Rancho Notorious
Signed copies available in limited supply
Like the movie of the same name, the poems in Rancho Notorious are peopled with a colorful cast of characters, all born of the fertile imagination of Richard Garcia. Through narratives, lyric poems and dramatic monologues, Garcia’s characters demonstrate that the idea of self is fluid, one identity easily swapped for another. These are poems with heart, poems that believe that the construction of memory, however fragmentary and inconclusive, is also an act of redemption.
Cat's Cradle
Notice how the man standing
at the freeway entrance, pretending
he's waiting for a carpool, strokes
a string that holds his briefcase together.
Do you remember an insistence of a kite
pulling at your wrist?
Now recall a skate key on a string
bouncing against your chest, the indecipherable
knot of fishing line that suddenly shot
through the guides and disappeared
into black water. Consider the Gordian knot:
was it a kind of book, some ancient, lunar
knowledge encoded in twine that Alexander
could not decipher? These are things
you can think about while waiting
at an intersection for the long,
long procession of a child's funeral to pass.
Follow your thoughts up to the level of clouds.
Now stay there awhile, as if
you had slipped into the cogs
of the wind's machinery, which,
if you could see them, would resemble
bright, braided coils ascending,
descending...
© BOA Editions, Ltd 2001
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