Last one… I think
Walter
Leave 30th Street Station with Starbucks
and head to the food truck operated by a white haired
Greek man with albino chinchillas for eyebrows, and a
wife that doesn’t speak English, unless it’s on the menu.
But she can cook a steak, egg, and cheese hoagie on a long roll
that would make Kate Moss want a second serving.
I see the beggar.
A duct-taped trashbag at his side.
The layers of clothing make him appear able to be peeled.
An onion of a man, who, the more you remove, the
more your eyes water.
My eldest uncle could have been him… if he had been unlucky.
They probably went to school together.
He’s probably somebody’s father…probably a Walter—
he looks like a Walter.
Cast aside like an annoying insect for his illness—
he shakes like a virgin at first touch…but he doesn’t stop—
then I notice the silver band on his wrist that binds him- a shackle stamped with three letters
P.O.W.
Avoid contact, keeping my head low as if in prayer-
(Praying that he won’t see me)
and my hands in pockets, pressing my keys against my leg,
so that they won’t be confused with loose change.
“Spare any change,” he asks, as he extends a beaten Styrofoam 7-11 cup.
I walk on…
I order my food and my palette is revolted as I chew and swallow my recent actions.
I break into a run towards 30th street.
Sprinting—an admittance of guilt in Philly.
And I am guilty… Walter has been shooed away like a pigeon seeking crumbs—
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
DAY 25- Post for 5/12
Oh, did I mention that I used to write a lot of poems about Philly?
Eli Price’s Fountain
Listening to the city, I perch myself
on my stand. Chained like Prometheus
by awe to this concrete geyser.
The city attacks me like an eagle,
yet sets me free with a swing of its sonic hammer:
John Henry—being of noise, static, music.
City spreads out before me
like an orchestra I conduct.
Steps of a million feet tap out a cadence for John’s blows
that lay rhythm out like the beat of a bass drum heart.
Bullets strike a snare roll while
Eli’s dream trickles out—a flute song.
The motion of the masses
staggers into a cello’s moan.
The orchestra shifts to my right
to an R&B song as a white-haired
black man sings with all the passion
of a gospel choir after it has made love to a swinging jazz band.
The singer silenced…
A siren breaks ht tempo
like a bottle of Boone’s on a brick wall.
And I know somewhere a mother is screaming out
like an electric guitar riff on WMMR.
Eli Price’s Fountain
Listening to the city, I perch myself
on my stand. Chained like Prometheus
by awe to this concrete geyser.
The city attacks me like an eagle,
yet sets me free with a swing of its sonic hammer:
John Henry—being of noise, static, music.
City spreads out before me
like an orchestra I conduct.
Steps of a million feet tap out a cadence for John’s blows
that lay rhythm out like the beat of a bass drum heart.
Bullets strike a snare roll while
Eli’s dream trickles out—a flute song.
The motion of the masses
staggers into a cello’s moan.
The orchestra shifts to my right
to an R&B song as a white-haired
black man sings with all the passion
of a gospel choir after it has made love to a swinging jazz band.
The singer silenced…
A siren breaks ht tempo
like a bottle of Boone’s on a brick wall.
And I know somewhere a mother is screaming out
like an electric guitar riff on WMMR.
DAY 24- Post for 5/12
Sometimes you write a lot of poems about a city. Most of the time they are under-developed.
Center City
Steam pours up from a rusty, green gutter like an exhaust fan from hell,
as if Lucifer needed some relief.
Across the river is a train yard,
long since abandoned--
desolate and stripped.
A skeleton of all that it once was.
Raped by inactivity,
Consumed by the capital-crazed who saw it no longer feasible
to support its existence. Eventually, the juggernaut of racing iron
slowed and starved to the carcass that remains.
I gaze up at the prominent figures of the Center City skyline.
If I strove to their heights I would have a long way to fall.
Stare at the lights atop a building's peak and realize the futility of wishing on that star.
At my feet is a fallen angel with newspaper wings to keep him warm.
He looks up at the same distant beacon of lost hope through a Mad Dog gaze.
The man with the five month shadow that creeps
from his sad eyes, down his face.
