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The Blog Bog
The Mag Rack
|
Worker's Lament
The very first day
I started cleaning at Virgil's villa,
I was terrified I'd break the crystal,
scratch the fine oak table
with the vacuum,
or damage the machine itself;
but on that same day, after one long look,
I feared most
being stripped by his daughter.
Virgil had a rough beard
and a bald head wrapped in a bandana.
I thought him a pirate
or a professional wrestler.
She looked like a '20s flapper,
a rosy face - natural skin.
She pointed to a room,
the one I shouldn't clean.
She left me that evening with a taste
stranger than my first fear.
Barry Wallenstein__
|
He Talks to Charlie
Enough about me,
now tell me about you.
[tiny pause]
What do you think about me?
[silence]
Listen: the 12 foot schooner out on the lake
is but a twig compared to the ship I sailed
as Captain Kidd,
an alias to hide a connection
with Lord Vicious - never my friend
but always close and a beauty.
Charlie, what's that faraway look as I speak?
Some critique grown in your skull?
My speech is not about me but you and us.
If I tell you what we ate and smoked there
on that blasted, shipwrecked island,
you'd love the story but be too occupied to respond.
But if you go on about your essay on pathos,
and how this high-toned, well-known
and on-time journal is about to publish
and pay well to print your title,
"The Wealth of Feeling,"
I'll surely stop you for the health of my mind.
Tell me more about your son
who fell off a wall protesting something -
your details were lost in the wind;
remember? we were talking in the wind
and soon it was to be my turn.
This much I heard: he's OK, alive and behaving.
The winds have died down, you devil,
and since you haven't answered my question
or given any indication of how I am
in your mind's eye, I'll talk to myself -
as if no one were sitting across from me
here on the patio these last few days.
Barry Wallenstein__
|
Mina's Frown
tells us nothing about her heart;
the way she holds the knife,
knuckles white, lips blue and trembling,
frightens the children
gathered around the table.
Today the table is set badly.
By all appearances, Mina is a marvel -
seeing into the hearts of people,
regulating charts, running the shop,
and when the need arises,
she'll put on gloves to repair a gadget.
But today she seems frozen in her frown;
and the cloudy look on her steady face
seems about to turn stormy.
Could that stranger who spent an hour
a day ago - visiting the shop - have set her off?
We saw him from afar pacing,
stomping down his points.
Someone says he heard something
about debt finance, or finesse the bill,
and then she said, and he's sure he heard right,
"I'm closing," and she frowned,
locked the door, and turned on the radio.
Barry Wallenstein-
|
How Fast
One day in summer
an alien from Mars or somewhere
landed and spoke to me
from his busy mouth:
"Your hours, like rats
will keep coming
and pile high as Everest,
before that long drop down,
too fast for you to frame
or see your minutes,
their delights, as you fall."
Without a second to think,
sweat, or parry, I reposted:
"Remove your clock
and your foul mouth too -
back to Mars;
I've hours enough in this world
but not a minute to spare
for your vision or venom.
Barry Wallenstein__
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