Disappearing Geography, Bluegrass Slingshot: 2 Short Poems

104 E. Main Revisit

The pet mouse in the cupboard we lacked the heart to kill is long gone.

So is the ageless onion skin wallpaper, with it's hint of a print

and stain from old glue, mold, years of cigarette smoke,

and what was probably several lard-based kitchen fires.

Gone are the buckling boards, the crumbling dry wall, the scent of soup beans, books.

                                There is no more cheap wine.

Gone is the couch no sheet could redeem that we searched through for loose change

to walk across town to buy cheap cigarettes with the hope the free beer girl was working.

No more the door of revolving women who cooked and cleaned for us

who looked to domesticate and mother us, love us and smother us.

No more nights sitting up sharing the community jug and talking about poetry, art, and life.

Gone is the small plaque of the torah on the door frame that bid us,

whenever we left, to remember there is a vengeful god.

All Too

O, hills with clouds rolling over like a drunken lover,

this rain will not wash away the stigma

brought on from years of profane neglect

at the hands of cosmic middle managers.

Each and every Sunday, self-proclaimed preachers

spew sloppily prepared fire and brimstone sonatas 

to pious congregations of empty pews,

cursing comfortable beds, mini shirts, the NFL.

There is no dogma that will combat this American ennui,

born out of forgotten troglodyte urges:

latent lizard brain impulses like the one that insists

the sun and the storms clouds have nothing in common.

Disappearing Geography: Snapshot Not Yet Developed (a poem)

The aging poet by the seaside a bottle of vino on hand
Red like blood, like ink, like the sun
On certain days over the southern hillside.
Shoes and civilized senses abandoned
Scribbling poems on napkins, the back of playbills,
And recently devalued and worthless currencies
In between games dominoes with retired fishermen
And meals of tomato bisque, fresh shell fish and strong coffee.
He speaks only to his wife and a few words to the waiter
When the bottle is empty. Eyes colorless
Like the ocean staring out, recalling some winter
Once, when his children were very small
And still knew how to laugh without bitterness:
Like only the innocent will laugh, not yet knowing
There is never any reason not to laugh.

His poems are pithy epitaphs on the changing world,
Written sometimes in the voice of a young man
And sometimes as a wise old woman.
He searches for a child's voice -- one that will echo
Like a daughter's laughter.

(He refuses to accept it may be impossible to find without moving.)

Fresh young women on the arms of jealous boys
Find him curious. The women push their breasts out,
Hoping bare skin will entice. Meanwhile,
The boys plot his destruction, hiding vicious cowardice
Behind smiles and quick sidelong glances.
Four more bottles before the mid-day meal
Of fresh baked bread and raw oysters on the halfshell, shucked that morning
By three lovely virgins whose dark eyes remind him of Kentucky.

Soon it will be time for a walk down the sand
Hand in hand with his wife
Who has spent the day painting worlds
and inventing new creatures for him to give names to in poems.
Dominoes will keep. The napkins are saved by the waiter
Who sells them to tourists that love them, love is work,
Even though they have lost the art of reading cursive.
They pay for his oysters, his soup, his wine,
And a quiet table facing the sea -

To which he will eventually return and drink wine
Watching the precise spot where the water meets the sky
Searching for the arrival of a quiet, anonymous Death.