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Nine Neighborhood Poems: from Donkeyland [Poems out of Minnesota]

I. The Mockers: Winter and Summer

Winter, the gray mocker of death;
Summer, the rose that never wept,
Come both with me, whisper—

The soft silver harvest
Of your seasons; come touch
My face with snow and sun
For you are the unanswerable ones.

#1512 10/17/2006

II. Between two Houses

Between two houses
The wired fence stood
And the trees and chimneys
And the heat and the light
And the hot, hot summer

Was there.

My prayers were said
And the neighbors were at rest
And the night allowed us to sleep
And the presence of mother’s voice

Was overall….

Note: When I was growing up, wherever one is, simple tings are remembered, when they get older, so it has been with me, and the voice of another, a neighbors house, sounds and images, one never things will arise, do. #1513

III. Across the Street

Night, from an attic bedroom window
Is a gray, dark thing?
Street lamps reflecting railroad cars
Broken across the street;
My brother’s quivering under his covers, Says: “Go back to sleep!”

#1514

IV. Empty Lot

In the middle of summer
In the empty lot
Next to grandpa’s house
(where I lived with my brother and mom)
We’d play softball (reckless days of my youth);
Eager was everyone thereafter
With their wilds wishes and all.

#1515

V. Cemetery Whispers

(Oakland Cemetery, St. Paul, Minnesota)

Over the cemetery fence we went

As if the dead were calling us;
The graves whispered—yet, voiceless
(perhaps just in my mind)) but—deaf I wasn’t):
As a result, the shadows flickered
In the light of the moon, made the earth groan
Under my wobbly feet…
As I put my lips to the bottles of brew,
Splattering it here and there,
As the sea of dead continued to whisper.

Note: we really were not bad kids back then, not compared to what kids do nowadays; we were bored out of our minds, needed a placed to get drunk, and the cemetery for a few years looked the place to do it (especially when you are 15, 16 and 17-years old). #1516

VI. Left (1968)

Most everyone loved Chick on our city block (neighborhood)
So we all loved a wild, infatuated boy,
Who played a guitar and wrote poetry:
Nobody is sure where he went, and why…
A few folks perhaps, but no one is saying.
A singer, dancer, karate man, soldier, poet, lover.
He broke a lot of hearts, and he felt the pain likewise!
I wonder if anyone remembers him at the bar?

Or knows where he’s gone to—I doubt it.

#1516

VII. Donkeyland—Sunset

I remember the last day in the neighborhood; it was in the year 1968. After that day, I’d never return to stay—(I’d follow the sunset; travel

we world).

The day had a gleam of light to it, and in my body a hesitation, the air

was cool, it was April.

I didn’t realize then, I’d remember so well, and keep so many photos in

my mind (I suppose I was getting ready for San Francisco, leaving

the Midwest behind).

I remember her long (my neighborhood): hearts that escape you, corners that hate you; life there for many, have gone from roses to

ashes; harsh and trampled are her streets: “Donkeyland,’ they call

her, who never weeps.

Note: Our neighborhood was called Donkeyland by the St. Paul Police; nicknamed by a police officer called Howey (or Howe; not sure of the correct spelling) who used to comb Cayuga Street, and the rest of the neighborhood back in the late 50s and 60s. #1517

VIII. Mrs. Stanley

She sits on her porch and knits
Bending at the window-sill
With old, old waxed fingers
Smiling away
(my old neighbor)Mrs. Stanley)

Now forenoon has come
She switches to another window
(still on that little porch)
Looking down now, to the street
(I’m but fifteen)
“Doesn’t she have anything else to do?’
I say…
I look at her again, her face
Through the drapes
She seems homeless
In that big house (I think).

#1518

IX. God Saw Death (7/1/2003)) 10:55 PM))

Perhaps death is gift from God, my mother wished it, when I came to the hospital to visit that is; she was tired of living she said, knowing after her last operation life would not be the same.

I remember quite well, she was afraid to turn on the stove, lest she forget to turn it off I suppose, especially if I was gone (not sue what happened, or went wrong, but perhaps something, I’ll never know).

She even dreamt of going back home, we lived together, her downstairs, me, upstairs, and when she learned she never would, she didn’t feel any loner she belonged here on earth, she had to go she knew, and she left.

#1520