Lock-up Lucy was a Prozac junkie,
a certified ward of the state.
She was a main street maiden,
an alley cat hellion.
All the cops knew her on sight.
She was a cross-eyed vixen
in need of a fixin'.
She'd pull out her no string guitar,
and sing like the chorus of Heaven.
She works the corner of Main and Market,
across from One Hand Armand’s,
in Tangle Town.

One Man, One Poet

When asked what kind of poem I would write about America,
I would rather write about how we beat the PACs
by grass roots smarts, an angry vote, and facebook.
By Yankee stubbornness we caught the wind,
harnessed the Sun, grew our fuel in cornfields.
I could write this, almost, and tell true.
I would write, instead, how we are nearing that point
where our only choices will be Yes or No,
not when, not if, not why.

When the poets gather in their hundred thousands,
in malls, in bookstores, in squares,
I will rise up among them, poem in hand,
I would rather read how children are happy,
how delicious the rivers of my home taste,
how the histories of our lives are carried forth
in the stories we tell around the table,
generations in one room,
telling so that we will remember
where we are from.

My poem will not be that one.
It will be the one where I fear
for the sitters at my table,
and hope we are as strong as we need to be.

What's shaking, dude?

There is a man I know
who does big important work
and makes impressive money
but shakes his wife when he's drunk,
leaves her bruises like jewelry
and turns tears to fear.
AC/DC playing Ride On
and I killed a good bottle of Pinot Noir,
and remembered when his wife
was the toughest girl I ever met.
The light of Buddha shined in her,
and the earth caressed her very feet.

 

Sandy Beech,
( and before you start ripping on her name
she knows 'em all and will beat you to it)
was a crew cook in a smallish show.
We met my first summer on the road,
in Kentucky, or Missouri.
I spent fifteen hours cutting wire
and making cords, dealing with
thieves and sneaks, near-broke carnies
trying to keep their gear running
haggling a lot harder than I was.
Sandy brought me a plate of ribs and beans,
and a cool quart of Milwaukee's Best beer.
I offered to pay her and she walked away,
half singing "Pay me later, big boy."
That’s as much of the story as anyone needs to know.

The Bug Man ran game tables, drop the dot,
knock the pin down, rings over bottle tops.
His Boston accent gave his pitch a bray
you could hear over rides, kids and rock music.
His patter was flawless, slightly condescending,
and totally off the cuff.
He didn't see his hustle as fleecing the public,
precisely, rather as a Darwinian challenge to improve
the species.
He was educated, banal, and without many scruples.
His wife and girl were fed well and happy.
Last I saw of the Bug Man was in St. Louis,
when he dropped me off on a highway on-ramp
pointed vaguely north-east.
He shook my hand, a twenty tucked into my palm.
Gave me the honor of a carny's send-off;
Catch you in the next town.

Slick was a wrangler at one of the larger traveling Carnivals.
Through a season we would do business four, five times.
Through out the south, on every midway, every newly bare hay field,
you asked a carny about a man named Slick, they knew who you meant.
You'd think in a culture that lives by different rules than most
no one would rise to the status of barely being tolerable
let alone respected, Slick was.
He knew what he was doing, he put on no airs,
he knew when to bend and when to say hell no.
The only times I saw Slick riled was when he had to deal with a fool.
Slick asked him , " Who the hell are you to waste both our time like this?"
Slick walked power cords like tight wires,
juggled forty things in one hand and thirty three with the other.
He knew safety codes, local preferences, phone numbers and names.
Roustabouts and game wagons, foodies and barkers, would likely
rob a citizen of hard earned coin, ( everyone knows how this game works),
truckers like me who followed the shows all summer with wire, bulbs and plugs.
Slick was the one man we all knew, and if your name was good with him,
it was good with us.