OVERPASS

My cruise control is set to 65,
you know how Virginia is, especially
when it’s Fourth of July weekend.
Above Highway 81 North, stands
an old guy in a black leather vest
and a POW-MIA biker bandana.
He jumps up and down, waving the
American flag on a 6 foot long pole.
His red, white, and blue sign says-
Remember, Freedom is Not Free.
He jumps extra high and hollers as
the driver of a Kenilworth hauling
Little Debbie Snack cakes yanks on
the air horn, to second that emotion.

MEET THE POET

~for Martin Espada

In a circle we sit, some star struck
by the man whose written seventeen
books of poetry and still more to come.

When asked about a daily time for writing.
he said, “I don’t do anything every day.”
He speaks of poems being work shopped
to death, occurrences of epiphanies and elegies.

He tells us he’s a poet, but a professor too.
First and foremost though, he is a caregiver to
an 18 year old son, who eats a lot, grows too fast
and a wife, who is permanently disabled.

When I hear his booming voice,
the sincerity and truthfulness of his words,
it is then I see the sadness in his expressive eyes,
and I imagine him a poet, no matter what he’s doing.

I see him in the aisles of the supermarket
selecting tomatoes and artichokes while
reciting the passionate odes of Neruda.
First in English, then in Spanish.

I see him walking his three dogs in the
pristine and proper Town Green of Amherst.
I imagine him stopping for a moment in Spring
to share a stanza of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

And when he is preparing the salad and placing it
on his little round kitchen table for his family,
he smiles and announces to them, “Alabanza”.
Then he sits to eat, with his loved ones, just like us.

ELICITATION

A woman at work’s cell phone
sounds out a familiar ringtone in
the middle of a meeting, fumbling
she flips it open, turns it off,
acts totally embarrassed. Apologizing.

It’s my father’s ring tone and I think
of him and how the phone was always
in his hand, to his ear, on a table by his side.

I want to find out the name of the song,
it’s robotic-electronic music, generic to
most of the people who have cell phones.

I want to hear it ring again and remember
the man who was always so close to me,
but never near enough, most of the time.

WHEN I WATCH WAR MOVIES

I think of the real men who
I knew in my boyhood, old guys
who didn’t say much about war,
but they sang loudly at parades or
band concerts at the Jersey Shore.

Anchors Away, off we go into the
wild blue yonder, from the halls of
Montezuma, those caissons go rolling.

Fighting Sea Bees, survivors of the
Bataan Death March, with Patton
in the tanks at the Battle of the Bulge.

I wish they were here now,
so I could talk to them and
find out more, so I could ask
them all about it, so I could get
more details about what it was like,
so I could truly thank them .

Instead I remember them sharing-
Pretty big rats everywhere.
I was thirsty, never been so thirsty before.
Dear God, it sure was damn cold.

DRIVE THRU NATION

Circle the lot in your Yukons, Escalades, and Armadas.
Cell phones in hand, waiting for the pampered ones
to call and tell you to drive up and get them at the door.

Your children are not made of tough metal or strong fiber.
They’re made of silk, rayon, or that Under Armor material.
Surely they’ll melt like pink and blue circus cotton candy.

Circle the lot in your Caravans, Siennas, and Voyagers.
Dart through the lanes of the congested school parking lot
you’re on a mission to an uninhabited planet, a quest.

The sons are daughters are inside the building, taking exams
to get into the colleges of their dreams, not the in-state
affordable ones that you like, but the fun,out-of-state party schools.

I park my Jeep at the back of the lot; zip up my rain coat,
pull my cap down over my head and go for a stroll in the rain.
Smiling, I wave and yell, “Don’t worry son, after all- it’s only water.”

Image from Google search - http://90ways.com/images/Crit/escalade.jpg

GOING OUT TO EAT WITH HIM

We remember how he’d walk deliberate
and slow scanning the restaurant from
left to right, looking for his spot, usually
a table off to the side, over by the window.
They steal four wheel drives in these parts.

If he heard a squealing baby or cranky child,
he’d tell the lady, best not sit us over there.
And when a boy at the next table spilled his
orange soda and it splashed a bit towards us,
we held our breath waiting for his reaction.

We remember how the waiter apologized
for the meals coming out late and how he
promised they’d be out in five more minutes.
That’s what you said twenty minutes ago
is what he said in his matter of fact way.

But we laugh the hardest when we talk about
how he ordered the chicken and dumplings,
then asked a naive young waitress if she was
the one who choked the chickens in the back

HOW TO WAVE

I wave to my neighbor across the street ,
he’s been there for six or seven years,
but I don’t know his name, his story.
We smile, make small talk about weather
as we shovel out the cars in our driveways
from the latest snowstorm, that’s it though.

I remember back when, everyone made
an effort to know the neighbors, I could drive
down the block today and point at the houses
and tell you the family names that are gone now
from the neighborhood where I come from.

There’s a white stucco half a double, just around
the corner, not far from my grandparent’s house.
People took a liking to the lady who lived there,
looked out for her, made her one of the family.

A widow, no kids, no relation to anyone, but when
mothers walked babies in strollers and carriages
Mrs. Wallace made conversation, admired babies,
spoke about living each day, enjoying the little ones.

Don’t remember who started it, we all called her
Aunt Helen, the lady who taught us how to say hi,
and how to wave. As we grew older she invited us
in to her home with candy dishes on every table.
We’d lift the noisy lids,find York Peppermint Patties,
Canada Mints, jelly fruit slices, Reesey cups, Wilbur Buds.

On a hot day, she poured ice water from old orange juice
bottles, tall, thick with an icy texture and an indented side.
We’d step on the pedal of a shiny chrome trash to open
the lid and throw out our little pastel colored Dixie cups.

On the screen porch, in back, clay pots all shapes and sizes
lined the edges of the room soaking in sunshine. In the
backyard was a closed down pool, with massive cracked
a concrete wall, piles of dirt, leaves floating in a foot of water.
We’d ask now and then, why doesn’t anyone use that pool?

When she passed, they explained to all of us kids,
who ranged from four to twelve, she went to Heaven
back then they simply told kids, “She died of old age”.
At the funeral, our first funeral, we all walked up
for the final viewing of the woman who had taught
us all how to wave hello and how to say good bye.