Love Poem for a Sunday Afternoon

 

Love Poem for a Sunday Afternoon

First, undress. Put on worst clothes.
Plus headlamp, gloves, dust mask.
Enter crawlspace. Think not of Hades.

Slither on belly over rat shit. 
Curse plumber for poor design.

With wrench, unscrew cleanout plug. 
Recoil from explosion of black goo 
spraying face, eyeglasses, worst clothes, mask. 
Ignore smell.

Feed metal snake into pipe. Ignore 
phallic thoughts. Keep feeding, 
turning until you feel a breakthrough. 

Pull snake out bringing more disgusting goo. 
Repeat—feed snake, twist, bring out. 

Find cleanout plug that blew ten feet away in 
puddle of black muck. With wrench, reinsert plug. 
Turn it tight. 

Slither out. In driveway blast snake 
with hose water. Blast self. Remove clothes 
before entering house.

Take hot shower. Scrub. Soap generously. 
Watch water swirl around drain, then disappear. 
After shower, get dressed. Or not. 
Tell your love it’s fixed.

…..

First published in Freshwater. Thank you editor John Sheirer.
Yes, that’s me in the photo, just before entering the crawlspace.

Here’s a video from Freshwater of me and the poem: go here for video 

My Day with You

 

My Day with You

Sunlight
through honeysuckle hair
with haloes of red
as you bend to
shake me
wake me.

I plumb
in the empty house of a billionaire
who is younger than us
who could crush me with a signature
while all day a bird in the wood
sings like a donkey in distress.
You’d laugh if you heard.

Driving home
through mountains
I see a giant man on a giant horse
galloping up a distant hill.
He seemed bigger than a tree!
You’d be amazed if you could see.

Now in bed
as you bathe
I see through the window
rising haloes of
yellow moonlight.
When you join me
smelling so fresh
between flannel sheets
below the frosty panes
we’ll share stories
of our day.

…..

Note: the day was July 27, 1984 when I wrote this. Working couples with 3 small children may barely see each other except at night. Yet somehow, in my mind we spent the day together.

Hear me: 

Fannie and Corydon crash my wedding

 

Fannie and Corydon crash my wedding

Corydon’s photo flash powder 
blasts the room as he asks 
How much are you paying 
the waiters and cooks?

Fannie wants to know 
Are you pregnant yet?

More than a century they’ve been ghosts. 
Matter of family history, they birthed 
my grandma six months after marriage, 
same day President Garfield was assassinated. 
Corydon published a newspaper, 
Democrat in a Republican town
until the printing plant burned down. 
Go figure.

Fannie as a hobby crocheted homilies 
for the Presbyterian ladies such as 
STOP THE RAILROAD BOSSES.

Grandma as their child endured
schoolyard taunts. Which may explain
why Grandma was an old lady all her life,
always proper. But she comes to our 
hippie wedding, her ghost.

Corydon offers a toast:
May your love bear fruit. 
May you nourish the poor. 
May you poison the rich.
Tell lies, you will be elected.
Tell truth, you will be shot.
May you tell truth regardless.

He leaves a silver dollar 
and a note under his plate:

Nothing has changed.  

…..

Note: There are ghosts at every wedding, though they wait to show up years later in the photo album of our memory. My own small wedding (it was the sixties) had more ghosts than guests. My wife and I were high school sweethearts. Still together. Our wedding party grows larger all the time.

Photos are of Fannie and Corydon. 
First published in Live Encounters. Thank you editor Mark Ulysses.

 Hear me: