Sunday, November 05, 2006

November 2006



25

MOM’S LABOR UNION LIVING

Labor Union living but not loving it.
Mom owes her life to the cause.
If her Dad hadn’t been in his union, then
she’d have grown up eating rats.
Before unions, how would a girl like
that, in that working class, have lived?
They all certainly would not have
had that warm house with a safe fence.
The American dream of old was hers.
And the stories of childhood poverty
are told with odd nostalgia and complaint.
Too many sisters for one dry roof.
At least tales can be told at all.
At least they all had a clean dress.
That world was not that long ago.
That world is being disassembled today.
The new robber barons will take and play.
Metal working unions are fading away.

26

SPOOK HOUSE

my older brothers bent over backwards
and most earnestly goaded me to jump
out of the moving spook house car
if I wanted to really see something
in a secluded realm neat and bizarre
they claimed they already had
and had snuck a gratifying adventure
they just badly wanted me to
trip up and win a head-to-toe suture
or maybe rid of me altogether
to get lost in the dangerous dark
to get run over or shocked into nether
on a circuit of high voltage spark
and then they wouldn't have me to
embarrass them, as I did.
a gullible dodo bird joke

27

DERAILED

the spook house rails are so bumpy,
and you wonder how you will conclude
peace is a dirty little word
U2 always somewhere on the airwaves jangle our parts off
the dates on tombstones are not the important years
the man didn't want to know old people or ever be one
the apples are spotless, so no bugs will fly in our eyes
he loves flowers so goes to the graveyard to steal them
until he went blind from eyeball blood vessels bursting
light your votive candle in the dark, it's only 99 cents
his last words before he died was,
"I want to brush my teeth - I don't feel fresh."
three minutes later he set a date on his tombstone
the radio is turned on and it's U2 jangling
like a pocket full of coins and keys
peace is a dirty little word
the rails felt unsure, but you finished

28

PLOW UNDER POSSESSIONS

sitting in a fresh garden furrow
playing as big brother drove the plow
the ground is a city of fat earthworms
then the ridge of dirt flopped on my feet
my shoes pinned down there, oddly stuck
brother wouldn't slow down but yelled
the tractor bore down with loud speed
I valued my life as my only possession
I squirmed until I gave up on his braking
I pulled my feet out without both shoes
they plowed under too deep to find again
I went home in dirty socks, and no pity
father angry with me for losing my possessions

29

TWO HOUR POEM OF HOPE

I felt bad
but then I ate something
two hours of hope

30

THE CHER SHOW SONNET

I grew up on a farm that was rather exhausting and dull.
It was pretty, with nature, but besides goats, was lonely.
Instead of tractor mechanics, my flight of fancy was prone
to copy more glamorous things and aspire to be beautiful
and imagine the hay wagon that the tractor would pull
to be a stage with a backdrop all mod and so overblown
where I would sing like Cher into the corncob microphone
and I pretended I was in a shocking gown beyond wonderful.
My older brothers would grimace from the feedlot next door
and plot how they might make me quickly leave this earth.
I was an embarrassment to myself, and more so, to them.
They didn't want another whacked-out Cher Show encore
they had no idea the little boy was finding brief mirth
real farm boys don't think about trying to transcend.

31

ROMAN CITADELS WITHIN GREEK LABYRINTHS WITHIN ENGLISH SECRET GARDENS: GO PLAY INSIDE YOUR CARDBOARD BOX

nobody knows that you're in there
except the family dog
you stay until you're hungry
or too sad on the damp ground
under the glue smelling paper

one cannot have enough vases
to hold all the dead roses
from all the car crashes
given by friends of the family

if the vases are dreary
they can be buried just past the backyard
in the pet cemetery with the
brooder house chickens that stuck
under the incubator bulb

the bitter rhubarb grows there, with
dandelion pell mell impertinence
and tiny violets with great manners
due to their being so impermanent
but the orchard mower takes them all
along with the rows of twig crosses
so that our ideas of pre-crusade history
conform to the ideals of the crusades
we feel safe with our corn knife weapon

behind the house is the shade
to play such games of tears and woe
until father and brothers ridicule
time to chop the weeds
bale hay and suffer physical pain
like a loathed Nubian slave

you can run to the kitchen
and shove cookies down
sugar is your only true friend
the dog is in the grass
watching intently and pensive
as if you might be suddenly torn
clean off the face of the earth

32

REALLY

Pipe dreams
in lead pipe flags
so round and long
not to get rusty or
old
but it's okay
because it never goes away
they say taxes and stuff
don't
but I say sunday school
because that's where
all of our differences
come from
today
wounds are the same color
in all places.

Really.

really.

Asked what the best part of Christianity was,
Gandhi said, "Jesus."

Asked what the worst part of it was, he said,
"Christians."

Like shopping. Like holidays. Like a family
isolated from its neighbors. We feel okay about
ourselves because, at least, we didn’t blow up
giant old Buddhas.