Nature Boy
His parents bought a special lock
to keep Nature Boy inside
but he’s mechanically inclined
and loves to go outside.
Photo by Brian Mahoney
here is where we all begin again
right here
in this bar that we’ve been avoiding for months
there were so many good times
there have been hours lost in the drink
that i don’t mind getting back
on a saturday afternoon that’s too cold for late march
the last two seats at the bar
motown playing like a portent of good things to come
a half block of rubble two blocks away
two dead bodies that they haven’t found yet
but will have by the night
when we’re already home and working on the wine
here
right here
with seth at the end of the bar pouring pints
for the same people that were sitting statues the last time we left
here is where the pieces fall into place
and years can slip back into common, tangible moments
here is where the storm ends and the sun comes out
another new york city story
another tragedy reaching for the light
two pints of dark beer
and a basket of greasy popcorn
seth now pouring us two chilled vodka shots as payment
for talking our ears off about his ex-girlfriend
just like he did all summer
when we and cancer came in here incognito
to hear his tales of woe and to forget our own
before we forgot here
right fucking here
with the neon reflecting red off the faces
of young women too dumb on their cell phones to notice
that right here
right in this moment
is where we rise
where we all begin again
in transit
i am
always in transit
mostly going somewhere i don’t want to go
going back to somewhere
huddled on a subway or a bus
with the other fools
trapped in my own trivial malaise
or being held captive by some annoyance
tonight it is a pack of teenagers
who are screaming and running between trains
they are hitting each other…again
there is no poetry in the art of redundancy
mine or theirs
so do not think of this as a poem
maybe it is a cry for help
or it is life and life only
i have at least three to four people a day tell me
thank god the day is moving fast
or they complain about how slow it is going
and they have the softest march toward death
that i’ve ever seen punch the clock
soft people and their soft problems
most of them have never worked anywhere else
they take their cars and sit in traffic
playing on their cell phones
listening to sports and hate radio
the only victim in the scenario being their time wasted
on a planet that kills millions
offers death sentences to so many others
each and every day
i’ll put that on my bucket list, they say
we are masters at killing the moments that count
the ones that don’t but are still as valuable
in the end that stench you smell
might just be regret
that is to say, maybe i’m happy to be on this train tonight
healthy and blind, stinking sober
somewhat alive though assaulted by teen noise
while trying to read the poetry of nazim hikmet
beethoven’s missa solemnis
playing faintly in my headphones
here and fully vested in this moment
for as long as this life will let me.
mint chocolate chip
the two girls sitting near me
have a loud one-act going on
about how much they love ice cream
ooooooooh, vanilla one of them shouts
oooooooooh, chocolate, the other counters piercingly
before this they’d spent fifteen minutes
shouting back and forth about the apps on their phones
and how much they love doritos
but hate the bright orange powder that gets stuck on their fingers
this is sadly an improvement
i loooovvvveee, strawberry, one of them says
ewwwwwwwwwwwww, the other responds
strawberry is soooooooo gross.
they are giving credence to the old adage
that children should be seen and not heard
they make year-round school seem like the right choice
i stop reading my book and look around
but there is nowhere for me to go
i’m stuck and they are stuck and we are stuck
talking about ice cream in the middle of the afternoon
butter pecan, my mother loves butter pecan
yeah, well, my sister loves cookie dough and coffee flavored
she says it like a challenge
mint chocolate chip! the one girl shouts
they both squeal
we’ve hit the motherload in this conversation
the apex, the big payoff in centuries of verbal communication
mint chocolate chip!
they both scream this time
it’s like a revelation
like being in a room with copernicus
when he figured out that everything
revolved around the sun
i can’t help but laugh
i look over at the two girls and they are beaming
they look as happy as twelve year old girls
with tons of hours to kill
and not an ounce of responsibility in this world
should look
kicking legs too small to reach the concrete
their lives full of ice cream dreams and soda pop ambition
christ, may the world
never force them to change, i think
then i go back to my book
and turn another page.
