RD Armstrong's The Hunger
What happens when a man who is also a poet, who–by virtue of his gift–is automatically exiled to the fringe of acceptability? He may decide that his only alternative is to take love where he can find it; to savor encounters with shadowy, ill-fated lovers on whose minds he ultimately wonders if he left an imprint or not. In RD (Raindog) Armstrong’s new chapbook, The Hunger, this question is addressed with sorrowful, candid, narrative verse.
In his introduction to The Hunger, Armstrong reveals that the sum total of his love life is comparable to a “bad luck bracelet, a dossier of all my failed relationships.” Well, one person’s bad luck bracelet can become another person’s favorite bauble, or in this case, a male poet’s primer on how to avoid those pitfalls in future assignations.
The Hunger opens with “Secret Lover,” a confessional poem that illustrates the downside of being the kind of man who some women like to “have on the side,” or, as a friend of mine so recently and eloquently phrased it, “a dick between other dicks”:

For some reason
It has always been easier
To be the secret lover
Women seem to prefer to
Keep me to themselves
Than share me with
Their friends
Sometimes they are
In a failing relationship
And sometimes not
I am always careful
Not to fall in love
Not because falling in love
Is wrong or bad
But because as a secret love
I know that it will end
And being in love and
Having it end still hurts
More than just losing a friend
With special privileges

Armstrong keeps it coming, one after the other. The journey through The Hunger could at any time degenerate into a classic lonely old man scenario, except… Armstrong is a poet, first and foremost, and he’s taken back the role which allegedly condemned him to the hinterland and now employs it to his advantage. Each poem is transformed into something more than a glance back in time, as Armstrong breathes life back into each memory with a combination of hard-won wisdom (“Life Before The Ice Age”), brevity (“A Brush With Fame,” “Guilty Pleasure”), and true tenderness, as in the poem “Chopin” (my personal favorite):

What I remember most
Is this feeling of
Holiday
Knowing that
It would end
And the drudgery of
The world would
Soon return

So I savored the
Moments as best I could
Knowing that I was
Somewhat handicapped
By my lack of sophistication
In certain realms

We labored
Loved and
Lived within the walls
Of our respective hearts
Citadels really and
I do miss you

Miss your playing the piano most
So delicate and alive
A common thing for you
For me
The sweetest pleasure
Like a ray of light in the murkiest catacomb or
A soft hand caressing my grizzled cheek
My God
It was a sound that touched me
The clod
As deeply as possible
Making me want to climb
Mountains in your name
To worship you by
Loving you in the sweetest way
To lay at your feet
The sum total of my wealth


Your laughter
Your kisses
Chopin
This is what I miss

Armstrong draws a definite distinction between his secret lovers and his ex-girlfriends, to whom he says "they should all draw a collective sigh of relief," because this book is NOT about them. Unfortunately, Armstrong typifies of a lot of the male species; that the verboten, as well as the unattainable, are the only ones worth remembering. I hope, before too long, Armstrong may consider writing a companion volume dedicated to the everyday beauty of those women whose only crime was to be normal.

Marie Lecrivain for www.poeticdiversity.org