Years before "Road Service" was the opening poem of Walking in Chicago with a Suitcase in My Hand--fittingly, as it provides a clear passage into the book--it had already appeared in two chapbooks, Here's How & Greatest Hits. One of the cool things about Greatest Hits is that I had the opportunity, in a section called "Sleeve Notes," to write about the selected poems. Here's what I said in 2009 about "Road Service":
"You can make anything dirty if you try, my mother used to say, so no doubt she would like "Road Service" for illustrating her point. The shape of the poem--which represents not only a winding road, apropos of the superficial subject, but also a curvaceous woman, befitting the sexual undercurrent--works in conjunction with the extended metaphor at play. On a personal level, I wanted the poem to look like the curvy road gracing the cover of my first book, Nearing Narcoma. Such self-reference may sound egotistic, but art is, to some extent, ego-driven. After "Road Service" appeared in Runes, editors CB Follet & Susan Terris told me the poem received a spirited reading & response, despite my absence, at the magazine sponsored event. What more can I ask of a poem than it have a good time even when I'm not around?"
"Your Eyes Are Diamonds" is a skinny poem--well, maybe a bit on the chubby side--written in a long, continuous stanza. It employs standard rules of punctuation & capitalization, as was my wont back then, yet the poem could just as easily be understood without either as is now my style. In a way, it's one of the poems that led me to where I am. "Your Eyes Are Diamonds" is in my first book Nearing Narcoma & in Greatest Hits. Here's what I said about it:
"I love sports. I became a fan of the Cleveland Browns even before I began elementary school, & I count among my biggest thrills passing Jim Brown, the greatest running back in NFL history, while getting on a hotel elevator. I'm not sure if that says more about fandom or my unexciting life, but I can, if called upon, recite the batting order of Cincinnati's Big Red Machine as well as starters & reserves for the NBA champion New York Knicks of the '70s. Over the years, I've watched an incredible number of sporting events & have become accustomed to all-encompassing, hackneyed comments garrulous announcers repeat ad nauseam in lieu of true insights. In "Your Eyes Are Diamonds," this repetitive jargon forms a comic love poem. The speaker declares his feelings the best way he knows--through sports lingo--the object of his desire regaled as a great teammate, the highest compliment. The first place I submitted this poem to, Poetry Motel, accepted it, so that goes down in the win column."
Update: 17 years later, it sounds like a joke--in an Emmett Kelly sort of way, so not actually funny--that I call myself a sports fan & immediately follow it up with the perennial punchline Cleveland Browns. Somehow I'm still a fan, but I always mute TV broadcasts. Also, I don't follow baseball anymore. I doubt I can name more than a dozen active players, if that many. I pretty much stopped following the NBA after LeBron left the Cavs--again. These days, I'm more of a college fan who bleeds scarlet & gray.
One of the tacit concepts for writing "Your Eyes Are Diamonds" that I didn't mention in my "Sleeve Notes" is that the poem takes place in a world where women & men are equal in all venues, including sports. To me, the conceit was rather obvious, but I've been told by some, unable to see past historic gender divisions, that the poem may come across as homoerotic. Although that wasn't my intention, the pronoun you doesn't indicate gender, so as far as I'm concerned, please feel free to read the poem however you wish--whatever floats your boat, baby!
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