**a note on the following: this poem is, frankly, too long. it has been stewing for some time, and after much consideration, i have decided to post it, in hopes of receiving much needed editorial and critical advice. to this extent, it is a work in progress. as someone who mostly hates apologetic prefaces, i'll shut up already. thanks, all.**
**CHANGE LOG:**
(2/24: added several sentences to V, in response to post 1; cut stanza 4 from III)
Fred Goodell Jr. and the Murder of His Daughter (Culminating in Her Burial on
I.
Paterson, N. J., Sept. 17 -- Fred Goodell Jr., twenty-two, was arrested early this morning and charged with the murder of his six-months-old daughter Nancy, for whom police were looking since Tuesday, when Goodell reported her missing.
Continued questioning from last night until 1 a.m. by police headed by Chief James Walker drew the story of the slaying, police said, from the $40-a-week factory worker a few hours after he refused to join his wife, Marie, eighteen, in taking a like detector test.
At 2 a.m. Goodell led police a few blocks from his house to a spot on Garrett Mountain and showed them a heavy rock under which he had buried Nancy, dressed only in a diaper and placed in a paper shopping bag.
Goodell told the police he had killed the child by twice snapping the wooden tray of a high chair into the baby's face Monday morning when her crying annoyed him as he was feeding her. Dr. George Surgent, the county physician, said she died of a fractured skull.
II.
Fred Goodell Jr., a factory worker, killed his daughter, six-month-old Nancy, by twice snapping the wooden tray of the girl's high chair into her face after her crying annoyed him. He then placed her in a shopping bag and buried her under a rock a few blocks from his house on Garrett Mountain. After refusing to take a lie detector test with his eighteen-year-old wife Marie the next day, Goodell was questioned until 1 a.m. by Chief James Walker of the Paterson Police Department, after which he led Walker and other officers to the rock on Garrett Mountain where Nancy was buried. Goodell was arrested and charged with murder within the hour.
III.
I got a home in that rock, well, don't you see?
Way between the earth and sky
I thought I heard my Savior cry
Well-a poor Lazarus poor as I
When he died he had a home on high
He had a home in that rock don't you see?
The rich man died and lived so well
When he died he had a home in Hell
He had no home in the rock, well, don't you see?
You better get a home in that rock, don't you see?
Way between the earth and sky
I thought I heard my Savior cry
Well-a poor Lazarus poor as I
When he died he had a home on high
He had a home in that rock don't you see?
The rich man died and lived so well
When he died he had a home in Hell
He had no home in the rock, well, don't you see?
You better get a home in that rock, don't you see?
IV.
I did not kill my daughter.
I did not kill my daughter.
What happened was an accident.
It could have happened to anyone.
V.
I closed the door, first thing - Marie had let it out for the evening breezes. I changed and she left for work, and I needed to wash the clothes, if there was time, and make sure I ate and fed the baby, all before the night shift started at two. There was food left out on the stove, and the baby had been sleeping most of the afternoon in her crib. Tired and clean, I woke her and lifted her into a high chair. She cried, loud and piercing, and then she bounced two tiny fists on the wood tray of the chair, the silver springs wobbling and ringing each time with the metal-on-metal crash. The metal and crash, the metal and crash, and the tray bouncing up with each hit and the tiny fork and spoon rattling with the vibrations. Her sound disappeared inside itself, the way a word disappears inside itself if you look at it too long, no longer making sense as a whole, but only as strange, separate parts: scream and moan, air in and then pushed, hard, out. A man couldn't stand it, with the factory in a few hours and dinner getting cold:
I pulled down the lever, and released.
I pulled down the lever, and released.
VI.
in two, it was done, and I expected
silence (I did); the ghastly kind, where I could hear
my heart beating in my chest or
a hum in my ears, rising up louder and
blocking all the other things out -
but what I got wasn't a humming, or my heart,
but a rushing sound of in-out waves, far off,
like a big broom sweeping over stones,
and then a dog barking a few blocks off, irregular,
with another sounding back -
I looked out the window for it (I did);
the glass caught my stare a bit, and I could see
the white frilly curtains blowing with the window open, too;
and the yellow light of the tall streetlamp sort of pooling
on the grass and the stones at the bottom of the hill.