in a quiet living room in vermont
in a quiet living room in vermont
we are drinking coffee instead of beer and wine
the hoosac range of mountains sits behind us
it is very idyllic
you are on the couch talking to your father
about your mother’s impending cancer treatments
it is a necessary conversation no one wants to have
but here we are in a quiet living room in vermont
having it anyway
until your father stops talking to click his tongue
holding back the tears
he says, at least she’s still alive
then goes back to clicking his tongue
as you move closer to comfort him
i watch the two of you, father and daughter
the way that you’re stroking his hand as he stares forward
jesus christ, this is the one of the saddest things
that i’ve ever seen
i feel like i don’t belong here
in this quiet living room in vermont
that this is just a moment for the two of you to get through
maybe i should get up, i think
go get myself another cup of coffee
go outside and stare at the wind turbines atop the mountains
but then i think about the cancer inside of you
how i’d rip it out with my bare hands if only you’d let me
how i want to take your hand as well
and i’m paralyzed where i am
this cancer that we can’t even tell your parents about
because it’ll kill them
i start to well up at the thought of everything
this world is putting you through
my wife, my lover, and my very best friend
when your father looks at me and smiles
he says, it’s all right
it’ll all be all right
just as a pack of teenagers come in from outside
breaking the melancholy
of sitting in a quiet living room in vermont
with all of their welcome noise
their boundless life and their dumb humor.
a portrait of the artist watching his future wife getting ready for their first date from outside her window
scotch breath from two rounds of nerve killers at the PHI
desperately trying to open a pack of mints on atwood street
ratty old leather coat ratty goatee feeling unwashed because
of fear the college kids already stalking the night in half-drunken
stumbling girls laughing boys howling all of oakland/pittsburgh
waiting on the snowfall black sky no moon no chance of running away
from this down mckee place he catches a glimpse of her on the third floor
in front of her mirror maroon shirt hair pulled back putting on make-up
her mouth puckered for the first time the same way he’ll see it
for so many years only he doesn’t know that yet he thinks he hopes
this’ll never get old he hates beginnings he hates ends he hates that
they are not as familiar yet as he wants them to be so he watches her
like a stranger with his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest
as someone shouts the revelry he feels and he thinks yes yes yes yes
she’s the one.
Guns and Cell Phones
In St. Louis young blacks
carry guns like cell phones
and use them often
to shoot each other,
as we read in the daily paper
and see on local television.
Black adults now put signs
in parks and yards in
neighborhoods around the city
with this message for their young:
“We must stop killing each other.”
They want to stop the suicide.
The poet Gwendolyn Brooks
once wrote that peace
won’t come to anyone until
everyone is “tea-colored.”
By 3015 the world may know
if Gwendolyn was right.
A Singular Repast
We are to each other now
many decades later
what we were the day
we got married, a couple
at the kitchen table on
a summer night—she
a slice of watermelon,
corners touching the ceiling,
covering my face in juice
and I the corn she butters
before she devours it.
We eat as fast as we can.
For A Time
Let me be still
Except for these
Tokens that
I cannot
Let go of
Heartbeat, breath
Random thoughts
Gravity
Though I hold
On to these
Illusions
Let me sojourn
Here a stranger
In your midst
Like a lover
Joined yet separate
Observed
Inside and out
Dissolved like
Salt in water
A saline visitor
And when
I open my eyes
You will still
Be with me
Remembering
I was
At peace
For a time
-- Tom Rubenoff
Storming at Us
Addicted to forecasts, we watch each storm come at us
Weather Channel, computer modeling, radar and all
A nor’easter coming up the coast, Carolinas, Jersey shore
Montauk, the Cape, Boston and beyond, the itinerary set
Each stop, each drop anticipated; sometimes they line up
Warmer in the Midwest or swoop down cold from Canada
Line up in formation on the map, like armies advancing on
A battle map on the History Channel, Caesar taking all Gaul
Or Sherman marching, this time, up the coast from the sea
And sometimes they get here, worthy of the anticipation
Worthy of the wait, but many times they stay to the south
Or go to the north, as if willfully avoiding their duty to us
Their followers, their devoted fans who closely follow their
Careers and watch them die off in the ocean somewhere
A quiet, lonely death, and then, each time, we go on, check
The extended forecast and anxiously await what the weather
Man or woman has to say on our local six o’clock news.
-- J. K. Durick
Waiting Room
Guys never get good at all this, especially here
At the Breast Care Center; it’s hard to pretend
To read old magazines, recipes they’ll never try,
Fashions so old, almost out of fashion, already;
It’s hard to stare without staring at anything in
Particular, at the women, at the couples coming
And going; time passes so slowly when you‘re not
Alone in this waiting, she’s there with you, it’s her
Turn, it’s her health, things beyond your control,
Things that appear as shadows, the slightest shade
Of difference on film, tracked by an ultra sound,
Then biopsied; it becomes all a matter of waiting
Like this; so much depends on outcomes beyond
Your control, so it becomes this waiting, time spent
To hold your breath, try to read, try not to stare, and
Try, most of all, not to look as frightened as you are.
