Autobiography of Kisses

 

Autobiography of Kisses

High school kids in the Chevy wagon
(lips of warm bread)
with proper hair
how innocent we were
(tongue of butter)
just kissing.

You unmasked the secret poet,
the scientific fuck-up. I discovered
in your eyes deep libraries,
your flesh oiled calfskin
(scent of musk),
your furrowed brow the ink of knowledge
when I had no idea who I was
or what I wanted
except kissing
(pure as rainfall).

With dark wisdom
(of moss, soft mushroom)
you whispered
You are a writer, nothing else.
You should do what you love—besides kissing.

From your eyes, your voice
rock solid belief
and a nibble of teeth
(taste of pollen, of nectar).

If a poem could kiss
(sprouts)
(fresh, fertile earth)
may it love you like this.

…..

First published in Red Wolf Journal. Thank you editor Irene Toh
photos 1964, 1978

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Junkyard Wedding

 

Junkyard Wedding

My father sings, tone deaf
the periodic table of elements H-He-Li
as if the musical scale do-re-mi.
Loves soap bubbles, the science.
Invents shaving creams, new alloys
for razor blades. Keeps the family half-broke.
Loves art, half-blind.

He buys paintings, crams the walls
like a back-street gallery.
“For the children’s edification,” he explains.
“Beatnik art,” Mom complains.
One nude, Japanese style,
pubic hair like a fox pelt
Mom stashes in the basement.
One of wrecked automobiles
beneath high voltage power lines,
blue sky, scudding clouds
bears the label AUTO SALVAGE.
Mom seethes.

My girlfriend gazes at carcasses of cars,
makes a polite remark: “How unusual.”
Mom says, “I’ll give you that painting
as a wedding present.” Then blushes
at her faux pas. We are only sixteen,
our flower just budding but already
Mom smells the full bouquet.

Now sixty years—
beatnik junkyard and Japanese nude
grace our living room wall.
Fine art. You like? No?

…..

First published in Slipstream
Painting by Max Ganteaume

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Summer of Love, 1967

 

Summer of Love, 1967

Here, this photo,
my cabin of teens in deep Missouri
after fathers beat, mothers abandoned.
No flowers in our hair.

Me in the center a college kid, clueless
with a summer job guiding hoodlums.
We canoed the Cuivre River.
I played guitar, sang folky stuff,
ate 23 prunes on a dare. They thought
I was a constipated Beatle.

Jayell caught frogs, built a fire,
fried the legs, shared them.
Oscar had an enormous penis, laughed at mine.
Little Roy caught moths, pinned them to an outhouse
wall where they fluttered and starved.
All had troubles. I loved all.

Where’d they go?
Three to Vietnam, this I know.
Jayell, Oscar, Little Roy,
names in a bathroom stall,
moths at a monument,
pinned on a wall.

…..

First printed in Rat’s Ass Review. Thank you editor Roderick Bates
Photo is of me and some of my campers, 1967

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Vietnam Memorial, Washington D.C.

 

Vietnam Memorial, Washington D.C.

Simple folk
(and here we are all simple folk)
set tokens at a wall lined with names.
Flowers, framed photos, a note:
     Happy Birthday
    Angel GrandDaddy
    from Teresa.
Everyone combs the names. It’s what one does here.

I find Denny.
Oh man. That was fifty years ago.
This life, he hasn’t had.
Can’t find Jimmy. Guess he made it, after all.
Wet eyes. I have to sit down.

You, little one, without a word
climb onto my lap, lean your cheek
against my chest, breathing. My love.
Just right.
After so much went wrong.

…..

From my book Random Saints
First printed in Rise Up Review. Thank you Sonia Greenfield, editor.

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Shirtless Dusty

 

Shirtless Dusty

I first meet Dusty on a beach
beside the Chesapeake Bay
in this photo where
he’s dating my cousin Liz
who suddenly grew a body.
Dusty’s the one with chest hair.
I’m the kid with glasses.

In this photo Vietnam shirtless again
he’s on a river boat patrolling
writes Stay in college.
Stay the hell out of here.

Next here’s him shirtless and Liz shirted
in the house he restored on steelworker’s pay
building war machines that float.
Bankers stole his pension
when they looted Bethlehem Steel.
Combat memories haunt
while Dusty raises goats
until the city shuts him down.

Here’s Dusty an old man on Facebook
with his face peeling off, flesh
flaking under cammo fatigues
posting paranoid gun-rights crap
so I unfriend him.

Here at the Chesapeake Bay again
Liz is dumping Dusty’s ashes
from a borrowed sailboat.
Agent Orange kills him
though the doctors won’t admit it.
His life like firing a rifle at the sky:
a disturbance the air closes over.
We open our shirts,
we feel the bullet strike.
Here. Right here.

