Future Ship

Title Page, Other works by the Author, Copyright, Acknowledgments, Notes, Dedication

3 Future Ship 4 Also by Kurt Brown Poetry Return of the Prodigals MoreThings in Heaven and Earth Fables from the Ark Future Ship Chapbooks The Lance & Rita Poems Recension of the BiblicalWatchdog AVoice in the Garden:Poems of SandorTádjèck Mammal News Fables from the Ark Editor TheTrue Subject Writing It Down for James Facing the Lion Drive,They Said:Poems about Americans andTheir Cars Night Out:Poems about Hotels,Motels,Restaurants and Bars (with Laure-Anne Bosselaar) Verse & Universe:Poems about Science & Mathematics The MeasuredWord :On Poetry & Science Blues for Bill:Commemorative Poems forWilliam Matthews (with Meg Kearney, Donna Ries, and Estha Weiner) Translations The Plural of Happiness:Selected Poems of Herman de Coninck (with Laure-Anne Bosselaar) 5 Future Ship O Kurt Brown RED HEN PRESS | LoS ANgELES, CALifoRNiA 7 Acknowledgments Thanks to the editors of the following journals in which these poems first appeared, some in earlier versions: Alaska Quarterly Review:“goodnight,Texas” and “The freedom of Escaped Blood”;Bottomfish: “Bluebirds”; The Chaffin Journal:“What Poems Say”;The Cortland Review:“Who KnowsWhere,” and “Marston’s field”;Cottonwood:“Mauser”; Descant:“in florence:Thinking of the generations”; The Greensboro Review:“Reading Milton in Montana”; Heliotrope: “Lady Luck” (as “Suicide Knob”) and “The Prince’s Story”;The Ledge: “A Hillside in myYouth”; Lumina:“goodness and Beauty”; The Nebraska Review:“The Sitters”; New Letters:“The Race”; NewYork Quarterly:“Road Report”; Nimrod:“Town Beach”; Notre Dame Review:“future Ship”; Poetry:“Silent film,”“Wakeup Call,” and “Hot Lake Hotel”;Poetry Motel:“Rebel Rouser”; The Portland Review:“August, Cutting Back,”“Ham Radio,” and “over the Line”; Potomac Review:“TheValue ofWork”; Rattapallax:“8 mm”; Snake Nation Review:“Serious” and “White Collar Crime”; The Sun Magazine:“Rocket 88”; Sycamore Review:“Diabetes”; Tar River Poetry:“Demolition Derby”; Willow Springs “America, 1968”;The Worcester Review: “i only Have Eyes forYou”; Writer’s Journal:“Tattooed girls.” “Wide World of Sports” appeared in Night Out:Poems about Hotels,Motels,Restaurants and Bars, from Milkweed Editions , 1997.“Marston’s field” appeared, under a different title, in Never Before:Poems about First Experiences, fourWay Books, 2005. A very special thanks to those friends and editors who read these poems in progress and helped immeasurably to improve them:ThomWard, Steve Huff, Stephen Dobyns,Tom Lux, Peter Sears, Rodger Martin, and Martha Rhodes. All gratitude and love to Laure-Anne Bosselaar: first reader, best reader. 8 Notes “The Race,” “goodnight,Texas” and “Diabetes” were written in memory of my father, Captain Alwin Robert Brown; “Wakeup Call” is forThomWard; “Road Report” is for Steve Huff, and appeared online inTed Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry.”“The Sitters” is for my sister, gloria Edwards;“grandma’s Rye” is for my sister, Barbara Jo Curtis;“goodness and Beauty”is for Stephen Dunn;“Rebel Rouser”is about the first rock guitar idol of the 50s:Duane Eddy.“Looney”plays off the career of Joe Don Looney, early running back for a number of NfL teams. The epigraph for “goodness and Beauty” is taken from a poem by Stephen Dunn,“oklahoma City,” in Different Hours. 9 for my father Alwin Robert Brown (July 25, 1910—february 9, 1991) 10 This page intentionally left blank. ...