And slow, very slow, I led my head down,
led my eyes from the window, to the floor, to the table,
and I looked at it, still sitting there, still,
and expected something awful -
but not in the way this was awful:
VII.
"We've got something over here, sir."
(lifting a rock)
"It's wrapped up, but it's been crushed pretty good."
(opening the bag)
but instead its face mashed in the front,
scrunched up like it had tasted something sour,
and bruising fast as I watched it, that red-purple of a baby-face
darkening to black around the nose and around the squinted-up eyes;
the tongue was out, just a tiny grey sliver,
and all the while the shine of the skin was fading dull and flat,
like the skin of a peach.
there weren't no blood.
none at all, but that in the bruise.
it surprised me.
it was all so dry.
IX.
This world is a wilderness of woe
So let us to glory go
Dying is a blooming rose
And none but them who feel it know
I did not kill my daughter.
I did not kill my daughter.
What happened was an accident.
It could have happened to anyone.
V.
I closed the door, first thing - Marie had let it out for the evening breezes. I changed and she left for work, and I needed to wash the clothes, if there was time, and make sure I ate and fed the baby, all before the night shift started at two. There was food left out on the stove, and the baby had been sleeping most of the afternoon in her crib. Tired and clean, I woke her and lifted her into a high chair. She cried, loud and piercing, and then she bounced two tiny fists on the wood tray of the chair, the silver springs wobbling and ringing each time with the metal-on-metal crash. The metal and crash, the metal and crash, and the tray bouncing up with each hit and the tiny fork and spoon rattling with the vibrations. Her sound disappeared inside itself, the way a word disappears inside itself if you look at it too long, no longer making sense as a whole, but only as strange, separate parts: scream and moan, air in and then pushed, hard, out. A man couldn't stand it, with the factory in a few hours and dinner getting cold:
I pulled down the lever, and released.
I pulled down the lever, and released.
VI.
in two, it was done, and I expected
silence (I did); the ghastly kind, where I could hear
my heart beating in my chest or
a hum in my ears, rising up louder and
blocking all the other things out -
but what I got wasn't a humming, or my heart,
but a rushing sound of in-out waves, far off,
like a big broom sweeping over stones,
and then a dog barking a few blocks off, irregular,
with another sounding back -
I looked out the window for it (I did);
the glass caught my stare a bit, and I could see
the white frilly curtains blowing with the window open, too;
and the yellow light of the tall streetlamp sort of pooling
on the grass and the stones at the bottom of the hill.
And slow, very slow, I led my head down,
led my eyes from the window, to the floor, to the table,
and I looked at it, still sitting there, still,
and expected something awful -
but not in the way this was awful:
VII.
"We've got something over here, sir."
(lifting a rock)
"It's wrapped up, but it's been crushed pretty good."
(opening the bag)
VIII.
but instead its face mashed in the front,
scrunched up like it had tasted something sour,
and bruising fast as I watched it, that red-purple of a baby-face
darkening to black around the nose and around the squinted-up eyes;
the tongue was out, just a tiny grey sliver,
and all the while the shine of the skin was fading dull and flat,
like the skin of a peach.
there weren't no blood.
none at all, but that in the bruise.
it surprised me.
it was all so dry.
IX.
This world is a wilderness of woe
So let us to glory go
Dying is a blooming rose
And none but them who feel it know
X.
pulling it up out of the seat, my belt caught the wood tray,
and it snapped it on the hinges, a loud pop and then
__________________________a loud pop and then
a rattle to settle it down.
XI.
holding it was quiet; quiet, light and warm; and I couldn't do nothing with it warm like that, so I set it on the table, on its back to wait until the warmth was less.
I thought about dinner, cooling,
and then: a bag, for groceries; thick.
and everything was as loud as you would think: popping air into the bag to open it up, opening up a place on the counter, picking up the weight and sinking it down in to the bottom. from the handle, everything was more right, and I stepped out to do it.
I knew the place without planning it, and I went the few hundred yards to the stone:
a larger rock on the slant-face of the mountain.
there had been snakes underneath it in the spring, but they had cleared with the frost
and room was there;
my thoughts spread loose:
a cold, huddled spot in the belly of the mountain --
tomb.
