The men in the city
Made a deal with the women in the city
The men would work every Tuesday and Thursday
The women would work every Monday and Wednesday
They’d alternate Fridays
The deal fell apart, though, by week three
That’s when they realized the old way was better
Filed under Fiction, Flash Fiction, Poetry
Every evening after dinner
I walk the tree-lined side street
That leads from my house
I don’t begin the walk at a specific time
Tonight first,
I washed the dishes
Then I started out
With nothing in mind
Just middle-age and gratefulness
And what to do next
Trees and worries and birds and plans
Until the houses ended
And the ball-field began
And like the other evenings
The sky grew big
No houses or trees to block it
The giant sky
One great, low cloud
And below…the sharp, round sun
Burning orange
Then setting behind distant trees
The persons driving cars
East on Ninth
–They missed it
Instead they looked at me
The guy standing at the end of West Broadway
Facing the sun and smiling
In khaki pants and a white undershirt
Like he hadn’t bothered to change
From work
Filed under Poetry
The gray of the morn
Made me want it even more
Wakin’ from unconscious
Of last night’s excesses
My ol’ lady too
Said, Baby…You
Gotta go get some
So I did
I done crossed the line
Into the neighborhood
So many’ve left
Behind
I drove low
Past the falling pants guys
Waitin’ in the rain
For the currency exchange
Drove low past the cruiser
Dirty white Interceptor
Black hubs and cow-catcher
Where there’s never been no cows
Drove low past the Church
The Church of Joy
Its parking-lot puddles
Of tears, not rain
Drove low past the barred windows
Of the convenience, meat, and grocery
Its billboard bold boasting
CIGARETTES, CITRON, LOTTO, and LINK
I Drove low
And then stopped
Hurried into the lab
Were they make it
Nodded to the girl
Showed my clump of bills
Her tattoo of Magdalene
Appearing to us both
I hurried back out
And drove low again
‘Round a burned-out mattress
Discarded onto the double yellow
Then made it back over
To the seems-like-it’s-safe side
Back in my living-room and kitchen
Tossed the bag to my wife
Warm honey-glazed donuts
To go with the scrambles and bacon
While the landscaper’s mower
Hummed loud in the backyard
Filed under Poetry
This morning in the dark
The rain fell steadily
Yet a male robin sang and sang
As if he knows that every morning
Will be as joyous as today’s
From now ‘til autumn
Filed under Poetry
The wives slept
While the men worked
Through the night
Each man at his desk
His face reflecting
The glow of a screen
The men worked
For the Corporation
–The sole employer
A living entity
Growing, consuming
And adapting
Operating, once with
Typewriters and forms
Folders and cabinets
‘Til the chief
Ordered the men
“Build a machine!”
One man created its mind
The paths into it
And the ways out
A second man wrote instructions
Shaped like poems
For the machine-mind to read
A third man built a translator
So the machine could talk
To other machines
Thus the Corporation’s organs
Became keyboards and screens
File and servers
And the men’s work
Became care
Of the machine
Which could only be done
At night
When they induced its sleep
And as the machine slept
The men worked
Through the night
Filed under Poetry
I don’t know
What makes the wind
Or last night
What made it rush
With the sound of everything
Being moved
That sound was more
Than the creaking of every tree-trunk
And the rustling of every branch
More than all last-Autumn’s leaves
Pushed, scraping along the pavement
More than every particle of dirt
Blasting against the windows
That sound included
All things usually too quiet to hear
Like the straining of each blade of grass
And the ruffling of every bird’s feathers
It was the rush
Not of a freight train
But of fifty freight-engines
Off the tracks and side by side
Headlamps black and heading straight
Toward you and me
It was the wind taking over
Pushing everything
All the way down
And you and I could do nothing
But go under
And wait
Me here and you there
Wishing to be together
Praying the wind
Would not take the other
And when we came together
We prayed the wind
Would not take us both
It pounding at the backdoor
Trying to get in
Radio siren wailing
Synthetic voice reporting
A town blown through
To the west
The wind is gone now
And I hear the sound of everything…
Everything being quiet
I don’t know
What makes the wind
Or what makes it rush
But I think it’s the same thing
That last night made it stop
Filed under Poetry
On Wednesday,
One o’clock at-night
Is for sleeping
‘Til there’s a distant rumble
Then a white-sky FLASH!
