T.R. Poulson

July 30, 2023

“Teamsters in the Flock Beside the Lake” by T.R. PoulsonPosted by

T.R. Poulson

TEAMSTERS IN THE FLOCK BESIDE THE LAKE

And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men
—Mark 6:44

Loaves pile up unleavened before the windburnt throng
as Jesus’ groupies count lake trout, and math seems wrong.
 
Dead fish multiply, and on the shore a multitude surrounds
them. Disciples fistbump pharisees. No sunscreen, wrong
 
sandals untied in dust. I ask a man who looks like Jesus
for another loaf, and butter. Your union team is wrong,
 
he says, to crave one more fillet when some have none.
You don’t need sugar, cherries, cream. It’s wrong
 
to strike a company whose boss eats lobster goldfried
rare. Another Jesus-man pats my hand. You dream wrong
 
dreams. To eat and sleep and work should be enough. I say
I crave more, but I’m not a greedy fucker. Scales gleam wrong
 
in cloudlight. Mahi mahi, broken. Among whitecaps, a ship
bears spice-swirled loaves wrapped in satin. Sails lean wrong
 
in windfall. Jesus says my name wrong. Makes tea instead
of wine. Beyond the water, grass grows greener, but wrong.
 

—from Poets Respond

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T.R. Poulson: “I am a UPS Teamster. This poem is in response to the contract negotiations and tentative agreement. I wrote it while imagining the talks had broken down and led to the largest strike against a single employer in U. S. history.” (web)

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January 8, 2023

“Listen to Your Union Workers” by T.R. PoulsonPosted by

T.R. Poulson

LISTEN TO YOUR UNION WORKERS

tale of a UPS Teamster

I, too, have flown Southwest. Scrambled
for my window seat, bedraggled
by long lines like herds of cattle.
Loved to travel. Loved to travel—
 
to watch storm clouds unwind in blue
beyond the winglet. Never knew
the truth beneath those cow reviews.
But now I do. But now I do
 
the math. I work for stockholders
who’ve never done my job. Bolder
men and women open folders.
Numbers smolder. Numbers smolder
 
facts. And I am one. Storms snarl flights
and labor. I, too, labor. Fight
to tell my story. Overnight
last week, I tried. Last week I tried
 
to make sense of numbers. My truck’s,
573992, gold-stuck
on her fender. Mine, on paychecks.
She, an object. She’s an object
 
I love. The ones who make money
plotted to replace her with one
that’s bigger. Clumsier. Their plan
twisted in lines. Twisted in lines
 
on maps—they’ve never seen my roads
that wind narrow among redwoods
and slopes. Late one night, as fog flowed
in dark, I slowed. In dark, I slowed
 
to let a car pass, its lights soft-
haloed. Blind in beauty, I stopped
close to the edge. The damp-blurred drop
among limbs, lost. Among limbs, lost
 
to lists, my truck held me safe. Sure.
The car slipped by, so close its mirror
whiskered my bumper. Disappeared
in mist. In fear. In mist, I fear
 
what might happen in another
truck, less nimble. Made for other
terrain. My center manager
chose to save her. Chose to save her
 
from the flatbed trailer assigned
to take her. 992 is mine
for now. The last of her design.
 

—from Poets Respond
January 8, 2023

__________

T.R. Poulson: “I am a union member, and I can relate to this article. Behind every business meltdown are workers who have tried to warn their companies what can happen when only short-term profits influence decisions. The form is a monotetra.”

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May 15, 2022

“Long Shot” by T.R. PoulsonPosted by

T.R. Poulson

LONG SHOT

for Rich Strike

I have been the player benched
at tip-off, game by game, watched nets dance
with leather, felt the storm and wrench
of clumsy. I defied it. Made my chance
in cones lined up on pavement. Only
the sun to coach my feet, my hands.
I have been that lonely.
 
I have sought bouquets of crimson roses,
hid beyond the slides and swings at recess,
played in fields, held my princess poses
among the calves. I have worn a dress
and asked a boy to dance, as Sony
speakers belted love. He didn’t say yes.
I have been that lonely.
 
I have drained a three point shot, the one
that glitters memory like waves curl to sand,
felt all of that and more in a man’s hand.
I kicked, slapped, not knowing I had won
everything. When the long shot bites the pony
after he wins the roses, I understand.
I have been that lonely.

—from Poets Respond
May 15, 2022

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T.R. Poulson: “After winning the Kentucky Derby, 80-1 long shot Rich Strike tried to bite the lead pony. This poem is in response to comments by his trainer, Eric Reed, after that bite seen around the internet. The form of the poem is an imitation of one of my all-time favorite poems, ‘Her Kind,’ by Anne Sexton.”

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November 16, 2020

“I Want to Date a Man Who’s Like a Dog” by T.R. PoulsonPosted by

T.R. Poulson

I WANT TO DATE A MAN WHO’S LIKE A DOG

confession of a UPS driver

This didn’t begin with dogs, but with a stack
of boxes and the twisting of my knee
between, beneath them, even as they smacked

the pavement, then the doctor’s quick decree:
A contusion (just a bruise). You’ll be mended
in a week or two. My boss agreed

and left me on my route, where dogs friended
me for treats. At first, my knee would tighten
at night until it could not be extended

in the morning without pain, lightened
by ibuprofen. It loosened with every stride
I took, and every box I touched, but heightened

from one day to the next, with the pull and slide
of a torn MCL (the doc was wrong).
I smiled at humans, smothered truth with pride.

