Drumming Armageddon

By George Drew

"Often it is said of contemporary music that it's the soundtrack of our lives. If so, Drumming Armageddon is a poetic rendering of that soundtrack: Rock, Country, Jazz, Pop, Folk, The Blues-they're the genres comprising it, and they all are present in this collection. The poems pay homage to the artists-Dylan, Clapton, Lennon, Crow, The Beatles, Elvis-and track the poet's personal musical biography: his experiences and memories the music both relates to and marks. The poems, like the music, have plenty of swagger. Finally, though, they remind us that, at their best, poetry is music, music poetry"--

• Language: English
• Publisher: Madville Publishing
• Release date: May 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781948692359

George Drew

George Drew is the author of nine poetry collections, including Pastoral Habits: New and Selected Poems and The View from Jackass Hill, winner of the 2010 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, both from Texas Review Press, Fancy's Orphan, Tiger Bark Press, and most recently Drumming Armageddon, Madville Publishing, 2020. Drew also has published a chapbook, So Many Bones: Poems of Russia. He has a new chapbook coming out titled Hog: A Delta Memoir, Bass Clef Press. He has won awards such as the South Carolina Review Poetry Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award, the Adirondack Literary Award, the St. Petersburg Review Poetry Contest, the Knightville Poetry Contest and in 2020 the William Faulkner Literary Competition. Drew was a recipient of the Bucks County Muse Award in 2016 for contributions to the Bucks County PA. literary community. His biography appears in Mississippi Poets: A Literary Guide, U. of Mississippi Press, edited by Catherine Savage Brosman. In 2019 Drew collaborated with singer/songwriter Rick Kunz on a CD of original poetry and songs entitled A Triumph of Loneliness, KBW Music.

Book preview

1.

THE WORD SWAGGER

Swagger is a nice word most

especially when there is a deficit of swagger.

Swagger is what you crave,

like the full tilt grit of Janis Joplin,

or the guttural smolder of James Brown.

Swagger is a flood of Elvis lookalikes

in Las Vegas—it’s that glitzy, that raw.

Swagger is a mouth harp, a fiddle,

it’s Ginger Baker in a bluegrass band.

Swagger is getting back your bite

like Jerry Lee after the world

has kicked you in the teeth.

Swagger is a nice word after good,

but swagger is even nicer after bad.

Swagger is what you have left

when the world has nothing left to give.

Swagger is a bray without a mule.

ON ANOTHER EPIC TRIP AROUND THE SUN

When I turned sixty I was with my kinfolk

in Mississippi, in Grenada, Mississippi to be exact,

boozing it up in a Country Music juke joint.

I was sixty and I was dancing with Jan,

my brother’s Queen of the Line Dance wife,

and I was dancing with my once upon a time

Queen of the Jitterbug Aunt Joyce, and more than anyone

I was dancing with my Slow Dance Goddess, Mama.

Now Mama and Aunt Joyce are gone,

my brother’s fighting bladder cancer, Jan

nearly died from a bad heart, and she

and my brother don’t dance anymore.

And here I am, on the verge of turning three

score and ten in Poestenkill, New York,

and what am I doing?—sitting with my feet up

in front of the tv listening to Emmylou Harris sing

her heart out about Poncho’s being laid low.

What’s it like? my wiseass friends will ask

tomorrow and for a few tomorrows after that.

Exactly like turning sixty, I’ll answer—threats

of absence then, threats of absence ahead.

For now, after Emmylou fades out and credits scroll

down tv screens in Poestenkill, New York,

I’ll lift myself from my chair, insert my favorite

Robert Cray cd, and I’ll dance. Dance until I drop.

OATMEAL

Outside the New York winter turns the world

white, brownstones burly thugs in the early

morning light, the eight steps leading down

to the Italian bully’s slick and treacherous,

and inside up three flights in our apartment

Mama’s in the kitchen with the radio set

on Arthur Godfrey playing his stupid ukulele

and like sleet scratching on a window