……

First published in Rat’s Ass Review

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When Eisenhower who won WW Two was President

 

When Eisenhower who won WW Two was President

Fat boy grabs my arm.
Thin boy punches my stomach which hurts, yes,
but not as much as I’d expect.
“What are you doing?” I say
in my beginning-to-crack voice.
“We’re gonna beat you up,” fat boy says.
“Wait a minute,” I say and strangely, obediently,
fat boy drops my arm.
“Before you beat me up,” I say, “just tell my why.”
“Because it’s your turn,” thin boy says.
“Why?” I say.
Each boy looks at the other.
They don’t know why.

In fifth grade, 1957, they teach Walk Don’t Run.
They teach Duck and Cover, Kiss Your Ass Goodbye.

No kiss. I run. They chase, heavy footsteps
past the tail-fin Chryslers  
    tied to blackface lawn butlers
past the muddy football field
    where one day a kick will crack my testicle
past the mothers in pink bathrobes
    whose sons died in Korea
past the angry old major
    who will die in his bed
past Julie Johnson’s house
    who will test that testicle.
I run all the way to the grim faces of the draft board
    men fat and thin who grab my arms
    and punch my stomach many times
and it hurts, yes, but this time I run away
far and fast and forever while friend Denny
joins the brawl and loses, pink mist,
    an RPG to the belly at Khe Sanh
because I can’t stop him,
because sometimes it’s your turn.
Just tell me why.

……

First published in Picaroon

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Horseshoes

 

Horseshoes

After pulled pork on paper plates
I play horseshoes, that satisfying clang
with this old guy, stubby like a badger.
He said grace at this Kentucky barbecue
so I ask, “Are you a preacher?”
Clang.

“I was a firefighter for forty years,” he says,
“then I found Christ after wasting my life.”
“Fighting fires isn’t a wasted life,” I say.
“I was a drunk,” he says, “and homosexuality
is an abomination in the eyes of God.”
Clank.

Okay, delicate territory. “God created us all,” I say.
“God,” he says, “created an abomination.”
Clink.

The hostess whose lesbian wedding we are here
to celebrate pulls my sleeve, leads me away,
takes the horseshoe from my hand and says
“Today is hard on Uncle Buck. Really hard.
And now you’re beating him at horseshoes.”
Clank.

We see Buck with his white mustache taking
practice throws, sweating, throwing hard.
“He thinks you’re the liberal snot from
California come to visit the hicks.”
Clang.

She hands me the curve of rusty steel,
a weight on my fingers.
Clink.
“Please lose.”

……

First published in Stoneboat

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Just sayin’

 

Just sayin’

You sure you want a prince?
Actually, dragons are hardworking,
faithful and honest, long term.
Maybe not so good-looking but
it takes skill to breathe all that fire.
He keeps the house warm.
The kids can bounce on his tail.
Prince Charming is an idiot.
Look at all the great women he ignores
while out chasing dragons.

……

From my book Random Saints
First published in Dove Tales

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Zoology: A Case Study

 

Zoology: A Case Study

See the soft soul
of one chiseled girl
in a vast city, Baltimore,
surreptitiously tipping books
to learn of ovary, sperm, egg,
singing in the Episcopal choir.

Her beauty is her enemy.
She escapes the choirmaster
to a public school staying late to peer
through the one and only microscope,
pursued by boys, men,
watching cells replicate, grow
feeling twin passion
a brain for science, a womb for womanhood.

A chance for university, scholarship
encouraged by a father of no education.
In the Great Depression she boards the train
for biology as a discovery, not a trap.

Sixteen years in St. Louis at a microscope
over Drosophila chromosomes,
a woman in a man’s lab.
All the good men go to war.
A professor steals credit.

Half starved, doctorate achieved,
Japan radioactive,
love unleashed,
last egg saved.
I’m born.

……

First published in Amsterdam Quarterly —thank you Bryan R. Monte, editor.
The photo is of my mom labeled “Embryology Lab 1934.”

This poem is currently published with a lovely presentation in Silver Birch Press—many thanks to editor Melanie.

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Redhead

 

Redhead

Of grandmas great-great
each child has eight,  
that’s how the tree spreads,
but this one of yours, dear girl,
in sepia photo with posture like steel
steamed to America at age fourteen,
married the coal-haired sailor who asked
Who set your head on fire?
Who froze the flame?

Her inky-haired daughter, your great grandma
with steely drive in the Great Depression
worked her way through university
studying ornithology
while raising crow-haired children.

Her youngest son wandered to California,
your grandpa bearded in sable
paired up with a steamy woman of Afro top
back to the land raising illegal crop,
then to legal vines, stable life.

Their daughter, your brunette mother
of dusky skin and choir voice,
a singing crusader for choice
wed to an organic farmer
who looks like a smiling porcupine.

But you, dear girl, dear niece,
dear sweet amazing pumpkin
with eyes of steel,
Who set your head on fire?
Who froze the flame?

……

First published in Amsterdam Quarterly —thank you Bryan R. Monte, editor
Photo by Oleg Osadchuk

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