I’ve read that dogs can hear a whistled song
from miles away, can smell agony through layers
of flesh. They nosed my knee and used their tongues

to slurp it all away. Those pink conveyors,
wet and unafraid to find something. To feel. To take.

—from Rattle #69, Fall 2020
Tribute to Service Workers

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T.R. Poulson: “I am a UPS driver, and every day I struggle to find balance between work and writing. But I wouldn’t give it up for anything. My communities of writers provide support for my writing, but it is my blue-collar world that provides inspiration for what to write about. Though I rarely write directly about work, it’s in everything I write: reimagined versions of my customers, my coworkers, the settings I would never discover if I did not do what I do. Covid-19 has changed so many things. I find myself writing about my customers’ dogs—because they are what’s keeping me sane.”

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September 11, 2020

“How I Survive Without a Prime Membership” by T.R. PoulsonPosted by

T.R. Poulson

HOW I SURVIVE WITHOUT A PRIME MEMBERSHIP

Let’s say I need a thingamajig that flips
and slips and grips and nips. A tool,
perhaps, or just a treasure. Those trips

to stores now obsolete, I simply Google
a key phrase of action or appearance
sought. Amazon appears atop the whirlpool

of websites listed (of course), coherence
constant in their quest to draw me, lure
me and my credit card. Perseverance

pays, and I discover that a simple tour
with clicks or swipes pays dividends.
The thingamajig has a name, obscure

perhaps, but now I know it! I look up trends
(using the real name for this thing I covet)
and go to reviews to see who recommends

Brand A over Brand B, and why they love it.
Now, with confidence, I search once more
and (fully done with Amazon, sick of it,

I leave it like last year’s textbook, stored
for future research), a click or two, I find
an exciting new company in which to pour

my hard-earned dollars. I may be resigned
to pay some extra pennies for shipping
or wait a week or two, but I don’t mind,

and I don’t have to be a member, committed
to a CEO who makes more per minute
than I take home all year. Life seems rigged,
but I’m happy. I order my thingamajig.

—from Rattle #68, Summer 2020

__________

T.R. Poulson: “I write poems while on the water. I don’t mean in a Jesus Christ, walking on the water, kind of a way; what I mean is, I often compose poems or stories when I’m far, far away from a computer, device, or even a piece of paper. So many times, the poem disappears before I ever write it down. A mentor once told me that a truly good poem will not go away; it will find a way to be written. As Prime Day loomed, I conceived this poem while windsurfing in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, the San Mateo Bridge in the background, while crashing on shove-it attempts. I kept thinking about how shove-it rhymes with covet.”

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May 26, 2019

“They Say We Make Our Horses Run” by T.R. PoulsonPosted by

T.R. Poulson

THEY SAY WE MAKE OUR HORSES RUN

“It’s breeding, and it’s training, and it’s something unknown.”
—Dan Fogelberg

Well, yes. We do. We do so many things,
like hook men, dead or dying, to machines

programmed to make them breathe. We fight
on streets, in class, about the fates and rights

of human embryos, though only those
in wombs. We breed the best of roses,

cattle, dogs, and horses, all hardwired
to smell good, repel insects, roast on fires,

attack, wag tails, and run. If I could stand
up on a soapbox, I would reprimand

the human race. I would rant and rave
about the bees, that (though they misbehave

sometimes, and sting) make food chains bloom
like black-eyed Susans. I would fume

about the animals, the lasts of kinds, captured,
no mates found. I have read about the rapture,

the horse and rider thrown into the sea, in meekness,
good guys saved. Consider, now, the Preakness.

A horse rears up and throws his jockey at the gate,
and in that moment I forget to speculate

about the good, the bad. No human hands,
no whip, no voice, no heels, no demands

at all, he runs wide, one lap with the rest,
a second lap, alone. I must confess,

I’ve found magic in a flowing mane
and hoofbeats. I stop there again, again,

and I glimpse how Allah might have felt, all sins
aside. The horse, born from condensed wind.

—from Poets Respond
May 26, 2019

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T.R. Poulson: “This poem was inspired by Bodexpress, who ran the entire Preakness Stakes, plus more, without his jockey. ‘The horse and rider thrown into the sea’ is Exodus 15:21.”

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December 18, 2018

“Essays” by T.R. PoulsonPosted by

T.R. Poulson

ESSAYS

for Virginia Partain

She made a list of things that she would save
as a child, before she read of storms, despair,
and essays that told of surviving, being brave.

Back then, it was the things her parents gave
her: cats and toys, a ribbon for her hair.
She made a list of things that she would save,

metaphoric then. The boyfriend she forgave,
a note he sent to her. That lovelorn bear.
The essays told of surviving, being brave,

in classrooms, poems by Plath and Sexton paved
the way to leaving pain, to be prepared.
She made a list of things that she would save,

blurred with time and grief. She grew to crave
success for those entrusted to her care,
whose essays told of surviving, being brave,

not victims. She took her cats away from waves
of fire. No time to stop, to look and stare
at lists she made. The things that she would save:
Essays that told of surviving, being brave.

—from Poets Respond
December 18, 2018

__________

T.R. Poulson: “This is in response to the story of Virginia Partain, a teacher from Paradise, California who saved only her cats and her students’ college application essays from the fire. Stories like this make me feel hope.”

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