Found Poems #2

RIDING ON THE KING'S HIGHWAY

Each subway stop
from King's Highway to Central Park
is like old Dante's journey
through Hades in the dark.
No one sees the oarsman;
they know their leveled Hell,
and don't need to be told, "Get off!"
They know their lives quite well.

But Vik and I were for the ride,
to gauge the elevation.
Though she knew well the taste of Hell,
she memorized each scene,
and hoped to find God drinking
at the Tavern on the Green.

sk/sep84

Found Poems #1

DEATH CONCEPTION

"She opened, like a shell in the sea
she opened, and he fell drowning into her."

And from that point of passion, no doubt,
conception, there comes, in the next line,
death, visions of a child's coffin,
the stoic mother,
the dazed father,
a struggle, then, for religion,
a crawling through snake-root,
mangrove swamp, back to the edge
of disbelief, and disbelieves again.

sk/sep84

Hey, Eddie, I

Hey, Eddie, I

Hey, Eddie,

            I think I got that armadillo.  If he isn’t dead, he’s seriously wounded, and I doubt he’ll be tearing up my lawn tomorrow.  Before I walked the dogs this morning, I went out to collect the rat traps around the walkway.  None had been disturbed, but there was a freshly dug dillo hole just an inch or two from one.  That got me angry and the blood pressure up, especially since those things can’t kill him, just hurt him, maybe, but I’ve killed a squirrel and a rabbit and that broke my heart.  As I walked around to the front where I had both cage traps set up on the lawn, the cages facing in opposite directions with two long 2x4s each funneling in Vs toward each trap—the neighbors must be wondering what the hell I’m doing over here—I saw “many” new dillo holes, some large and deep enough to take a golf ball.  Man, then I really got pissed and disgusted, and it was just sunrise, a new day.  I continued around the house where I could see the cages, and there he was, a couple feet from a cage, his head down, just digging away.  I jogged back to the dog yard where I had that ice scraper, you know, the one I used in Fairbanks on the driveway—it’s like a long handled hoe, but with a flat blade.  Anyway, I got the ice scraper and jogged back.  He was still there, head down, ass up, and just digging like crazy, so I tip-toed toward him. Those suckers can hear really well. Every time I took a step, his left ear, the one facing me, twitched, and he raised his head a couple times. He was huge, one of the largest dillos I’ve seen around here. No wonder those hole were so big. It would have been a squeeze for him to get into one of the cage traps.  I got as close as I thought I could, raised the ice scraper spear, threw it, and missed.

            The dillo ran toward Joe’s and around the house with me in hot pursuit, but without my weapon!  I figured he’d go for his hole under the wisteria bush, and he did, but couldn’t get in all the way, because yesterday I put a garden hose in there trying to drown him out—apparently, he was in another of his several holes at the time—and it must have collapsed the hole.  His back half was poking out of the hole, and he was perfectly still—must of thought he was hidden.  I backed away, and ran to get the ice scraper, praying that he’d still be there, and he was, ass half sticking out and still, not digging or anything.  Raising the ice scraper, I thrust as hard as I could.  Eddie, it was almost like hitting a rock, his shell was so hard.  I quickly jabbed him again and drew blood.  He started digging like mad and disappeared into the hole. I thrust in there a few times.  Hit him once, maybe.  Then I got the light bulb: water hose!  I ran and got it, pushed it into the hole, turned on the faucet, and waited.  Sure as shit, out he came.  I managed to jab him three good ones, again drawing blood, before he got away and ran under the hedges and then around the front into the thick bushes there.  That’s where I lost him. Those bastards are tough!  Still, I hurt him badly.  If he doesn’t die, he’ll be holed up somewhere licking his wounds for a few days.

            You know, Eddie, I got to thinking about it, and this whole deal with that sucker has been like a microcosm of foreign affairs, diplomacy, war, and combat all rolled into one.  The wife and I, we tried to be good neighbors and hold to a live-and-let-live policy, as we do with the squirrels, rabbits, snakes and other critters around here, but that dillo was way too destructive, invasive, and had no respect for our way of life. He’s got holes and tunnels everywhere, tears up the flower beds, and the lawn’s near dead from his digging for grubs; mowing the lawn is like driving the old Alaska Highway.  So, we tried diplomacy, tried to kill all the grubs in yard to the point we’re damn near about to kill ourselves with insecticide.  We spread gallons of coyote urine granules: Hey, this ain’t your land!  We tried to capture him in a cage and deport him back to his own country.  We warned him with sticky traps and old fashioned mouse traps, warned him more seriously with rat traps, but only managed to kill that squirrel and the rabbit.  

