The Poetry Marathon

I’m a poet

(and don’t I know it?)

I’ve got some staying-power

Should count for something

‘deed it should

Approaching final hour

Zhubbah da-bibba da-bibba da boo

Punky da-wunky za-bubby da zmoo

Can translate this language?

Dis message for you!

It was naptime

I jumped around my room

until I heard Mom coming up the stairs

I dove into bed and properly covered up

She entered and stood by the bed silently

This makes no sense to me now, but as a kid

I had been told an important truth:

People stop breathing when they sleep

To complete the ruse and get away with it

I lay there motionless

The tiniest of breaths moving in and out

my face positioned strategically toward the wall

She had to believe I was asleep

I tortured myself in the ploy

Mom played her role with dead silence

and waited while her gullible boy

played possum

last moments on Earth

this is what Norm heard

music

earphones speaking to the space between ears

unconscious they said

morphine finally earning its pay

buoyed on fluid energy

worn vessel releases its hold

rising in Nature

music found in the space between stars

the opposite of alone

one

home

Early to bed

early to rise

makes a regrettable mud in your eyes

Empty unwinding finding

I’m no good at solitary confinement

I don’t like the company

Dad had a schedule

every Wednesday

every Sunday he wound the old clock

They’d had it since the 60’s

They had requested it when the old church in Pittsburgh was torn down.

It was retrieved from the hall where a youthful Mom and Dad had lingered in the late thirties. A kid had scratched into the brass pendulum initials and a date.

As a young man I’d done surgery on it when it stopped ticking. Unsolicited. Guessing at its workings I got the gears unstuck

I don’t know how

It just happened.

It was the heartbeat of our home, then their new home at Penney Retirement Community.

It hung in the living room. I could hear it ticking on the other side of my wall, marking the last days of Mom, the last months of Dad.

Then the deepest silence descended on that house. The clock confirmed they were gone. It’s the one thing of theirs I wanted. I got it.

I wind it. I’m not regimented like Dad.

I’m bad.

I don’t know Wednesday from Sunday.

Elicit my love a dairy
or if prefer a child
I’m in town to tarry
tired of the wild
prithee don’t be wary
pray thee don’t be riled

For should thou be so riled
to linger at the dairy
a wooly beast as wild
may with you choose to tarry
he is a she with child
better to be wary

And why should I be wary
she taunted and she riled
for unforgotten dairy
so circular and wild
the home in which I tarry
to set upon this child

A bowl of fruit my child
no need that you be wary
no matter you be riled
my father owned this dairy
the fruit is from the wild
if you must leave don’t tarry

The cooper may not tarry
in keeping with a child
I shall burn the dairy
if you be so riled
spoiled you be wary
ruined in the wild

Forget that I am wild
I dare not linger, tarry
you see he is my child
a present just as wary
a bastard never riled
upon a wayward dairy

One two dairy three four wild
Five six child seven eight tarry
the wasted wary rounding ten riled

Dearest Smoofinator,

veteran of the wars

survivor many times over

in whom deep valor abides

at this moment the most meaningful gesture of love and respect I could offer?

To clean your neglected litter box

I sally forth on said task now

with apologies

sincere

It was the breakfast food, the best diner food ever

Home fries and eggs over and toast

But let’s be clear

It was the only place within thirty miles that served breakfast all night long to college kids and rail men in overalls and other nocturnal dwellers

it was the last gasp of the heavy railroad industry right there forty years beyond its glory days in the 1930’s in the basement of the railroad station carved of great stone depression, decades of gruff shoes and soot had worn the ground floor that opened onto the tracks

ambiance like that

with a large waitress in house dress and apron, a kindly mom-type who took no guff

politeness was required or she’d roust ya

In case the bees should fail to please

I read in garden pamphlet

Could I Q-tip or tease

take the place of bees

in the fertilization process

Tomato blossoms

would never fruit

unless the pollen boys

could take root

in receptive female parts

so janes and joes were introduced

by means of gentle jiggling

with a little help

from this instigator

distinctly non-winged pollinator

a wondrous haul we made

that summer

no dumber

beginner’s luck than mine

Tomatoes galore