“A Fading Memory” by Carol A. TaylorPosted by Rattle
Carol A. Taylor
A FADING MEMORY
Two elderly farmers rocked on the front porch,
talking and scratching an old hound dog’s head.
“I swanny, I’m getting so gol-derned forgetful
I can’t remember your dog’s name,” said Red.
Sam pondered a moment, then turned to his friend
and grinned, “What’s the name of that flower that grows
on the fence by the mailbox, with thorns on its stem?”
His visitor answered, “Oh, you mean a rose.”
“That’s it,” Sam exclaimed. “That’s the flower I mean!”
He threw down the Burpee’s spring seed catalog,
reached over his shoulder, and opened the screen.
“Rose!” he yelled in. “What’s the name of our dog?”
“Water-Based Lubricant” by Matthew J. SpirengPosted by Rattle
Matthew J. Spireng
WATER-BASED LUBRICANT
It was only after I’d left the chain pharmacy
and was walking across the parking lot
that I sensed something was wrong. County
highway department workmen in an orange dump truck
looked at me strangely, and I realized, as
a cool wind of an early October day
whipped past me, that it felt airier than usual
where the zipper of my jeans should be closed.
I waited until I sat in the car and checked and,
sure enough, my fly had been open. My fly
had been open the whole time I had wandered
up and down the aisles of the pharmacy
unsuccessfully searching for water-based lubricant
the instructions for use of the rectal thermometer
I’d bought to check my sick dog’s temperature said
I should apply before each use. It had been open
at her eye level when I stopped to ask the young woman
kneeling on the floor stacking shelves where to find
water-based lubricant, and it had been open when,
minutes later, still unsuccessful, I had mumbled
as I passed a woman customer standing waiting
to speak to the pharmacist something about how it seemed
I could spend my life there looking for what I
needed, and it had been open when, finally breaking off
my search, I approached the woman clerk in the pharmacy
to ask where I could find water-based lubricant, and it had been
open when the woman pharmacist came out
from behind the counter to help, wandering with me
from aisle to aisle until finally she decided the only place
water-based lubricant might be is near the condoms, which was
where it was. And it had been open when the woman cashier
checked me out, perhaps in more ways than I realized,
which might be why she stammered when she asked if I’d found
everything I was looking for, a stammer I thought was
a speech impediment, but which might have been my fault,
exposed as I was, buying water-based lubricant for the dog.
Martha Silano: “Since writing this poem, Martha was relocated to Lahore, Pakistan, where she is in the process of conquering her soul’s inner enemies and climbing a ladder toward enlightenment. When she has reached a state of divine consciousness, she will drop you a line.” (web)
A beauty in Prague got a letter
From a grand master, seeking his better;
When she came to play chess,
She slipped out of her dress,
So Czech and Czech mated—he wed her!
____
In Prague a man’s debt was so deep
That he climbed up a high rise to leap.
He took a great dive
But he wound up alive;
The Czech bounced again—read and weep!
____
A victim of witchcraft in Prague
Had been turned from a prince to a frog.
A ravishing miss
Broke the spell with a kiss,
But this changed her (a lass!) to a dog.
“American Election” by David RomtvedtPosted by Rattle
David Romtvedt
AMERICAN ELECTION: 2004
What would be best then, to go or stay,
to cross the border or once again to dawdle and delay?
It’s true there’s a fence, and men with helmets
and guns have little patience with an uncertain stance
or scornful glance. Ah, and yet, and yet,
every four years at this time I wonder and shake my head
and ask how can it be? How can it be?
On the street the taxis idle, waiting for a fare.
It could be me, running my fingers through my hair.
It would be better perhaps
to buy maps of the world, all those pretty countries—
rosy pink and forest green and pale blue—
and lay them out on the floor or tack them to the walls,
a montage of roads that are not mined and skies
out of which no bombs fall, no one sitting sweating
in the waiting room of a clinic, no one uncertain how
to pay the bill. But where would I go? Surely
Bolivia is no better than Buffalo, Wyoming,
nor Ecuador or the Dominican Republic.
Maybe Norway, those healthy and reasonable Norwegians
in hand knit sweaters with a government that guarantees
health insurance and a people that pays taxes for the common good,
and are all Lutheran but don’t much go to church.
I could run up to them on the street and shout,
“Just look at those fjords!” In winter
the smoke curls cheerfully up the chimneys
and in the not quite warm bedrooms beautiful
Norwegian women remove their sweaters
to reveal icy Scandinavian perfection.
