Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Finding Borges

Len Germinara
—Poetry by Len Germinara, Elk Grove, CA
—Anonymous Haircut Visuals



JOE AND MADGE

Drink coffee and a plan for the day
Discussed over scrambled invectives

Much the same as
So many of today’s
Modern cosmopolitan couples

They don’t own firearms
Pragmatists of their ilk
                Shouldn’t

Children—zero

That’s kept them smiling for years

Religion—god no

He’s mentioned ecstatically
Occasionally

Mostly in relation to food

Environment NO
Deity’s redemption
Imminent 
 
The sitting President

Mudflat and sulfur pools
Exposed crab holes
Festering mud
Punctured soles

Muck boots
Muck boots
Muck boots


If only
Fake news could save the world
From

The Cheeto in Charge who
Wants to raw-dog everything
Like a half-fucked Fox
In a forest fire

Everything

Maleficent CNN please
Create a scenario where
              
It gets better
Or it ends
Faster
 





TALK TO ME LIKE I’M 5

It feels like a Mr. Rogers day
So let’s all of us
Put on our speedo and swim cap
Take a bow-legged waddle
Down to our favorite
Watering hole for a moment

Call in, well, hell
Invite whomever
We answer to
Along

We’re all human
Even middle management

Put our collective toes
Mud-deep mired
For as long as we want
In Oceanus

Feel the spin hear the hum
Not move a muscle
Feel the knot of money
For foolishness made of plastic
       Evaporate if only for a moment

Hear Blue say Ahh!
Like a baby’s reaction to its
First fart

Before we decide what comes next

Still (the moments of clarity sunrise brings)
Money made from the harvest
This land our land
Should provide a living wage
Along with social security
For everybody        let’s start there

If we’re to talk at all






INVESTMENT

Saturdays
Were for haircuts

Dad and I always went to
Joe the barber
On Main St

Nice guy
Real pro
Little heavy with the
Talc
In my opinion

His rules

Told you nose to nose
Every time
And you did not interrupt him

Mind your manners
Get a Lolly Pop

Act up
Get a whack to the back of your neck

He was in those moments
God
And
I’ve always been foolish in the face of the delusional

So
Saturdays were
A little nervous

One Saturday I found Borges
In a second-hand store
Right next door

Because Joe opened late

Thankfully Dad knew the guy behind the counter
So we waited there where

They exchanged b.s. the way men will
While I wandered free range
Amongst the cracked bric-a-brac

There sat Jorge in a stack of paperbacks
His labyrinth straddling
Sport Magazine
The one with Red Sox
On the cover

An extravagance I couldn’t afford
Coveted nonetheless

Borges cost a nickel
Indian head on the front
Buffalo on the back

My one and only






SWERVE

Teddy back from the war
In tatters

Who used to be
Just another one of us

So we left him alone
In the hole he dug for himself
Into an
Embankment on the Merrimack

Recently
Saw his face

In a photographer’s retrospective
From the archives of the Haverhill Gazette

An inquisitive face in the crowd

DA
Jeans and Jack Purcell’s
A real time capsule

Watching the firemen at work
Another shoe factory burns

        Let them all burn

Almost ran him over
One Christmas
Buttonwood’s side of the river

Must have been the early eighties

In the gold Ford Maverick
I drove away from my 1st marriage

Following the river’s contours
Like Hannah Duston’s sister
Chasing King Philip’s
                       Brother
When

Teddy came out of nowhere
Wild-eyed and wet

Looked like a suicide rabbit
In the headlights

Watched him shake his fist
In my rearview mirror
As I passed him

Mad
Because I missed

I guess






TRUCE (FOR CANADA)

For the better part of a decade
She’s been little more than shadow

A forgotten book
In a spare bedroom

Paid little attention
Loved nonetheless

My life and pursuits
Hers
       Separate
But overlapping

Ships going somewhere else
Sharing only
A port of call

Just this winter
Things have changed

Imperceptibly at first

Greetings at the door
An occasional Goodnight kiss

Alien but eerily welcome

We are these nights
Wound up in the same bed covers

Vying for the best spot
By the fire

Catching the last light of the day
In its downward slant from the picture window

To where we sit together

Too tired
To get out of
Each other’s way
 





AH, MAN

With the approaching
Thunder and such

Portend the up-turned collar
Dig my hands down pocket

Turn my shoes towards home
Follow the dog he knows

Where to go
Get

To the rise

Shimmer in the treetop
Icicle shiver
Catch my breath
Almost

Wake in Dave’s basement
Partying with the dead boys

Good to be home
Passing the bong of summer

Where the dead boys flew
In full flower gone

Tied off and wrapped up
Remnants scrapbooked
So we’ll remember

Until we forget

That I would think of you now
Sits me down dumbstruck

No door remains locked
Forever I

Wish it wasn’t so

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

—Thomas Gray

___________________

Our thanks and welcome to Len Germinara, a recent California transplant who is author of six collections of poetry, publisher of 18 chapbooks, and 2003 winner of the Cambridge Poetry Award for best narrative poem. Founding member of Spoken Word Nantucket and the Moors Poetry Collective, Len ran a poetry venue on Nantucket for twelve years and one in Southern Massachusetts for four years. In addition, for over fifteen years he has provided literacy workshops on poetry and bookbinding for a host of schools in Massachusetts and Colorado. Len and his wife, Dr. Sarah Oktay, recently moved to Elk Grove, California. Len’s most recent reading was as co-feature with the Sacramento Poetry Slam team at the Sacramento Poetry Center in August. His most recent collection,
Of Course I Could Be Wrong, is available from Amazon Books (www.amazon.com/Course-Could-Be-Wrong/dp/0692231161/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536427869&sr=1-1&keywords=len+germinara).

Welcome to the Kitchen, Len, and don’t be a stranger! For more from Len, go to lengerminaradotcom.wordpress.com/.

Tonight, the Placerville version of Poetry Off-the-Shelves meets at the El Dorado County Library on Fair Lane in Placerville, 5-7pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa



 Len Germinara
Celebrate poetry—and poets!











Photos in this column can be enlarged by clicking on them once,
then click on the X in the top right corner to come back
to Medusa.