The Talisman

Book summary

The Talisman by Gerry Eugene is a vivid collection of poems that explores the landscapes of the West and Midwest, capturing moments of life, nature, and emotion. Through traditional and nontraditional forms, Eugene's work spans fifty years, delving into themes of love, loss, growth, and the beauty of the everyday.

Excerpt from The Talisman

The Talisman: Tony in Winter

I was thirteen. The soft steam of our breath

grew silver under the moon. Daily we walked

toward the rising half-light of frozen dawn.

Sixty now, and after any night’s dreams,

I walk the city while my heart listens hard

for hoof beats on frozen sod in snowy pastures.

I hear the halter-buckle jangle at your jaw,

and I search the crowds and flashing traffic

for any sight of you, old pinto friend,

slowly, as you would look at frost-heavy branches

shining with morning sunlight on the path.

Those coldest mornings are my talisman,

each moment frozen in the morning’s light—

first magic at another end of life.

2020

What Matters

At summer's end our northern sun sets fast

beyond the lip and teeth of our valley.

We move ant-like along the river's edge—

to hook one rainbow trout, find flecks of gold

in the black sands. A pointer strains at leash,

the grouse won't flush, and my radio says

to me, by way of waking the lost heart,

that Venus is cutting through Leo. Born

on that sharp cusp—I've been some few times sliced

by a sudden love for this losing world,

changing seasons, the up and down of roads

that snake through canyons and past blue sage.

Our center holds against Yeats's spinning gyre:

I read that wolves returned to the Cascades.

1996

Childhood Friends

I remember us running traplines, Steve,

and teaching ourselves to skin those small brutes

who fell into them. I recall burning

a woods with you, and lifting your father's

forty-five and thirty-eight as he slept

with brain cancer in some white nightmare ward.

I learned to bully in your cruel shadow,

landing my first good punch on the playground,

and ran with your other friends: criminals.

They helped us bale alfalfa in August,

then found their ways to jail. You got married

to the John Birch, fell into the Nazis—

into what else—I can't say. I can say

you're likely dead, and not from baling hay.

1996

Book Burning

—for Christiane J. Kyle

I've lost Bears Dancing in the Northern Air,

your narratives and lyrics in the voice

called from our offices and classrooms

decades ago. I read your book, but lost

it to a thief, and know that while the details

disappeared, the great heart of your works,

fast breaking from the mundane into song,

your sudden shifting to incantatory verse,

stops me every day. Not stolen, Chris—

risen in the night, as northern winds take leaves

far to where such poems live. They ignite

my daily memories, become my life.

You've lived in poetry, in constant fire—

even the stolen book erupts in light.

1995