Long since abandoned--
Desolate and stripped.
A skeleton of all he once was.
Violated by isolation--
a job and family that saw it no longer feasible
to support his habit. A brown bag and grime become
permanent accessories to his ensemble of misfortune.
Casualties of a starved city.
Its dinner guests--tycoons with insatiable appetites,
And we are their spring lambs.
Center City
Steam pours up from a rusty, green gutter like an exhaust fan from hell,
as if Lucifer needed some relief.
Across the river is a train yard,
long since abandoned--
desolate and stripped.
A skeleton of all that it once was.
Raped by inactivity,
Consumed by the capital-crazed who saw it no longer feasible
to support its existence. Eventually, the juggernaut of racing iron
slowed and starved to the carcass that remains.
I gaze up at the prominent figures of the Center City skyline.
If I strove to their heights I would have a long way to fall.
Stare at the lights atop a building's peak and realize the futility of wishing on that star.
At my feet is a fallen angel with newspaper wings to keep him warm.
He looks up at the same distant beacon of lost hope through a Mad Dog gaze.
The man with the five month shadow that creeps
from his sad eyes, down his face.
Long since abandoned--
Desolate and stripped.
A skeleton of all he once was.
Violated by isolation--
a job and family that saw it no longer feasible
to support his habit. A brown bag and grime become
permanent accessories to his ensemble of misfortune.
Casualties of a starved city.
Its dinner guests--tycoons with insatiable appetites,
And we are their spring lambs.
DAY 24- Post for 5/11
This is what happens when you run into a bully from grade school while you are in college. Then you write a poem about it (before you know how).
Class Reunion
As I walk with my wife along
the fruit covered funnel cake signs and
Clak clak clak of the roulette wheel;
candied apples and corn dogs.
I see a man that bears resemblance to someone
I used to know.
The black nylon jacket says Coach and Tom
and yes, it was him,
so I walk up and he grins beneath bushy eyebrows and
Makes monkey noises.
My name for him.
In school when he played every sport and
I weighed a buck fifty with a wet parka on
I would mock him
against better judgment.
He would retaliate—
Throwing me into a stack of
aluminum chairs,
clanging against my laughter.
Our little game,
neither of us winning,
just keeping a constant volley
of repartee and repercussion.
And I don’t think we disliked each other.
Now we reminisce, we laugh,
As we did when I would collide
with metal chairs and linoleum.
Our game, your pride, my acceptance.
So I drop five dollars in the jar for your little league team.
Class Reunion
As I walk with my wife along
the fruit covered funnel cake signs and
Clak clak clak of the roulette wheel;
candied apples and corn dogs.
I see a man that bears resemblance to someone
I used to know.
The black nylon jacket says Coach and Tom
and yes, it was him,
so I walk up and he grins beneath bushy eyebrows and
Makes monkey noises.
My name for him.
In school when he played every sport and
I weighed a buck fifty with a wet parka on
I would mock him
against better judgment.
He would retaliate—
Throwing me into a stack of
aluminum chairs,
clanging against my laughter.
Our little game,
neither of us winning,
just keeping a constant volley
of repartee and repercussion.
And I don’t think we disliked each other.
Now we reminisce, we laugh,
As we did when I would collide
with metal chairs and linoleum.
Our game, your pride, my acceptance.
So I drop five dollars in the jar for your little league team.
DAY 23- Post for 5/10
Getting caught up…
So due to team finals, senior grades being due, and preparing for North Carolina, I have fallen behind on my posting.
So I will attempt to play catch up. Here we go…
CHASING SILVER
I moved into Uncle Chase’s Washington Hill row home on an unseasonably warm December day the year my father like a deadbeat cliché announced to my mother and brother that he needed a pack of Pall Malls for an after dinner smoke.
Two hours later, my mother phoned the police department and the Thanksgiving pies had cooled too much on the counter. My brother sat asleep in my father’s recliner, as I got the feeling in my stomach that something was wrong. I had had this feeling before, when Jim Smithson took off down Moravia Road and wrecked my bike into Mr. Hathaway’s new Chrysler. Then, the feeling latched onto the back of my head and spread like a dream over my eyes in the familiar déjà vu. This time, the feeling was different and like a cancer, what I would later name abandonment crept across my stomach and hardened.
