some angels come in dirty jeans
hands that flutter mad at the hips
an’ the tongue talk talk of just a lil sumpin’
runnin’ East to West transcendin’ time
diggin’ the eyes of Mexican old men
an’ the blow blow blow of San Francisco jazz
loose denim falls to a dusty wood floor
it’s Dean Moriarty
some good ol’ gal havin’ fed him
sexed him, and washed his clothes
sets pie on the window sill
and with a kiss kiss kiss
come back later for kicks, angel, for kicks
sends him on his way
my hands flutter with nothin’ to do
the curve around the high ball, bottle, shot glass
not enough any more
I watch the sky change color
sunset, thunder clouds slowly comin’
the ibis flyin’ North
the highway peel of cars
I think of Dean Moriarty
Dean Moriarty
how he must have looked
in a bar room, crazy from a life of go
ol’ Dean, the raptor
hungry-eyed for some gone gal
anyone, anywhere
a night, a nest
some warm woman
to calm the flutter for awhile
I have known flight since I was five
my Dad had a pick up he called Jezebel
a ’67 Chevy with a Bible queen for a name
he took my brothers and me to migrant camps
in the summer we picked los pepinos
spoke only Spanish for weeks
I learned the smell of tortillas
bite of chilies on my tongue
the run in from the fields
una cama llena de migrantes
con una gringa pequena
the prick of the cucumber
sweat, sunburn, and dirt
I learned summer was time to go
when something stops its growing
you leave that season and drive
if I could see ol’ Dean
I’d buy him a beer
hear his songs until stories wore down
and if he wanted a rest stop
offer up sumpin’ sweet
his kisses skip over my body
like stones, for the bruise of it
get-used-to-it feeling
of a lover barely there
a light slap on the ass
make me laugh
dust off the sad and lonely
and just stay a little while
until a different season
takes hold of him again
and he flies on holy wings
Dean Moriarty
I think of wild Dean
Judge’s Comments
“Jezebel, Dean Moriarty, and me” is much less formal than the first-place winner, but still very interesting technically. The poem starts with what seems like an oxymoron–an angel in dirty jeans–then undresses that angel in the second stanza. The syntax starts out loose–a long sentence with its parts connected by “and”–which gives the first stanza a sort of breathlessness that is intensified by the tripling of “blow” in the last line. In the following stanzas, the sentence structure continues to be loose, which fits well with the barroom scene that is imagined, and the storytelling mode. Images flit in and out, much like stream of consciousness, which echoes the style of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, where the character Dean Moriarty hails from.
I like the irony in this poem. The “real story”–that is, the speaker’s personal investment in the character of Dean Moriarty–doesn’t really come up until the fifth stanza, when s/he says “I’ve known flight since I was five” and goes on to tell about her childhood summers spent as a migrant worker. While Dean’s was a flight toward personal freedom, the speaker’s flight was determined by picking seasons, by the need for employment. The (imagined) affair of these two characters–the young female migrant worker and the fast-talking womanizer, Dean Moriarty–is told from her point of view. For her, it’s a break, a brief breather from her forced labors. It’s not all good–his kisses bruise her–but, in imagining his flight, she eeks out a sort of grace from this angel in jeans. –Andrea Selch