For my brother, one of the old stock who plays guitar and sings
What will happen when all of the real men are gone? The ones who can build, install, plumb, lay, and fix all manner of things with their own two hands – a dying breed of the old stock, they say. What will happen when all of the real men are gone? Will no buildings be built, no cars fixed, no oil changed, no lights installed? Everything broken and in disarray? What will happen when all of the real men are gone? When finally all of the hammers grow rusty, the wood rotting from their handles for lack of use. When nails fall from our shelves, and we just sweep them out into the ground for we know not what they’re for or from where they’ve come.…
...continue reading
Let’s say you’re on your last thin string
of hope your kids are hungry
you’ve lost
your minimum wage job with no benefits
your 2006 Chevy needs a new muffler
two rear tires an o-ring
for the oil
leak and your left wisdom tooth aches like hell
Your string of hope frayed and a little wet
is in your pocket one early spring
morning
as the sun rises on the first robin you see
Let’s say you smile Let’s say you feel
the face of the world slowly turning toward you
so you
warm your hands on a cup of tea and begin to sing
– David James
Author’s Note: I wanted to write a poem of hope since I found myself writing mostly “end of time” poems as I got older.…
...continue reading
it’s raining rats and dogs
or ferrets and hampsters,
carp and salamanders—
hell, you know what I mean, a hard rain
smacking the windows and grass,
pooling into mini-lakes in our back yard.
the sump pump, my hero,
is working on a fifteen second rest cycle.
i guess we need it, it’s spring and all,
flowers and bushes and trees taking in the rain
to create, again, our garden of Eden
minus the apple tree which we cut down
with the full knowledge
it was dying. a mercy kill. but it’s stuck forever
in my memory of this place
which we call home, for now.
there’ll come a time
when we’ll have to sell, when this house
will be a burden
we can’t manage, and some new family will move in,
two kids and a dog, and the house will wrap its arms
around them, and it will become their home,
not ours.…
...continue reading
I’d been expecting her Uncle Pat to come
meet me and when I pulled open the door,
there he stood, filling the door frame,
big enough to blot out the sun,
made even taller by black alligator boots
dulled by the south Texas dust still clinging to them
and a black Stetson
sitting centered above a wind-weathered face.
He didn’t bother coming across the threshold.
Just took off his hat and said
Hi, I’m Pat Shannon
in a voice like a Memphis blues man and
an accent that was 4th generation San Antonio.
You the one going to marry my niece?
a question punctuated by one raised eyebrow.
Yes, that’s right, sir.
Now he stepped into the room,
came close and crooked a smile.
Well good for you.…
...continue reading
[W]hen a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason – John Keats, Letter to George and Thomas Keats – December 1817.
The fog fades over the bay on New Year’s Day.
Pale blue surface drinking light. Flat
and glassy with a few ducks bobbing. I walk from
the Lesner Bridge to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
Crisp as the calendar. Wispy clouds.
They’ve wrapped the giant supports in bolted
metal and weatherproof paint, but there’s no
such thing as permanence. Ask the poles
with no pier. Ask the dunes. Ask proud-fool
sailors about trusting the sea. The answer is laughter.
The answer is existence as long as Keats allows
and we believe in the concept known as
the second of January.…
...continue reading
After Jericho Brown & Terrance Hayes
Undergrads wade through the scorching afternoon
clutching sweating six-packs of cheap beer.
Clutching sweating six-packs of shitty beer,
white shirtless undergrads climb a ladder.
Shirtless white undergrads climb a ladder –
frat boys are drinking on their roof again.
frat boys are drinking on their roof again,
sound system pumping n-words & bass rumbles.
The sound system pumps n-words & bass rumbles
through open windows, backyards & boulevards.
Through open windows, backyards & boulevards
party music spreads hate & violence.
Party music spreads hate & violence –
undergrads wade through the scorching afternoon.
– Nathanael O’Reilly…
...continue reading
Growing up, my favorite movie was Gigi.
Vincente Minnelli’s Paris
as a breathtaking canvas
filmed in a brutal heat wave.
The director had jangled nerves,
then whooping cough,
then he was bitten by a swan.
On screen: joie de vivre.
Colette brought to life
with Maurice Chevalier & Leslie Caron.
As a kid, I read Chevalier’s risqué memoir
three times.
Minnelli was born in a tent show.
Too shy to be an actor, he designed costumes
his father thought were ‘never good enough.’…
...continue reading