Uncle Chase, or Caleb as he was born, had a half dozen row homes around Baltimore. One he rented out to a widower on Eutaw Street. The second and third rested a block and a half from Patterson Park. The fourth was on long term lease to a night-shift, emergency room, nurse two blocks from Johns Hopkins. The fifth was the one we moved to in 1967, the same year that Johnny U got his start over Shaw. The sixth sat unfinished in Federal Hill a few blocks away my new home.
My Uncle Francis lived in the large townhouse with the rest of us. Chase had furnished a small basement apartment for Francis when he returned from a spell in Vietnam. I went down to this apartment twice in my entire two years I lived there. Only one of the times was it by invite. That trip ended with Chase telling Dennis and I, “Stay out of Uncle Francis’ room. It is for the best.”
Francis never real left the war. His apartment was immaculately kept. The bed, a military issue twin, could have bounced a quarter. Everything else fell into place…the footlockers filled with Francis’ personal effects. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought yourself in the barricks of some boot camp.
One would think that Uncle Chase would have made his claim to fame as a Realtor, given the sheer amount of property he owned. Yet his true gift, that which would immortalize him was found in his namesake.
He was a silver chaser.
Unlike nowadays when you give silver to the people at the mall and lasers burn away that which is precious, Uncle Chase worked with chisels. The thing about this way of doing it is that there is always something left behind. And in the case of silver, it slides up the chisel and curls around itself until it falls off in discarded metallic ringlets.
Those who were skilled at this type of work looked as though they were chasing the silver clean off of the surface. My Uncle made gardens appear from dull gray, like the flowers were always there just below the surface and he simply cut back the weeds of a monotonous landscape scene to make them show through.
And I wonder if he knew the weeds that grew inside of him, if he would have chosen a different path. Because the only thing worse than realizing that silver was never worth anything is to have it tarnished by something that makes it useless.
But that would not happen for some time. Back to the story at hand.
INSERT REST OF STORY HERE
But as with chasing anything valuable and temporary, the chase leaves something displaced, missing. And when it is finished, and we have obtained what we sought, we are left with another type of longing. We long for the chase.
So due to team finals, senior grades being due, and preparing for North Carolina, I have fallen behind on my posting.
So I will attempt to play catch up. Here we go…
CHASING SILVER
I moved into Uncle Chase’s Washington Hill row home on an unseasonably warm December day the year my father like a deadbeat cliché announced to my mother and brother that he needed a pack of Pall Malls for an after dinner smoke.
Two hours later, my mother phoned the police department and the Thanksgiving pies had cooled too much on the counter. My brother sat asleep in my father’s recliner, as I got the feeling in my stomach that something was wrong. I had had this feeling before, when Jim Smithson took off down Moravia Road and wrecked my bike into Mr. Hathaway’s new Chrysler. Then, the feeling latched onto the back of my head and spread like a dream over my eyes in the familiar déjà vu. This time, the feeling was different and like a cancer, what I would later name abandonment crept across my stomach and hardened.
Uncle Chase, or Caleb as he was born, had a half dozen row homes around Baltimore. One he rented out to a widower on Eutaw Street. The second and third rested a block and a half from Patterson Park. The fourth was on long term lease to a night-shift, emergency room, nurse two blocks from Johns Hopkins. The fifth was the one we moved to in 1967, the same year that Johnny U got his start over Shaw. The sixth sat unfinished in Federal Hill a few blocks away my new home.
My Uncle Francis lived in the large townhouse with the rest of us. Chase had furnished a small basement apartment for Francis when he returned from a spell in Vietnam. I went down to this apartment twice in my entire two years I lived there. Only one of the times was it by invite. That trip ended with Chase telling Dennis and I, “Stay out of Uncle Francis’ room. It is for the best.”
Francis never real left the war. His apartment was immaculately kept. The bed, a military issue twin, could have bounced a quarter. Everything else fell into place…the footlockers filled with Francis’ personal effects. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought yourself in the barricks of some boot camp.
