Hard to Love
M. Scott Douglass
Main Street Rag
ISBN: 978-1-59948-342-9

Reviewer: Elizabeth Swann


They were all leather and chrome; dark shades,
sideburns, colorful bandanas; thick black boots and
worn blue jeans. The air was thick with oil, grease, gasoline…
—“The Day Hell’s Angels Rode Through Town”

          Dense with detail and atmosphere, M. Scott Douglass’s fourth book, Hard to Love, abounds with the downtrodden, outsiders, and celebrities, often at their least loveable. Readers hitch a ride with Douglass as he rumbles along highways, grabs a beer at a truck stop, or stops at a hotel. As much raconteur as poet, Douglass writes primarily narrative poems, and—as those familiar with his work might expect—these pieces are also rife with commentary.

          The former dental assistant turned publisher and poet has no qualms about “calling it like he sees it,” and disappointment figures deeply in his work. He admits “impatience has driven me down roads I could have/ avoided… caught me leaning too hard/ into dangerous curves," yet there’s a no-holds barred determination to “turn the key in the ignition”—and it’s clear that “going anywhere is better/ than sitting still” ("Moving On"). And so off we go; this time around, however, Douglass fans are in for a few surprises.

          The book is divided into five sections, and for much of it, Douglass looks in the rearview mirror. He begins section one, “Rumor Has It,” with “Windows,” set in Monroeville, PA in 1935—a dramatic monologue in the voice of a once-pregnant bride whose self-reprimand, “What was I thinking…” establishes the tone. It’s a bold move for the macho man on the cover: Douglass on a motorcycle, backlit as sunlight streams through a cloud. Regret will be a constant companion: Douglass is, after all, a middle-aged man. But there’s more here than his signature sardonic wit and ripe complaint, though there’s a tank full of that, too.

          In part two, “Been There,” Douglass takes us back to childhood memories of his Pennsylvania hometown: a scuff with a neighbor boy, a difficult move from his home and friends; ultimately, a grown man’s take on the events that, at the time, he didn’t fully understand. This section also harbors a glorious retelling of “The Day Hell’s Angels Rode Through Town” when town folks closed shops and “hollered, Don’t look at them.” Like Douglass, we’re “transfixed until the last one passe[s].”  Joy takes a backseat, however, and in “Delivery Blues,” a young man defends his decision to leave college, saying: “Besides, we were in love,/ and doesn’t love fix everything?” Inevitability and helplessness pervade these poems, and love won’t be enough—but we have to hope.

          “Priceless,” the third grouping, takes aim at technology, commercialism, even TV’s commercial stars—enter the AFLAC duck—with a humorous tack. Most of these poems appeared in Douglass’s 2005 chapbook Dip Says Hi. While “Priceless” is my least favorite section, Douglass opens with an unexpected jewel, a vivid lyric poem (quoted in full below):

Morning

Watercolor fingers pry open
the curtain of night and morning
steps through like an exotic dancer
slinking her way across a dark stage,
undressing mysteries as she goes.
I lean back in my chair and grope
through pockets for a dollar bill
or twenty to slide into a gaudy
garter, enshrine the moment,
inhale the fragrance of new day,
let it tease me like an endless
lap dance:  so much promise,
so much illusion.

          Here in the heart of the book, Douglass offers the tantalizing image of a new day, yet even dawn personified is hard to love. So much is illusion. And Douglass will have none of it, ripping into those who would sell us a bill of goods: corporate execs, Ann Coulter, other vultures who hover over the house down the street—another “vacant American dream.”

          Section four, “Figments,” follows, where we meet a wacky cast as Douglass drops by a gallery crawl or wanders Wal-Mart with a sharpened pencil and rapier tongue. We're often reminded of Douglass's penchant for stranger-gazing, as described in the previously referenced “The Day Hell’s Angels Rode Through Town”; it’s as if Douglass still wonders—minus the adoration—“But how could I not look?” True enough, but next time I’d like to see less finger-pointing at the hapless on the shoulder of the road and more imaginative treks into those gorgeous, glitzy days that leave us wanting. Still, Douglass’s humor hits a high note in this group with a delightfully irreverent poem, “The Lottery Prayer”:

The Lord of Chance is my shepherd.
He makes me want. He tells me I must play
to win. He leadeth me down a path
toward early retirement.

          You get the idea.

          Finally, in the fifth section, “Road Work,” Douglass finds himself at the “intersection of anxiety and boredom,” yet he returns to “Mustang Days” and a reckless moment of recaptured youth as he speeds past six cars. Why? Because he still can.

                                            …Because
sometimes the whole world is
a blazing blue blur streaking toward
an uncertain horizon and all you can do
is crank up the music, stomp on the gas,
and grip the steering wheel like the mane
of some wild, exotic thing. Grab hold
and go…

          Undeterred by regret and disappointment, Douglass refuses to pull over, refuses to put life in park. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. He closes the collection with the poem “Moving On,” and it sounds like he won’t be looking back anymore:

Finally the light changes.
A twist of the wrist
and I am thunder.
I am wind. I
am gone.