Monthly Archives: April 2010

What arrogant
Corn-fed Bonaparte
Dared bestow upon
This two-bit crossroad
The name we give with justice
Only to the great:
New York, Paris, New Delhi, Sao Paulo
A city?

Your upstart streets
Know nothing of
True city ways
The grit and grandeur
The grotesque lassitude
And violent optimism
That beggar and boast

No, you claim your title
Not by achievement
But by counting heads
The weathered and illegal countenance
Of those you summon to your trailer parks
And to your factory floor
Yet neither wish to clothe nor feed.

And then you gather
In the barber-shop
At the soda-jerk
On the hallowed bleachers
Of the high school gym
And watch each other
Sweat and gasp
For air.

A jackass and a joker
Tyrant and typhoon
He forsook the city lights
To live in sepia on this basement wall

Sometimes a vision grows quick and lithe
Sinuous out of bare earth
Other times is sold laboriously
Like soap from door to door

That winter he stood just briefly
At his daughter’s early grave
Then returned grim-faced
To his predestined rounds.

This trellis of anatomy
This carry-all
I portaged grudgingly
Across the evening
Is finally spent
And now thrown over and arranged
With loving care
Upon uneasy sheets

Each crooked piece is balanced
Tensely horizontal
Independent yet beholden
Of all its nearest kin

Afraid lest I disturb
This fragile truce
I lie awake and contemplate
The home I make
Among these tired bones.

Oh Lord, we thank you
For miracles
Of parking spots
And orphan dogs
Successful colonoscopies
And diarrhea cured.

For making Wanda celibate
For bringing wayward Jimmy home
From San Francisco
And for the anonymous guidance given
To the Wilsons as they raise their four impossible children.

And lest we forget
To tell you what you didn’t know
The pancake breakfast is on Saturday
And tickets are only five dollars
In the foyer
Right after this prayer
Is over.

Amen.

I’m now in day 21 of the Poem-a-day challenge on Robert Lee Brewer’s “Poetic Asides”
http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/

It’s been a blast having to write each day, and to compare notes with other poets – including my beloved mother-in-law, who roped me into this to begin with. I’ll post a few of my efforts here on the blog.