One would think that Uncle Chase would have made his claim to fame as a Realtor, given the sheer amount of property he owned. Yet his true gift, that which would immortalize him was found in his namesake.
He was a silver chaser.
Unlike nowadays when you give silver to the people at the mall and lasers burn away that which is precious, Uncle Chase worked with chisels. The thing about this way of doing it is that there is always something left behind. And in the case of silver, it slides up the chisel and curls around itself until it falls off in discarded metallic ringlets.
Those who were skilled at this type of work looked as though they were chasing the silver clean off of the surface. My Uncle made gardens appear from dull gray, like the flowers were always there just below the surface and he simply cut back the weeds of a monotonous landscape scene to make them show through.
And I wonder if he knew the weeds that grew inside of him, if he would have chosen a different path. Because the only thing worse than realizing that silver was never worth anything is to have it tarnished by something that makes it useless.
But that would not happen for some time. Back to the story at hand.
INSERT REST OF STORY HERE
But as with chasing anything valuable and temporary, the chase leaves something displaced, missing. And when it is finished, and we have obtained what we sought, we are left with another type of longing. We long for the chase.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
DAY 22; More from the AVAM
I'm going to Missouri
to steal myself a dog.
And this is a feat because
I've never been to Missouri,
my car is in disrepair,
and I'm allergic to canines.
But somewhere in Missouri
there is a dog named Jim.
Jim can decipher morse code,
he's picked the last seven Kentucky Derby winners,
and he can tell the sex of your child before science can.
and I'm going to steal him.
And it is not that
I want to break some secret government code,
that I want to develop a gambling habit,
or that I have illegitimate children.
Ok, so I'd totally take him to the track.
But that is really secondary.
I realize that Jim is the exception.
He is the doghouse equivolent of
the Harvard student or the Rhodes scholar.
For every gender guessing dog that exists
there are a dozen dogs that are good for little beyond
licking themselves
often.
They are working with what they were given.
And Jim has a lot to work with.
Like me...everyday. Because every morning
after a night at the track,
we would go into the classroom.
This dog can decipher morse code.
And while it really doesn't have
any practical application anymore,
it is impressive.
And that was just what God gave him.
He has no control over who teaches him
or what he decides to learn.
But all of you do
becuase you are humans
with control over what you do
and what you decide to learn.
So if dogs can
learn to smell the gender
of unborn children,
the least you can do is open a book.
And too often I hear people
complain about their situation.
If life has left a crappy taste in your mouth,
LEARN TO LICK SOMEPLACE ELSE.
Because we are humans and we have options.
Because every one of you can be exceptional
if want to.
to steal myself a dog.
And this is a feat because
I've never been to Missouri,
my car is in disrepair,
and I'm allergic to canines.
But somewhere in Missouri
there is a dog named Jim.
Jim can decipher morse code,
he's picked the last seven Kentucky Derby winners,
and he can tell the sex of your child before science can.
and I'm going to steal him.
And it is not that
I want to break some secret government code,
that I want to develop a gambling habit,
or that I have illegitimate children.
Ok, so I'd totally take him to the track.
But that is really secondary.
I realize that Jim is the exception.
He is the doghouse equivolent of
the Harvard student or the Rhodes scholar.
For every gender guessing dog that exists
there are a dozen dogs that are good for little beyond
licking themselves
often.
They are working with what they were given.
And Jim has a lot to work with.
Like me...everyday. Because every morning
after a night at the track,
we would go into the classroom.
This dog can decipher morse code.
And while it really doesn't have
any practical application anymore,
it is impressive.
And that was just what God gave him.
He has no control over who teaches him
or what he decides to learn.
But all of you do
becuase you are humans
with control over what you do
and what you decide to learn.
So if dogs can
learn to smell the gender
of unborn children,
the least you can do is open a book.
And too often I hear people
complain about their situation.
If life has left a crappy taste in your mouth,
LEARN TO LICK SOMEPLACE ELSE.
Because we are humans and we have options.
Because every one of you can be exceptional
if want to.
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