|
Table of Contents
Click page 1
Click page 2
Click page 3
Click page 4
Click page 5
Click page 6
Click page 7
Click page 8
Click page 9
Click page 10
Click page 11
Click page 12
Click page 13
Click page 14
Click page 15
Click page 16
Click page 17
Click page 18
Click page 19
Click page 20
Click page 21
Click page 22
Click page 23
Click page 24
Click page 25
Click page 26
Click page 27
Click page 28
The Blog Bog
The Mag Rack
|
It's the Blues
For Tony Moffeit
It's that "spirit language" you hear riding a train whistle
Bourbon Street horns blowing the dead out
of St. Louis cemetery into your thoughts
it's driving on New Mexico's red dust back roads
coyotes in the sagebrush, coyotes howling
in your head, as your car speeds your hand across the page
to New York City sending your blues my way
a hot chili pepper sun sends you ghostly visions: a dead father,
woman still waiting for you in a roadhouse cafe
you keep looking past at me you can't see
on a crowded subway car, nothing so exotic here as
a rattlesnake woman dancing for whatever I have
it's the same homeless woman by the steps
asking, any change today, anything at all
and there's that coyote won't let you be
that trickster: he's everywhere you look; I saw him today on the news
wearing a suit trying to sell me his opinions, posing as my landlord
saw him behind a desk in the bank, a doctor's office, an insurance office
Indians aren't drumming for rain or the heat to let up here
we pray for the ac to keep working, something
to quench our thirst, end the drought in our lives
to make it to our station without being robbed
who've already been robbed of everything
it's that moan of lonesome you hear
crossing state lines coming my way....
-------------------------------------------
Linda Lerner
|
September Poem
I am September's child, month that birthed me
and fled three days later; the weeks are
like a wish I'm traveling on toward that day
month that cannot decide
which season it is, the 7th month
on the Roman calendar, god's number
month of the great fire of London
of the second World War and
the attack on the world trade center
day the 11th became the whole month
and wasn't just that one day I lay
crouched in a fetal position waiting
to be let out...this year
the weather was beautiful like a painting all week
I didn't know what I was doing in it or why those
three women were walking down the street toward me
each with an infant in a pouch around their breasts
or how I became the fourth woman
the years didn't add up to the right number for it
and didn't make any sense but I am
September's child and they never did
even when they should have---
I blow out the days like candles:
make a wish a voice says
which one I ask
-------------------------------------------------
Linda Lerner
|
An Old Wives Tale or A Rip Van Winkle Story
This isn't technically a mother goose nursery rhyme, but a superstition that dates back to
about 1905. Many variations, like the following, have been written along this line:
Step on a line, break your mother's spine
Step on a hole, break your mother's sugar bowl
Step on a nail, you'll put your dad in jail
"step on a crack, you'll break your mother's back"
nothing about stepping over it, landing on the other side
stooped over in pain, the weight of seven decades presses down on you;
"step on a line, you'll break your mother's spine"
she's long dead it's your spine, came down
a curved genetic road to find you
after your father left, the man of the house;
cracks formed, the fine line between decisions
stepped over without consequences widened as
you walked the same pedestrian route habit mapped:
easiest distance between years: from home to work to the
same restaurant you and your mother once frequented
a struggle now to stand upright, you fight against
the downward gravitational pull of seventy years;
I do what I can, errands, simple tasks; not enough
the doctor gives you shots; it take away the pain
you go back to who you were
and can never be again
-------------------------------
Linda Lerner
|