I placed the shopping sack inside and thought if I needed
a rope to tie her in place with.
but I did not have one.
rolling the stone back:
"nancy"
but between us, only.
between us.
XII.
XIII.
there weren't nothing to it with Marie, just:
I don't know what happened, she was gone, and
I went to the back of the house with the front door unlatched...
But she put a hand to her stomach and knew,
and she cried for it, silent.
There was no noise from the police, either.
The lights were not on. Just dark car-shapes and wheels crunching up
from the bottom of the hill.
I sat waiting.
My shift was still a few more hours. I hadn't ate nothing.
I sat waiting.
The table seemed to glow a bit, with the kitchen light shining down on it
and with nothing placed on top, so the reflection just caught it all and held it in that way light can do,
with the dark outside.
When they came in, they sat, opposite,
and one put both his hands on the lip and then raised back up to stand.
I watched his fingers push down, white around the nail, and then slide off backward.
But nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
XIV.
1st dr.
KMC 02-21-07
pulling it up out of the seat, my belt caught the wood tray,
and it snapped it on the hinges, a loud pop and then
__________________________a loud pop and then
a rattle to settle it down.
XI.
holding it was quiet; quiet, light and warm; and I couldn't do nothing with it warm like that, so I set it on the table, on its back to wait until the warmth was less.
I thought about dinner, cooling,
and then: a bag, for groceries; thick.
and everything was as loud as you would think: popping air into the bag to open it up, opening up a place on the counter, picking up the weight and sinking it down in to the bottom. from the handle, everything was more right, and I stepped out to do it.
I knew the place without planning it, and I went the few hundred yards to the stone:
a larger rock on the slant-face of the mountain.
there had been snakes underneath it in the spring, but they had cleared with the frost
and room was there;
my thoughts spread loose:
a cold, huddled spot in the belly of the mountain --
tomb.
I placed the shopping sack inside and thought if I needed
a rope to tie her in place with.
but I did not have one.
rolling the stone back:
"nancy"
but between us, only.
between us.
XII.
Oh, my father had the stone
That was hewn from the mountain,
Oh, my father had the stone
That went tearin' through the world.
That was hewn from the mountain,
Oh, my father had the stone
That went tearin' through the world.
XIII.
there weren't nothing to it with Marie, just:
I don't know what happened, she was gone, and
I went to the back of the house with the front door unlatched...
But she put a hand to her stomach and knew,
and she cried for it, silent.
There was no noise from the police, either.
The lights were not on. Just dark car-shapes and wheels crunching up
from the bottom of the hill.
I sat waiting.
My shift was still a few more hours. I hadn't ate nothing.
I sat waiting.
The table seemed to glow a bit, with the kitchen light shining down on it
and with nothing placed on top, so the reflection just caught it all and held it in that way light can do,
with the dark outside.
When they came in, they sat, opposite,
and one put both his hands on the lip and then raised back up to stand.
I watched his fingers push down, white around the nail, and then slide off backward.
But nothing happened.
Nothing happened.
XIV.
Where shall I go?
Where shall I go?
Where shall I go for to ease my troubled mind?
I went to the rock to hide my face
For to ease my troubled mind;
The rock cried out "no hiding place"
For to ease my troubled mind.
The man who loves to serve the Lord,
For to ease my troubled mind,
Will sure get his just reward,
For to ease my troubled mind.
Where shall I go?
Where shall I go for to ease my troubled mind?
I went to the rock to hide my face
For to ease my troubled mind;
The rock cried out "no hiding place"
For to ease my troubled mind.
The man who loves to serve the Lord,
For to ease my troubled mind,
Will sure get his just reward,
For to ease my troubled mind.
1st dr.
KMC 02-21-07
2 comments:
Here are a couple of comments since this is just a draft. The tension that mounts between the words tired and clean and pulled the lever and released is not adequate to what I think must happen in a situation like this. I speak from some experience, having as a mother of 4 become quite exasperated with crying infants one or two times myself ;o}
The tension builds as does the physicality of the situation. I don't even think the snap of a lever describes that physicality of reaction. It is a building, desperate, loss of control.
Perhaps I shouldn't be able to imagine this quite so well.
Anonymous
You could stick with either I or II, but I don't see why you need both. Otherwise, I would say don't cut much. I like it; it's unnerving.
Post a Comment