You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Imagine that your father or mother had started a successful business and you’re in line to inherit it.
What would you want it to be? What would you enjoy doing?
In my new novel, What’s Left, the family business is built around a restaurant and related rental properties nearby.
But there are all kinds of other options. What do you suggest?
to be starting out
behind once again
treading water, how
could we
catch up on
all the rest
all over again
out of nowhere
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Copyright 2015
Mrs. Richardson had been yelling at the kid
the fifth-grade girl who came around to our door
begging money to pay the babysitter
Mrs. Richardson yelled at the grandchild
for three days, and spanked her
then they were crying, in different parts of the building
all the while, their phonograph repeated
“the angels sing, glory to the newborn king”
~*~
Mrs. Richardson was pale as death
her face, hollow as a skull; hair, powder gray
her lips were chalky, and the eyes barely moved
she was thin as a broomstick
her son returned, with a cardboard suitcase
and cowboy boots
he wouldn’t stay long, if he could help it
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Copyright 2015
A three-year-old girl
held a life-size Mr. ZIP’s
cardboard hand in her own
while waiting for Daddy
or an interior lobby
stoplight to change.
Can we go now?
These days, she
must be
my wife’s age.
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Copyright 2015
As Doc would have said:
If he knew even one-tenth
of what he thinks he knows
he’d be ten times smarter
than he is.
(Yes, working with Doc was a hoot.)
As Doc would have said:
The funniest words out of that mouth: “I think.”
Meaning a less-than-conscientious way of doing the task at hand while adding to the burden of another.
We know.
All the fat girls in town
had congregated in this Laundromat
to giggle at a skinny hippie.
When they sat, mouths agape,
stomachs bulged more than their breasts.
Everywhere, there’s a pecking order.
The manager in her blue scarf and coat
fluttered in to chase neighborhood children out.
“They mess the place up. I don’t want them.”
Kids, kids, kids, she muttered
raking in quarters – all this bitterness
robed in garments of honey and bees.
As for me, another day,
another dollar, down the drain.
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Copyright 2015
a decrepit mess / pit
put them away
a cat, a dog, an auto executioner
gone, finally, by dawn
desperate houses plunked down in rock face
where will everyone live?
2
Warren Farm’s disastrous pick-your-own corn experiment
DeMerritt Hill Farm now owned by New York City refugees
who need to make the mortgage
while I’ve planted
blueberries, raspberries, asparagus, pussy willow,
rosa rugosa
the laurel and rhododendron that didn’t survive
all mine, all the same, within some inexplicable current
3
gentleness versus meanness
anger (I’m angry all the time)
RITUAL
versus
SURPRISE
Wild Willy’s still closed on Sundays
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Copyright 2015
in the median strip of Route 17 just north of Pennsylvania
Paula and I found a road map of Fayette County, Tennessee
“you wanna talk about getting lost?”
all these vehicles entering a busy traffic circle
are just a matter of shuffling cars . as the matron confided,
“Harry and I used to go down to Buffalo” to do this or do that
careening along curving roads, I saw the moon
swallowed and released over mountains . “she’s
a nice girl who does well in school, but that’s not everything”
or we could have just stopped at a
BAR DINING ROOM
flashing in orange and green neon
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Copyright 2015
As Doc would have said:
Just because you remember everything
doesn’t mean you understand any of it.
Jnana's Red Barn 