Author: Wayne L. Miller

Poem of the Week 03/13/18

She’s Not My Woman, No One Would Possess Her

Bill Moreland

She left a broken home broke,
scavenging around the Big Apple,
squatted in the Chelsea Hotel,
and feasted among the art elite.
She dined with Dali who let her hold his jewel-encrusted cane.
Indeed, he dubbed her the ‘Queen of Rock and Roll.”
Gaia told her Dali never let anyone hold his pikestaff,
that she should feel special.
Special, still she didn’t give a shit.
For they were poseurs slumming,
she was slummed.
They sought in her inspiration for art,
but she was art inspired.

She’s not my woman, no one would possess her.

Pre-punk with the heart of a lion,
crude and rude with a pink streak in her spiked hair,
she had radar for bullshit, and called it out of hiding.
Once, she stood between a gun and its target
until the barrel was lowered, ashamed.
Naked, she climbed a street pole reaching for the some truth in its light,
was saved by a black saint,
and followed the sound of a Gabriel’s horn
bounding and rebounding
in the alleys of Alphabet streets, graced.
She ran door to door barefoot, pounding,
alerting the junkies and the whores in a burnt out building
burning once more.
She felt rewarded, when in its charred remains,
she found a perfect pair
of dancing slippers.
She was fucked up and fucked over,
guided by a steel weathervane still,
pointing her on a righteous path.

She’s not my woman, no one would possess her.

Then we met, and loved, and fought with vigor.
We dared to up it up
a notch.
“If you thought you had courage once,” she said,
“be responsible for three hungry babies.”
The sleepless night will kick the covers off the bed,
in there is a fear not greeted before.
There is no fake in the ache of this woman.
There is no tame in unbridled love.
There are no half measures in the full cup of motherhood.
There is no losing a battle
when winning is the next day.
Going it alone is child’s play.

Children playing children’s games carried its own heavy load
of laundry, and groceries, and ass wipes, and patience,
with dreams supplanted
while they dream,
listening to her read;
“And hand in hand,
On the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon…
They danced by the light of the moon.”

She’s not my woman, no one would possess her.

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Poem of the Week 03/06/18

Relations

Arthur Russell

What it means to join a team who’ll have you
is that, holed up in a city job,
suburban mall, or dried and hollow log,
you’ll find a fellow who can help adjust
your grip or stance or attitude, suggest
a change of method or remind you,
when you’re all used up, that days are only days,
and misses are forgiven on the dugout steps
by rubbing someone’s head.

I have such a team assembled
on my book shelves, all around
the outside of my room, immune to time
and quick to stay asleep until I call them,
and difficult to reckon then because they never
stop believing in themselves
exactly as they made themselves, and each
is only with me for as long as I can give them
what they wanted all along,

and this I only do in shortened stands
by writing in their margins like the 6th grade boy
who wrote I love you with a felt tip pen
on Hollis Seidner’s hand
in the schoolyard near the cyclone fence
around the unused flower garden
just outside the kindergarten.

Some, I never knew except in runes,
some, in offices, on college afternoons,
where thoughts wore fenders to protect
their brittle hulls, but we never did go far enough
because they never loved me well enough.

It always was for love, though unlike life,
where wanting more than people have
to offer is a barrier,
in books, where adamantine
is a virtue, relations take a subtler course,
and patience grows in silence
where the ever-present present lands me side by side
with time’s most prickly souls, where I’m happy,
both myself alone or wearing someone’s jersey.

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Poem of the Week 02/27/18

Union Man

Mark Fogarty

For such a hardassed place,
Hoboken smelled like heaven,
The scent of coffee being roasted
In tubs the size of shipping containers.
No one could ever sleep or be calm
In such a caffeinated spot.

They sent me to cover a strike.
The union base was a storefront.
There were open bottles of whiskey
On the tables at 10 AM.

I was a union man myself,
Local 30 of the Newspaper Guild.
The shop steward was a Reagan conservative
Who said I had to get over
Any “socialist shibboleths” about being in a union.

I wasn’t worried by any socialist shibboleths.
We got paid better than our non-union competitor.

That particular strike got resolved (with no bloodshed I can remember).
Local 30 threatened to strike as well
When management started with this galling thrust:
“We feel the employees of The Jersey Journal
Do not deserve a raise.” We were ready to walk
Until we got a stingy bump of four percent or so.

I kept my union card long after I left Local 30,
Appreciated the coffee and whiskey adrenaline
Ginned up to defend new workers like me.

None of my other employers was a union shop.
But last summer at the journalists’ convention
The union had a table over against the wall.

