The Poetry Marathon

An editor with whom I worked
always talked about the rags
he wrote for
with a sort of defiant pride.

They may have just barely survived,
but he was around to nurture them
and sip from amber memories
every time
he coached us fledglings
to kill our babies.

I watched
as my own stories
gushed my mentor’s resources
and embarrassed my conscience
in the week’s mail.

Now that we have fake news,
the yellow journalism of the Gilded Age
wears its mustiness
as a peculiar base note
for a world that views war as a movie
and calls “hanging out” sex.

The testimony of other men’s daughters
papers the walls of politicians,
and academics flog their credentials
to distance themselves
in flight plans.

The Yellow Kid poses
in front of a hotel
he’s just named
for himself.

The dusk was saluted at the hotel by  
electric hours to kill                            
the peevishness of dissipation, who lay back      
in long arm chairs
cigarettes in hands

The evening was dressed                                  

the mail had been distributed from England

This seemed hard to silence the lion when its (sic) stimulated

Some loathsome sheep cough 
a patter of conversation just when the bones are being mauled.

These comparisons did not rouse a glance around the room 
eyes fixed upon spears arranged to run points whichever way approached

Oblivious of surroundings 

Perceiving mind a complete blank
fixed attention upon creatures 
too far to hear little theories

Solace is his voice
Loneliness is his absence
Dinner is his soul

So many numbers get lost in a night
so many corresponding letters of the alphabet, too.

What events are on the verge of not being under your control
because you can’t redirect your own thoughts?

The way your billboard painters present the retelling
of what more reliable sources reported,
no one must get any sleep where you live.

It was yesterday –
jitterbugger selfie sticks? –
Metro display blip

The radio plays old rock and roll
on the porch of a house overlooking the
the same park your apartment does,
albeit a different angle.
One of the men, in hard hat and towel hung around his shoulders,
walks through the yard to where one of the men
cuts tree branches, all left
on the sidewalk
to block your passing.

A yard sale across the street
lures you to hustle across Hardesty,
and although you have no spare dollars,
you walk up the steps to ask a woman who doesn’t speak English –
and neither do you speak Spanish –
“How much for this shirt?”

You smile, and allow yourself
to revel in a moment’s breeze
and walk down the street
to the strains of
“Duke of Earl.”

A friend of mine moved from an apartment we both lived in – but consecutively –
To her mother’s home in the suburbs
While awaiting one of a sequence of
Rescheduled surgeries.

She fell
Getting off of a bus on Grand Avenue
With its warped surface that scuffs loafers
And trips worn out sneakers
With equal disregard.

Grand Avenue has some old beauties, but was
Mainly the dividing line between which side of downtown had money and which side was just
Waiting to go to the East side.

As I wait for a bus,
An older lady sits cross-legged on the pavement. In the 50s, Grand Aenue’s heyday, she would have worn a dress and fretted into
A damp handkerchief.

Carrying my market bag, I, too, if I had been walking down Grand Avenue in the ’50s, would have resembled a McCalls dress pattern cover, if slightly wilted by June mimicking July.

Grand Avenue’s glamour is faded and a shirtless man whose tattoos settle into the creases of his aged flesh spits on the other side of the street

Another poet, maybe Ginsberg, would give prayers the Grand Avenue’s lost.

I get on my bus, rebuking myself for paying another fare, forgetting I still
Had time on my transfer.

Friends don’t let good friends
Out the door without saying
How each is perfect.

Hunky armed men in heavy boots
Carried their shovels like rifles.

They were the finest workers
The municipality could afford.

Through the dust could be seen
The outline of the last ’70s piano bar,
The dusty ferns and jars of outdated antipasta
Waiting secondary demolishment.

At night, their lanterns
Were viewable for up to five city blocks.

And, next morning, the day crew returned
To clear more detritus of a decade
Of how politics got done.

(Note: this is my fifth hour poem, but my phone got wacky and I had to restart.)

We've been floating
                            
                            for how long? Hours, but 
it no longer matters
                            
                           for the tourists we are
and travelers
                            
                           we pretend to be.
I make an attempt 
                            
                           at assembling a sentence
about an itinerary
                            
                           as remote as the pebbled
rooftops and forgiving 
                            
                           root path
we took to 
                            
                           reach the shore.
We waved off
                            
                           our guide,
who looked uncertain
                            
                           then splashed his way 
to us and climbed in
                            
                           to take over the steering wheel,
his crooked smile
                            
                           
                           as he did so
reminding us
                            
                           we had no chance
of finding our
                            
                           way back.
We might just have
                            
                           been another pair of lost
tourists, 
                            
                           our sunburned smiles
in a photo
                           
                           from an obliging waitress
the last
                           
                           anyone
would ever 
                           
                           see of us.