Ode to Fortitude

4/29/17

I cleared my mind to write a poem last night to read today at the Long Island City Landing. The first word that came to me when I blanked out was fortitude. For years that's been the first word to appear when I clear my head to write. So I wrote a poem spinning off the sound of the word and read it this afternoon in heavy wind with the City skyline behind me.

Ode to Fortitude

Fortitude for years!

forty years of fortitude.

In Hamlet Fortinbras says,

"Go softly on."

go softly on, dude

what else is there?

Fortitude for forty year old virgins

forty winks followed by

forty days of the flood

40 days of the flood

followed by 40 days in the desert

forty days flew out the window

flowed

It was my first solid

word: Fortitude

whenever I shut my eyes

and let a word come to me

its always "fortitude"

sometimes it comes out as "fortified"

like in a cereal commercial

fortified with essential minerals and vitamins

fortified with the essential

The onomatopoeia of the word

FFFForttttitttudddde

those fricatives

like little sonic word forts

the ramparts of verbal attitude

ffffffortttiffffiediedied

fortified like a 45

put on a 45

like a record baby

right right

round round

or a gun

pull out a 45

A president, #45

unfortified unfortunately

forcing the feds

to forge ahead with

a dirty plan

in Florida

a Florida-fide misfortune

knight to bishop, check

what a night in Florida meant

to Elizabeth Bishop, check mate

Florida like the palm

at the end of Wallace Stevens' mind

Stevens never made it there

but he knew it was the final embellishment

"The thing is, America's heritage

is founded on transcendentalism,

so it makes sense that we cannot reach

what is evermore about to be anyway.

'The final embellishment'

a'saith Wallace Stevens,"

A'saith my friend Emord.

Make a fort in your living room

out of couch cushions

over 40 years ago

put a 45 on the turntable

a rousing, hair-raising rendition

of 16 tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford

Making a fort at the beach

Against the wind

fourteen years ago

drinking a 40 in the hood

confiding in a friend

with nothing left to hide

thinking hard about food

turn flour into bread

bread into roses

Then there's the Ford you drove

four to the floor

a Ford Crown Vic was your ride

over the hills of San Francisco

and back through the back woods

of Joplin MO

in your grandfather's Ford

going all the way back to the first man, Adam

in the first automobile, a Ford

a Ford on either side

like Ford Maddox Ford

There's the fjords fortifying Norway

jutting up from the depths of the sea

into sheer mountain sides

like Karl Ove Knausgaard

jutting up from Norway as a force

in the field of literature

A force field of attitude

A fortitude of solace

like Superman in the fortress of solitude.

the fortitude of solace

inside the fortress of solitude

fortified with solace inside forty years now

of Garcia Marquez's 100 years of solitude

Over forty years old

and you're already an old dude

Forty more and you're worm food

Fortifying the worms

food for the next generation of food

Forty quaaludes and finally

quietude

FIght against the flood

and stand on higher ground

for four or five minutes with gratitude

fighting against the flood

until the flood overtakes the flight

the flood overtakes the floodlights

the fortitude to stand against the tide

until the next generation

can take over the hood

like a blood infusion

the next generation

fortified with my blood

Then, as if on cue

this very morning

the pope appeared

in a Ted Talk and said

Tenderness is not weakness

It is fortitude

Go softly on, dude