A rain of dust

A rain of dust

Gaskin, Jefferson Arthur

Date: 2005-05

Type: Thesismfa

Table of Contents: Allegory -- BAREFOOT AND FOUND -- When we go looking for the moon -- Lemon skirt brushes faded corduroy -- Behind the rectory -- Grade school conversion -- What you remember of your first fight -- Desert pastoral -- Driving from the Grand Canyon after a near accident -- The green man -- FADE TO BLACK -- High concept -- Shell shock -- UFOs -- An intimate moment between Presley and Wayne -- Our blue movie -- Words -- Every time I sit at my desk -- The death of blue robot -- CALLING FOR THE SUN -- Succession of still frames -- Sunday -- Summer flood -- June bug -- Houston shotgun -- Service at sundown -- Somewhere -- A WINTER TIDE -- Olla -- Flash freeze -- Blue -- Day moon -- Driving past the earthman cemetery on the way to work -- Chalk -- In the stall in the men's room at Harrah's, Las Vegas -- ONLY WAITING -- When entering a room -- Room 210 at an unnamed Hotel in Las Cruces, New Mexico -- Pater familias -- Lake mead -- Tijuana night life -- This road before -- Wedding guest -- I hate this party -- SOME SORT OF END -- Behind the demolished school -- I'm in her living room -- At three A.M. on the express Greyhound to Laredo -- What I have left -- Sometimes the blank page is best -- Day dream -- On the day when the last of us has died -- Whoops.

Abstract:

A Rain of Dust is a metaphor of confrontation, a facing of the enormous mystery of what it means to be born, to live, to die. Rather than attempt to find meaning, this collection celebrates the centrality of created meaning; Love and Hate, Good and Evil, Connection and Alienation, Life and Death are all presented as subjective spokes on a wheel with Art at its hub. As such, these poems are no more and no less than an expression of what it is to be Jefferson Arthur Gaskin, 32, struggling poet, lover of spooky women, kung-fu films, and robots, making his way from the swamps of Houston, Texas, to the frozen fields of Fairbanks, Alaska, and grasping at memories, fantasies, visions and dreams all along the way.