0 the Shemp of Hemp\u00a0\u00a0 the Odditorium\u00a0\u00a0 the sound of science\u00a0\u00a0 the Tesla of acid\u00a0\u00a0 The Hall of Mere Being\u00a0\u00a0 a birthday is a symptom (Beckett)\u00a0\u00a0 the Wasted Land\u00a0\u00a0 pheronomes\u00a0\u00a0wish list\u00a0\u00a0 casual paper\u00a0\u00a0 the ice cream man he sees irony everywhere (the Emperor of Irony)\u00a0\u00a0 the supplement is the source\u00a0\u00a0 supple mental\u00a0\u00a0 tantrum mantra\u00a0\u00a0 more choices to choose from\u00a0\u00a0 the salivation army\u00a0\u00a0 mental detritus\u00a0\u00a0 rain is aired\/blood inside the brain\/always getting lost\/soaked to the skin\u00a0\u00a0 Efrem Symbolist Jr.\u00a0\u00a0 to the end of the end of time\u00a0\u00a0 in the heart of the artichoke heart of the country\u00a0\u00a0 heard heart\u00a0\u00a0 narrow-minded clavier\u00a0\u00a0 writing with a surplus\u00a0\u00a0 fractal hockey<\/h4>\n

write like wildfire\u00a0\u00a0 Mister Shapeshifter\u00a0\u00a0 a lifelong commitment to good writing\u00a0\u00a0 sic(k)\u00a0\u00a0when it rains, it pours\u00a0\u00a0 the pin-size mind\u00a0\u00a0 dinosaur theoretician\u00a0\u00a0 pint-sized mind\u00a0\u00a0 I am Joe’s liver\u00a0\u00a0 give a dog a bone\u00a0\u00a0 the traction of distraction\u00a0\u00a0 the meat of eat\u00a0\u00a0 milk of magneto\u00a0\u00a0 nomadic monadic\u00a0\u00a0 snake handle\u00a0\u00a0 the village idiom\u00a0\u00a0 the cleverer of the two\u00a0\u00a0 statue of limitations\u00a0\u00a0 the oat of eat\u00a0\u00a0 never metalanguage I didn’t like\u00a0\u00a0 the tire tread of what happens\u00a0\u00a0 stuporific\u00a0\u00a0the otherworldly philosophers\u00a0\u00a0drinking from the lip of sip\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIt outfreuds Freud\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 absorbed in what you’re doing\u00a0\u00a0 Urbane Legends: Tales From the Lives of the Professors\u00a0\u00a0 This Book is printed on 100% acid-soaked paper\u00a0\u00a0interpenetration\u00a0\u00a0 waiting is only one letter different from writing<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

READ LOCAL First\u00a0represents Utah\u2019s\u00a0most comprehensive collection of\u00a0celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This month we bring you Brian Staker, who received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Utah in 1993. Since then, his poems have appeared in numerous literary publications, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1566,"featured_media":45457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,2513],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts","category-read-local-first"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Staker2019.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 05:32:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45453"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45461,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45453\/revisions\/45461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}