            The rabbit, though, that was really sad.  I’m glad the wife didn’t see that one.  And, you know, the trap was a Victor, written in bold on there: Victor.  I felt like shit.  What price victory?  I think I told you about the little wren in the sticky trap, his toothpick legs so hopelessly mired in the goo that I had to kill him. Of course, bugs and lizards died in the goo. It’s all fucked up. Those things were mere irritants to the armadillo.  Collateral damage, brother:  I think I know what a fighter pilot or artilleryman must feel like when the bomb or shell goes astray and takes the lives of innocents.  You have to think about that, unless you’re a terrorist or live in the political extreme, so intent on your agenda and insulated by those of like mind as to be impermeable and not know it.  They don’t care how many reputations or lives they destroy. That’s enough bullshit—you have things to do.

            So, anyway, all that and we threatened him with our dogs.  Nothing worked.  We had no choice but to declare war.  As you know, he won battle after battle over the last couple years, but, buddy, the tide turned.  When it did, we—maybe I should say, I—were full of hate and seeking vengeance.  He retreated, but we pursued him.  He hid and coward, but we found him.  He begged for mercy, and we killed him (we hope).  That dillo’s mistake: He got too confident, arrogant, and greedy—he’s usually long gone by sunrise.  But you know, Eddie, now that the adrenaline has stopped flowing, and with the heart rate back to normal and the blood lust gone, I somehow feel sorry for that creature, that nasty son-of-a-bitch.

Adios,

Ketzer

     

Take Off Your Hat, Lennie. The Air Feels Fine.

You get a kick out of that, don't you?  All right:
We'll move this verse from the slum to the city;
we're sick of hearing rain on corrugated steel,
dirt road, dirt floor...alleys in the city,
Holy Mary sleeping on newsprint wall;
I think, you think, isn't it a pity
we got stuck with brains that think at all.

But we'll put every other metaphor on the lottery!

That's right, Lennie.  Now, turn around and listen:
Back down, get off,
come on, you've had your dollar's worth.
See the baby crying with flies on his lips?
Flash Dance, Ft. Knox,
baby in a cardboard box,
Cinderella dressed in yellow, move those hips.
Here's a ditch for a bathroom,
a row of people there.
Don't talk, bend over, cover up your face;
you can't see your own disgrace.
Greenspan, Peter Pan, Jim and Tammy Baker,
politician, businessman, Neanderthal earth shaker.
Up with your pants, dust off your toes,
turn around, hold a nostril, blow your nose.
Roach in your cornmeal, mice in your bed,
nickle in your pocket and nothing in your head...

But it ain't like that with us, is it, George?

No, it ain't.  Turn around, look across to the city.
We'll have a house and a kitchen packed with food...

And ketchup!

Sure, ketchup...and we'll have a garage with cars,
and in the study, we'll have a...word processor.

For the novel!

For the novel.

And I get to proof read the novel!

Yeah, Lennie, you get to proof read it.  No, don't turn
around...keep looking at the city.



(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, July 5, 1987)

The Sirens of October

she said though didn't(& all
along st. germain cafes
were overflowing)that
sound like oh
me oh my i
'm a fool
for you
bab
y

(tall beers
little mugs
of espresso)?

i said yes but
;she said basic
ally(steaming)your a
rguments always begin with agree
ments & i find that so dis
concert(every fifteen minutes)
ing. i said well i
hear a different chord &
be(packs of motorcycles)sides do
you hear crazy crazy crazy

(sirens
waffling)? shh!
she said(blasted
up st. michel)but
the song ended
&(over the seine)
there was nothing left
to do(across ile de
la cite)but

order pommes frites &
read e(chasing).e.(rumors)
cummings:



(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, November 16, 1986)

1. AL's Broken Promise to Alice 2. What AL Told Alice When She Called From St. Louis in 1958. 3. What AL Was Thinking When He Hung Up Twenty Years Later.

1.

Dear, I'll take you dancing
in a club for madmen only.
I move like a falling star--hold tight!
We'll shoot above the dance floor
like swirling shafts of light,
but when we strike the earth, my love,
great heaven splits a seam,
and I'll hand out immortality
like rainbows on a stick,
and all our friends turn into gods
when they partake of it.

2.

The days are hammered in
like mending nails,
working on me, sugar,
like wind on sails,
and I never thought
it could feel so good,
shaking that Faustus hood.

3.

These ties,
enter the heart,
lace through the brain,
entangle the soul in a Gordian knot.
I never was the Alexander type;
I'm a sucker in slow motion.


(Clifton, University of Cincinnati, Summer 1988)

They Do Not Take Heads At Sea

Being raised by the Pacific,
having felt the sand like quicksilver
running beneath my feet in the fringe,
and having fled the breakers
instead of riding them out--
I would change.

Having seen the sailors
with their pandas in San Diego,
and having weighed their pay of dissolution
against this landbound existence
that seethes with desert sand and rain--
I would change.

Having talked with fishermen,
and having walked the hard bound boats
that creak and groan for deeper seas
while pelicans pout on the mast,
and having asked what their nets yield
on this side and that, learning
they do not know all the net yields--
I would change.

Being raised by the Pacific,
having searched for shells with my feet
until my back blistered in the sun,
conscious then and knowing now
that anything at all is one--
I would change, I would change.


(Poems by Poet's Roundtable of Arkansas, 1982)