A WHISKEY INTERMISSION

 
Balcony flowers scent the air.
Street vendors stroll to sell
incense, candles, loose cigarettes.
Road tramps rest on church steps,
pass maps, tips for soup kitchens,
best hand-out, hangout corners.
Telling a story about hot air balloons
and Diamond Bay strippers,
the whiskey poet loafs
outside the Yellow Rose,
playing Mexican Train dominoes
with an Alabama debutante.

Tiles, fingernails, emerald rings clatter
on the tin-top table.
The debutante remarks,
“Rockabilly died on my 6th birthday.”
“At least there was cake,” the poet replies.
Range Rover, gypsy cab, Uber
pause at his streetside table.
Fighter-pilots, boxers,
the richly indolent bring
messages and money.
Outraged Japanese scholars wave
their tanka manifestos.
Evening ring of food trucks arrive
as the afternoon paper headlines:
“Zapata killed; Villa cuts a deal.”

Ignoring the silks and scarves of
the racing season’s final parade,
Army officers and their mistresses
crowding hotel cafes,
chain gangs building
little altars for the dead,
the whiskey poet retrieves his journal,
his cane and coat from the bar-back.
Sunburned, scooping up
change from a twenty,
he sighs a goodbye,
joins the hardhat mestizos walk
toward pickup trucks,
mercados, sunset’s end.

I'm Not Sure

I'm not sure what it is.
Perhaps it's  because I've
been clean ( apart from
weed ) for a year, but my
memories are returning.

Alongside the emotions
that I had forgotten.

It's a very strange thing.
A bit like seeing the past
as if it's a movie.

Except, you feel it, too.

As I said, I'm not sure what
it is.
I'm not sure if I like it, or not.

Sometimes I'm laughing at
the stupid things that my
friends got up to.

Sometimes I feel completely
depressed at the stupid things
that I got up to.

Anyway,
they're the only memories I've
got.

I try my best to enjoy them. 

Derek Walcott


In real life it’s November,
a Wisconsin Saturday of sleet and sweatpants
as I scribble this poem in my messy basement office,
kid toys everywhere, Lego landmines 
and cat litter granules buried deep in the shag.

In my mind, however, I am Derek Walcott
walking barefoot across a beach in Barbados. 
There is no stinking litter box, no bills to pay. 
I am the Poseidon of Poetry, a linen shirt
unbuttoned to my fuzzy navel. 
The churning ocean roars in reverence to its creator. 
A salty breeze blows.
A pink and orange rum runner sits
on a table I carved from harvested teak
as my typewriter waits in a hut. 

Hot damn the magic I will make.
I am the alpha and the omega. 
I am the Lord with a new set of pens.
Today I will write something you will never forget,
while Gary my cat shits over there in the corner.

Wanted: Deadeyes:
Blindfolded,
a poem staggers
onto a blank page
to face a firing squad who,
lucky it,
fire blanks.

A Random Memory

Sometimes,
I'll catch myself
thinking about
those wildflowers
I picked
for you
from the side
of the highway
during that
long road trip
we took,
the little
orange ones
that stayed
in the glovebox
of your Buick
until they crumbled
to dust
like everything else
eventually would.

Sweet Is the Night

Sweet is the night,
Full moon and
Cool breeze,
Silhouettes of willows
Swaying with ease.
Pappy with a shotgun.
Me on my knees.
Given the choice,
“May I marry her?
Please.”
“Welcome to
The family, son.”

Sour Men

the back room
of the Post Office
smells like pulp and cabbage,
sour men. 
there’s a red
and white-topped
pull bottle coke machine
squatting in the corner
like a half-beaten dog.
when we pick my father up
at work, he asks me
if I want to give the dog a kick

The Little Man

 

Deep in the wood I met a
man, smaller than a boot.
He said, if you will sing
for me, you’ll again see
your father. I was poor of
voice but I cracked a lament
to make angels wince and
weep. The little man cocked
his heavy head, looked at me
and said, in a wee voice:
Chum, I am proud of you. And
he handed me a silver mirror.

 


An Alphabet for John Lennon
 

            “Phase one in which Doris gets her oats.”

                        --John Lennon
 
A is for Apple, going round and round.
B is for Beatles, going round and round.
C is for Corey.
D is for Death, our last best friend.
E is for Memphis, up to the end.
F is for Phony, Homey, Honey.
G is for Goodness, which we need.
H is for Heaven, which we need.
I is for I, as Dylan would know.
J is for Joyce, jolly Irish blow.
K is for Kittens and Kangaroos and Kites.
L is for Larry.
M is for Memphis. Something went wrong.
N is for Everything, put in a song.
O is for Ono.
P is for People, who know better.
Q is for People, who know better.
R is for Righteousness, thick as snow.
S is for Surrealism, Symbolism and Frank.
T is for Superman, a rank.
U is for You, please be kind.
W is for Wasabi, look it up.
X is for Leonard Cohen, he is not gone.
Y is for Why, which is not in this song.
Z is for Lennon, which we can plainly see. 

A Fantastic Idea

I just had a
fantastic idea
for a poem.

By the time I'd
pressed the
thing on my
phone to take
me to my note
book.

I'd completely
forgotten what
it was.

What it was meant
to be about

That's the
problem
when you smoke
a lot of weed

You get a lot of
inspirational ideas,
but they're really
hard to remember.

Oh well, I'm pretty sure
another idea will hit me.soon.

Final Significance                                            


Apropos for the Bantam edition
of some Canterbury Tales to be sitting

on top of the toilet’s tank,
in Modern English translation, next to the shitting,

certainly a concern of Chaucer
for its naturalism or metaphorical potential

the paradox that noisome dross
can be gold nugget and so value exponential

to the trained eye and subtle mind
far above the level of the squatting behind