Kathleen Balma

April 1, 2022

“Salmon Shreds in Gravy” by Kathleen BalmaPosted by

Kathleen Balma

SALMON SHREDS IN GRAVY

Last night I stood in front of the PetSmart cashier an extra five minutes,
both of us stuck, waiting for a madman to move.
Hard to explain what was happening, exactly.
I don’t know what people look like on heroin,
but I know what they look like on almost everything else.
This customer had prison tats on his face and his head hung rigid in front of him,
every muscle in his neck working hard, like the arm of God was pushing his head down
and he was trying to defy that arm.
His eyes lollygagged in his skull. He walked like a newborn fawn.
He kept honing in on people and getting too close.
His vibe was: assault, ask for change, or die.
Nobody could tell which, so we just stood there—
all the animal lovers in our two lines, quiet but ready for action,
all of us with our weather eyes on.
Then he came right over to my lane and blocked my cashier into her little bit of land
behind the register. She and I began a soft conversation, tones we might use
if pythons were gently constricting us.
“Do you think he needs medical attention?”
“The police are on their way.”
She said this without moving her lips. Then,
“Can you carry those cans? I don’t want to reach over and get a bag.”
Eye contact and the slightest nod.
When the pair of officers arrived,
we’d already been heroes several times in our minds.

—from Rattle #75, Spring 2022
Tribute to Librarians

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Kathleen Balma: “The experience of being a librarian is not, for me, particularly relevant to the fact of my being a poet. Librarianship encompasses all disciplines and fields, so, no matter what my interests were, librarianship would be relevant and not relevant. Were I a skydiver, auto mechanic, or quilter in my spare time, librarianship would be equally relevant, and not, to those activities. What librarianship does do for my poetry is this: It allows me to make a modest living without sapping the life out of me or stealing my evenings and weekends, like teaching jobs have done. Thus, I am able to carve out time to be a poet while giving something back to the city I love, which is everything.” (web)

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March 23, 2020

“Punch Line” by Kathleen BalmaPosted by

Kathleen Balma

PUNCH LINE

One night I was the first dancer in the bar.
My shift hadn’t started.
I had time to get ready.
I had the dressing room to myself.
I was in the right frame of mind for work.
The owner was a biker named Van Zandt.
He was a 50-something strawberry blonde, short and beardless with long hair.
The bar was called Changes.
Van owned another bar, a biker bar, called Van Zandt’s.
I had the dressing room to myself.
I had my pick of chairs.
I was getting into my good money head.
Van came downstairs with a green-handled broom.
He was trying to look serious.
He was serious and trying to look dire.
He did not want sex.
He had karate on his mind.
He was drunk.
I was in stilettos.
We stared at each other.
We knew each other’s names—his full name, my stage name.
I don’t remember my stage name then.
Van laid the tip of the broom handle on the counter and held it out like a limbo stick.
I’m really good at limbo.
I made a joke about it.
He stared at the handle and made slow chopping motions.
“Hold the broom,” he said.
I didn’t know this man.
The dressing room was at the ass end of the building.
The building was huge with a maze of halls and empty side rooms.
How fast could I get up the stairs?
I would need to get out of my heels first.
They weren’t the kind you could just kick off.
They had long straps that wrapped around the ankles and tied.
“I don’t want to hold the broom.”
“Hold the broom.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to chop it in half with the power of my hand.”
“You’re too drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.”
“You can barely walk.”
“I’m not drunk! I can do this. Hold the broom.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Hold it!”
“No.”
Van loved on the unbroken broom with his eyes.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I know what I’m doing.”
“I just want to get dressed here, man.”
“I’ve done this before. I’m good at it.”
“Find somebody else.”
“You’re the only one here.”
“Cherry comes early. She’ll help you.”
“I need to do this now!”
“Dude.”
“Just. Just hold it.”
“No sir.”
“I’ll fire you. I can fire you.”
“There are other bars.”
“I’m not going to fire you, okay? This’ll be quick. You won’t even feel it.”
“Hell. No.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Splinters.”
A titty bar is a funny place.
You don’t think it gets funny in there?
You don’t think it’s hysterical fun?
It was a slow night.
I made four hundred dollars.

—from Rattle #66, Winter 2019
Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist

__________

Kathleen Balma: “This is one of those things I had to write. It represents a decade of my life, and it mostly wrote itself. It’s for all the women in my night family—you know who you are, hosebeasts.”

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June 7, 2012

“Road Kill On the Path to Salvation” by Kathleen BalmaPosted by

Kathleen Balma

ROAD KILL ON THE PATH TO SALVATION

I teach Spanish now, and at school that translates:
someone who is good at this one language,
as if I live in a piece of luggage packed
with workaday words and plain phrases;
as if there’s a black cloud of vowels and R trills
buzzing around me like malaria mosquitoes,
and no one can see past the swarm.
Sometimes I talk about a good book
I’m reading. If it’s a novel, my reward
is a smile from the gal with a teaching award
and a look that says, “Good Señora,
keep trying.” If it’s poetry, smiles collapse
like small countries to a coup, new topics
queue up. Sometimes English teachers trade
unknowing looks when I name William
Carlos Williams, then clear off to budget
the annual author visit. When poetry class
comes around (also once a year), our Language Arts team
won’t let me near. They shut classrooms tight,
pull the dusty sheet off that famous Frost piece
as if revealing a prize trophy from glory days,
then beat kids with it so hard, most want to take
any road but the one that guy is on.

—from Rattle #36, Winter 2011

__________

Kathleen Balma: “I was almost a painter instead of a poet, and I guess I still could be, but successful painters have to be willing to part with their finest creations. Poets never have to. We can give our work to the whole world and still keep it. I like that.”

 

Tonight on the Rattlecast: Kathleen Balma! Click here to watch live.

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