Which silhouettes for an instant
Branches of Spring’ s bare trees
BOOM! OOM! oom!
Hurls from a faraway cannon
Between wheels of wood
Its black iron barrel, narrow at the front
Points upward
FLASH, then BOOM! again
And an invisible cannonball
Arcs high over the backyard
Reaching its highest point
Above my house
Where the projectile pierces a mammoth piñata
That’s not a piñata at all
But a giant, stuffed animal
A great, toy buffalo
Standing overhead in the black cloud
It’s woolly head facing west
Into the storm
From its underside
Between its black corner legs
Ice-pellet stuffing
Rains down at me
But is stopped by the thin roof
Pellets pop, pop, popping
Like kernels exploding
In a metal pot
‘Til there are no more
Just a trickle
Through the downspout
To the silence
Of the next dream
Filed under Poetry
They’re sayin’
Soon it’ll be seventy degrees
When it is
I’m gunna put on faded Levi’s
And a T-shirt
A white one like Fonzie’s
No, like Springsteen’s
Yeah
I’m gunna back out a car
An old one
With squared corners
Chrome bumpers
And round headlights
I’ll back it out
And then back it in
Park it right there on the driveway
I’ll walk over to the brick house
To the metal spindle with the garden hose
I’ll pull it and feel it unroll
I’ll fill a plastic bucket with water
And soap
And go at the car with a sponge
Irregular shaped and brown
Holes of different sizes
A real sponge
The kind that used to be alive
And once I’ve sudsed off all the dirt
And wrung it into the bucket
I’ll turn the hose on the car
Spray off the suds
And expose the shining, metallic, tiny flakes
Fixed underneath the glossy green
And last,
I’ll take the chamois to it
It was once alive like the sponge
Or on something alive
And when night comes
I’m gunna swing open the heavy, metal door
And slide in
Onto the leather bench seat
I’ll put in the key, and turn it
And give her some gas
Twist on the radio
And roll down the window
Then reach behind the steering wheel
And click down the shifter
I’ll ease off the brake
And roll onto the side street
Turn right, and
Drive
Out into the night
Like in some Springsteen song
Filed under Poetry
He tells them
We’ll deliver it
By then
For so much
And then he tells me
Go plan it
Yes, me
Because I see the future
That’s my job
Then he asks me
What future do I see?
Are they happy?
Is it on time?
Is there money left?
No, I tell him
So he tells me
Make it like he saw
Yes, me
Because I change the future
That’s my job too
Now he asks
How ‘bout this time
Are they happy?
Is it on time?
Is there money left?
No, I tell him
He tells me
I’m not trying hard enough
He says
Give ’em what they want
That future
So I tell him
It’s like this…
And when I finish
He asks
It’s pre…what?
Predetermined?
I tell him again
How it’ll be late
And over budget
All-ways
He doesn’t buy it
He says there must be a way
To deliver it
By then
For so much
He’s asking the guys to work weekends
What Man built
Became too complex
I don’t mean fire or wheel
Those could be stopped
Not bullet or bomb
Both were simple and dumb
Not light, or radio, or phone
Once, a boy could build them
Not even early computers
Those, too, were built in basements
And when they talked to each other
Man would chaperone
No…
Man’s demise
Was not these
Damn the device!
And the information on which it thrived!
Damn all computers
That tried to be!
Sympathy to Man, extinct Man
For not using his mind
To know
Where to stop
Filed under Poetry
Jim's Writing 