Times change; they are now The Newsguild
As newspapers fall by the wayside.
They gave me a few old-school reporter’s notebooks.
I told them I loved the union still.
When the bastards offer you $1.50 a week
While keeping the millions for themselves,
The union will put the bottles on the table.

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Poem of the Week 2/13/18

Sometimes At Night

Della Rowland

Sleep is best done on the couch
where I become a baby in the bassinette,
lying on my back, arm thrown up,
a wisp of sleep-wet hair on my forehead,
blissful breath gurgling up little sugar bubbles
at the corners of my mouth.

My mouth is salty now,
the sea rises and falls in my breath.

Sometimes at night I imagine the big rig drivers,
18-wheelers parked on the side of an on-ramp,
curled up in the bunk between the bed and cab,
wearing all their clothes,
sugar bubbles in their coffee breath.

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Poem of the Week 02/06/2018

On The Pascack Valley Line

Bill Moreland

6797

HILLSDALE

This morning
a gazillion bugs awakened
under a canopy of grass blades holding
a gazillion sunrises reflected
which the dew drops refracted,
so,
endless water balloon suns
were collected.
Good Morning. Good Morning.
Good Morning. Good Morning.
It sure is brilliant today.

WESTWOOD

Rubber wires droop home
to the webbed transformer.

EMERSON

A lot of people at this stop.
Does everybody have to look like a cop?
Did the Tactical Narco FBI short bus break down or what!
Oh, I forgot, this stop hosts a Dunkin Donuts.
So criss cross Kinderkamack
and glide.
A cell tower, taller than the trees
tries to mingle somehow in pathetic imitation
by stabbing itself with giant pine green
pipe cleaners.
A brief respite, a caress of less with lush scenery is short lived,
a golf course…of course.

ORADELL

Palm fronds and an oddly shaped hunk of caved in drain
in early utility mundane
stuck in the mud, part of the terrain,
so, we glide.
Again the rubber wires scoop along
on a wobbly parallel track with the track
past PSE&G, and the Transit Bus Garage
into the brush
hushing into

RIVEREDGE

Leaves are full, still green
and still.
A few more clamor aboard.
So, glide.
The deep green vegetation
holds the shadow, hovers over holly bushes
their backs to the sunrise, they
hide the ugly river.
“Tickets!, Hoboken?…”

NORTH HACKENSACK

The curbs are getting higher.
The litter, deeper.
The tracks more brittle,
sharper at the edges.
Short field weeds run amok
along and behind the mile square graveyard.

ANDERSON ST.

My stop.

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Poem of the Week 01/30/2018

The Knollwood Inn

Bobbie O’Connor

Full moon crowd. It’s Friday night time.
Start by the bar clock, not the right time.
Push the pool table against the wall
Before you set up your equipment an’ all.

Mingle with the people at the tables an’ stools.
Get requests, compliments an’ rules.
Don’t play so soft. Don’t play so loud.
Rip it up. Slow it down. Please the crowd.

Read their minds, you’ll have it made.
Wait for the place to close before you get paid.
Pack up everything. Don’t leave it here.
Pay up your tab. Don’t slip on the beer.

Learn their favorite song to get work there again,
But the best boss we ever had was Len.
He’d even leave it up to us what time to begin,
An’ it was fun workin” at The Knollwood Inn.

We left for what we thought was a better gig
But we were sorry afterwards — sorry big!
At every gig, after that, again an’ again,
We knew the best boss we ever had was Len.

He was a former entertainer an’ really knew
what it was like an’ what we went through.
Each night he had our pay all ready, no fuss,
an’ the minute we finished, it was handed to us.

We accumulated fans in dribs an’ drabs.
Don’t forget to sing “I Fall to Pieces” for Babs.
Singin’ everybody’s favorite song—
How nice it would’ve been if we had Lennie all along.

Sing this song for Rudy, do that favorite of Jake’s
Dancin’ to the jukebox during the breaks—
“Good to see you, Mary.” – “Pat, how ya been?”
It was fun workin’ at The Knollwood Inn.

It’s strange. Gigs change, but always much gear to pack
An when workin’ far, the awful long drive back.
When workin’ nearby, we’d head for a diner.
Breakfast at 3 a.m. – nothing finer.

Than chattin’ over coffee til the sun comes up.
Too wound up to sleep yet, so have another cup.
Sometimes we’d spend free nights brainstorming for jobs,
occasionally struggling through crowded mobs.

Workin’ bars wasn’t always like I planned,
With drunks fallin’ into my microphone stand.
I’ve been flashed, an I’ve been shoved,
An I’ve been ripped off, but I’ve been loved.

Hey, let’s hear it for a hard-workin’ band!
Come on, everybody, give the guys a big hand!
We had good times. Sometimes we’d win,
An’ it was fun workin’ at The Knollwood Inn.

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