Yes, I could live in Norway in the cool bedrooms
burrowing under the covers, my face buried
between Nordic breasts, my body warm.
On the other hand, what if I find no Norwegian woman
who wants me to bury my face between her breasts?
What if my life in Norway is like my life here. Like
in high school when my girlfriend called and said,
“Want to come to my house? There’s no one home.”
And I, salivating, thinking, boy oh boy, do I ever,
hopped in the car and drove to her house, ran up
the steps to the front door, threw it open, and shouted,
“I’m here” while imagining the buttons and zippers
to be undone. “I’m here.” I shouted again, “I’m here.”
But there was no answer, there was, as she’d promised,
no one home. How sad it can be in the far north
as the nights grow long and one is alone. My car
is buried in a snow bank and even if I dig it out
I have no license—it was revoked for drunk driving
and I can’t even walk to the post office and buy a stamp
to write a letter home to my ex-girlfriend and tell her
I don’t mind the joke she pulled on me. I don’t know
the word in Norwegian for stamp. And I don’t know
how to say, “How much?” Or “Do you sell envelopes?”
And where would I buy stationery? And it’s impossible
to use the phone because I can’t speak to the operator
to make the long distance connection. And what if
I’m trapped here forever unable to speak Norwegian?
All I can do is shrug and wag my head back and forth
as if telling a waiter to keep the change. Keep the change.
It’s a beautiful country but one day I’ll run out of money
and then what? Homeless on the streets in a greasy coat,
my hair matted, sleeping over a vent where steam rises
and the Norwegian social service worker will come for me
and put me in a group home where I’ll make ashtrays
from ceramic molds and have to attend group therapy
in a language I can’t understand. Maybe it won’t be
so bad. I’m told most Norwegians speak English
better than I do. Either way, it might have been
better to have never gone to Norway at all.
On the street the taxis idle, waiting for a fare.
It could be me, running my fingers through my hair.
And god forbid I’d end my days in some gigantic
city—Hong Kong, Tokyo, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur—
though I knew a Malaysian poet who loved the American
Beat Generation poets—Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti
and even Jack Kerouac though he was more of a novelist than
a poet and some people didn’t even like his prose. Truman Capote,
for example, when asked what he thought of Kerouac’s writing, said,
“That’s not writing; it’s typing.” The Malaysian, while visiting
the United States, found that he missed his wife. He wrote
a poem about having a six thousand mile long penis
that he would send home to her. But those are Asian cities
I’ve never visited. I loved walking the streets of Kinshasa,
the fires burning in the gutters, the music playing from the bars,
and the venders in the market screaming and smiling and spitting
and waving their arms and when I make my offer twisting
their faces into such contorted masks of pain that I am ashamed.
“Oh, please,” I want to cry, “Please take twice what I offered,
three times what I offered. Take all the money I have and give it
to your children, buy them a chicken or at least a dozen eggs
and not another five kilos of manioc out of which you make
gluey fou-fou that wears out your mouth and fills your belly
while leaving you hungry. Imagine fou-fou for Christmas.
The fires smell of eucalyptus leaves, and plastic bags, and tires.
No, not even Kinshasa, a big city I love, is where I want to go.
On the street the taxis idle, waiting for a fare.
It could be me, running my fingers through my hair.
But I have been happy in cities—in Mexico along the Reforma
where an angel looks down on us all and the US embassy
is gray concrete with a guard booth that has real glass
behind a steel screen. And Paris, who could say no to Paris
where on Independence Day night the sky lights up
with the history of the Republic told in music and fireworks,
explosions that hurt no one, guillotines that melt into dainty clouds.
Yes, Paris, that’s worth the price of the maps.
But the border here is with Canada not France and though
they speak French in Quebec, Vancouver is rainy and cold
and English though I should mention Stanley Park,
the sea wall and, when the sun shines, the people walking
and rollerblading and playing soccer and swimming and eating,
and there are so many of them, thousands, millions, it seems,
so there’s no room to roam. But there is beauty everywhere,
even in those nations we all know must be gotten rid of—
Iran and Iraq and Korea, no wait, only North Korea.
South Korea is good and Godly and I could go there but
those bad nations, those Axes of Evil, those cruel and bloodthirsty
monsters who want to take our Walmarts away and blow up
our fast food restaurants and who hate us because we are free
and hate freedom and want everyone to be in chains
dragging heavy iron balls like prisoners in hell and all
want to strap bombs to their bodies and blow themselves up
right along with us, those Axes of Evil, of course I can’t live there.