-- J.K. Durick
Airport
Endless renovations give it
a fleeting quality, an impermanence
that coincides with its function --
to contain the flow of arrivals
and inevitable farewells,
to be this temporary backdrop
to the passing fancy,
the whim of essential design.
Forever mutable, it moves us
with an efficiency our ancestors
only dreamed of.
Pilgrim man has progressed
this far, steps briefly
chiefly to the right
up moving stairs
through doors and detectors.
Disarmed and ticketed,
the seatings, the greetings
behind him,
he leans into his comfort
and awaits the final call.
-- J. K. Durick
At the Hop
Two robins hopped
across the lawn
at dawn, one
behind the other.
The first one hopped
to get away.
The second hoped
to be a father.
The Shish Kebab Genocide
The Germans made certain history
would know what they did when
they stacked the Jews in camps
before putting them in gas chambers.
Not so with the Ottoman Turks
who slaughtered Armenians
in 1915 and for years thereafter.
More than a million Armenians died.
Today their kin live like Jews
in diaspora the world over.
Had the Turks taken time to chunk
Armenian corpses and put them
on skewers held over a fire
struck for a festive dinner,
the world would know today
the Ottoman feast was a holocaust
raging hot as the German slaughter
that claimed six million Jews.
Today no pope would have to call it
genocide when others waffle and won’t.
Norma Jeane at a Bus Stop, 1943
Her corded belt
python tight around
a tiny waist makes
her blooms bigger
brighter as they unfold
in the rising sun.
Gawkers stare
waiting for the tardy bus
Marilyn knows
will one day come
Dazzle and Whirr
Millie remained on the farm
in the valley after Ollie died.
Their children moved on
getting jobs in town.
Nowhere for Millie to go but
that place in town where
they stack old folks to die.
She never let Ollie go there
and she won’t go there either.
Instead she’ll sit in her rocker,
work crossword puzzles,
sip tea on the porch and wait
for the dazzle and whirr
of hummingbirds coming
to the feeders she hung,
announcing spring.
Death’s on hold for Millie.
The hummingbirds will flame
in her garden all summer,
a bright heaven to live for.
Gifts of Time
Time is a byproduct of existence
Without distance there can be
No time
Without objects
There can be no distance
So
Without things there could be no time
Objects are always telling us the time
A number of heartbeats
Defines a minute
Driving a car
Links hours to landscape
Returning to see
The height of a young tree
Has doubled
Can measure years
Someone leaving
Can show us the passing
Of a moment
I had to change pens
To write this
Because the first one
Ran out of ink
Must have been in my bag
For months
Things always change yet
We are surprised
Yesterday you started your car
But today the electrons have fled
From your car battery into the ground
So today
You wait for Triple A
Body parts once flexible are less so
Once fast have slowed
Once sure, don't know
Time is our friend
Not only for creating
Boundaries
Possibilities
And endless variety
Of change, but
It's greatest gift:
That for each of us
It ends.
-- Tom Rubenoff
Missiles and Land Mines
After the poetry reading
the lights go on and a lady
under a big hat rises
behind dark sunglasses
and asks the poet why
he never writes about sex.
He says for the same reason
he never writes about war.
What more can be said
about missiles in flight
and land mines that need
the right touch to go off.
IN A SOUTHERN JAIL
urine stink blasts
as our team hurries in
lungs suck in
swollen acid smell
voices of rapists
addicts murderers thieves
crash over my head
prostitutes hair-dyed
black-satin-tight wise eyes
ensure each girl in their cell
has Kotex water
handed by team
I reach through low bars
to solitary lying
face-down in shit
groping for clean water
no escaping my bars
shake them stretch to
prisoner on inside
margins break
thrust water bottle
it squirts joined laughter
top floor single male
in far left cell … lost loco
crying for kid
take a name phone number
he says shouldn't be here
illegal to know to note
pocket memo fast
yells ricochet walls rasp iron bars
rattle on concrete stairs metal rails
prisoners from long ago shout
from burial in these walls
I served two hours
my feet still print that dirt
my voice murmurs under shouting
while thieves steal pride
feed their sexy laughter
God walked through here once
mark of his cross
made a channel in concrete
for piss to flow out
WHERE THE ROAD
curves birth to death
with meetings partings
unspoken
woman walks the lane
first to last
bundled
watches ruts
hands deep in pockets
shivers
her bent reflection
quivers in dark glass
briefly
no one shares or greets
as icy living
grips them
in a warp of movement
to from somewhere
unknown