On the street the taxis idle, waiting for a fare.
It could be me, running my fingers through my hair.
It’s worth repeating that it rains on the British Columbia coast.
It rains a lot, starts early and ends late and what if I were there
and found myself depressed and far from home and I lost
my job as a teacher of English to Chinese and Thai immigrants,
how would I feel knowing I wasn’t a real Canadian even if
I looked like I could be. Anybody can tell the difference
between an American and a Canadian saying “about.”
In such circumstances, unable to accurately pronounce
the most ordinary of words, would I care who was winning elections
back home? Home, that’s the place. But I romanticize.
And so here I am in a long line at the Peace Arch border crossing
where the flower beds are so carefully laid—the brilliant red, white,
yellow, orange, violet, and blue. I’m surrounded by idling cars.
The drivers have rolled down their windows and the exhaust fumes
pour into the cars as music from a thousand CD players and radios pours out.
Off to my left is the Pacific Ocean. It’s low tide so I can’t see the water,
and under an unseasonably hot sun, the mud begins to stink.
Mathias Nelson: “I write because I’m sensitive, but also because I’ve got balls—three anatomy wise, though one is just a collection of spermatic fluid called a Spermatocele, which is another reason I write, because I’m backed up.” (web)
Sometimes I feel I maybe oughta
Tell of eastern Colorado,
And the little town where I attended school.
That town had one run-down saloon,
One little school (just one square room),
And just one pump that rang a bell when you’d re-fuel.
’Twas just a little prairie town,
And so the kids from all around
Would have to all take school together, I’m afraid.
And since that county’s population
Wasn’t bent on procreation,
We would number just a couple in each grade.
Now we had one great winter storm,
And couples snuggled to stay warm;
It came on New Year’s Day of 1941.
And in nine months (predictably),
Six couples all birthed progeny,
And in that banner litter… turns out I was one.
See, Mrs. Finn gave birth to twins,
The Guenther triplets then checked in,
One other pair, then me, and Blair, and Adeline.
And, as if joined by one long tether,
We all went through school together,
And became the class of 1959.
Our little school, at least back then,
Had never seen a class of ten;
With our enrollment, it was burstin’ at the seams.
And so, with each successive grade,
A few adjustments would be made
To keep us movin’ toward our graduation dreams.
Now it was spring, my senior year,
I maybe first began to fear
That my straight path toward graduation might be bent.
See, in my class, the other nine,
Unlike myself, were doin’ fine,
So I was mired… in the bottom ten percent!
I s’ppose I really didn’t get it,
That I didn’t have the credits
To be graduatin’ with that close-knit pack.
I still recall that teacher’s voice
As she explained she had no choice;
Instead of graduation, I would be held back.
’Twas no big deal (my point of view).
The class of ’60 numbered two,
And now, with me, they’d number three, or so I’d heard.
But, though I hit the books again,
I guess it hurt a little when
I learned that I was ranked… down in the bottom third!
I fell behind, I will admit;
’Twas not “attention deficit,”
In fact, a growing sense of “tension” had begun.
And, in the spring, that old schoolmarm,
She came and led me by the arm,
I’d have to join the class of 1961.
Now in my new class, I should tell ya,
There was just one other fella,
And his study skills would kinda make you laugh.
I figured now I had it made,
Until I fin’lly saw my grades,
And then discovered… I was in the bottom half!
It seemed that I could never win,
And, yes, they held me back again!
I was a pris’ner there inside those iv’ry towers.
I was no longer havin’ fun,
And I was pushin’ twenty-one!
How would I ever earn those last few credit hours?
But then that teacher, I’ll confess,
She fin’lly noticed my distress,
And maybe realized our goals were ’bout the same.
She gave me points for simple rhymes,
And points for showin’ up on time,
And extra credit just for writin’ down my name.
I’d say it felt a little awkward,
Makin’ A’s for washin’ chalkboard,
Takin’ tests with open books in front of me.
That teacher tried to find a way
To keep me focused on that day
Of graduation I was fin’lly gonna see.
Now I was class of ’62!
And I was celebratin’, too;
You see, I’d earned me that diploma, more or less.
And since there were no babies born
Back there in birth year ’44,
’Twas I who gave… the Valedictory Address!
