—Poetry by Bob Boldt, Jefferson City, MO
—Public Domain Photos
GOOD EVENING! GOOD EVENING!
Imagine dollars in my hand
meaningless as November leaves.
Money, like all the precious, leaves first.
None would prefer freezing
over the warmth of the last flaming Bible.
Rudderless, captainless, shipless, wreck,
Rudderless, captainless, shipless, wreck,
I wander like Tyrannosaurus before me,
watching his fiery, July 4th slow-motion descent.
“Whoa!” they exclaimed in whatever bellow they blew.
Surely the sign of a better tomorrow.
How strange it is to awake laughing,
How strange it is to awake laughing,
hung on the same skeletal rack Socrates abandoned,
body broken and tethered by time and gravity.
Let me see, again that face I kissed so darkly
beneath the streetlamp where scorpions scattered.
Bougainvillea arborea breaths within my nostrils
memorialized the night we lost the last,
precious Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe
rail spike and had to use your stiletto heel
to complete the crucifixion.
THE GREAT JANE MUDD PAINTED MY PORTRAIT
AS IT RAINED OUTSIDE IN COLUMBIA, MISSOURI
Before she turned on the light, the splatter on the studio’s
rain-clattered skylight gave the room the appearance of
an aquarium.
Jane’s quotations from art history were pinned everywhere,
wallpaper clipped from the pages of art magazines and
old postcards from Paris. Vermeer’s maid gazed
on Dora Maar. Picasso ogles a Lautrec dancing
to catch a sidelong glance from Paul Gauguin.
They made the small studio
seem both crowded and vast.
Spanish Guitar music drifted down the courtyard.
Sitting is a lot like meditating. I felt the chair, let my eyes become
a stereo blur, and breathed.
A million images of famous portraits rambled through my head
while sitting there for my portrait.
Two hours later. Like a barber finished with her haircut she called
me to the other side of the easel to inspect her work.
Jane looked at me. I was looking at the portrait.
I was tearing up.
Seeing that likeness in the drying brushstrokes that rainy afternoon
in Columbia was as close as I ever came
to seeing myself through someone else’s eyes.
Sitting is a lot like meditating. I felt the chair, let my eyes become
a stereo blur, and breathed.
A million images of famous portraits rambled through my head
while sitting there for my portrait.
Two hours later. Like a barber finished with her haircut she called
me to the other side of the easel to inspect her work.
Jane looked at me. I was looking at the portrait.
I was tearing up.
Seeing that likeness in the drying brushstrokes that rainy afternoon
in Columbia was as close as I ever came
to seeing myself through someone else’s eyes.
SCREEN SAVIOR
Watching star beams float over and around
mushrooms in a pastel forest of soft, silk soil,
I was, for a second, maybe less, in my parent’s
living room listening to “Captain Midnight”
at the start of the war that could kill me.
The repeating Moorish carpet pattern
was gently punctuated by airy flotsam
shining like star beams in the slanting, August rays.
WAITING FOR THUNDER
Ages, my ages ago, I lay awake,
feeling Mother’s starched sheets
between thumb and forefinger,
my incredibly distant big toe
imagined the monster beneath my five-year-old’s bed.
I understood somewhere between brain and breastbone
the full push of the terrifying, infinite universe.
Later in chaste sheets, I slept tuned to cosmic AM.
Sounds I imagined coming from the hearts of
extinguished radio transmitters, light years away.
Those haunting, static waste-frequencies
I envisioned through the four-inch speaker
on hot Naperville nights
were as vivid to me as galaxies on fire!
Now I drowse four flights up while the Burlington and Northern
rumbles between me and the Missouri River.
Faint perfume of diesel and the scream
of distant wheels on steel break natural as water
beneath the darkening window.
Across the river a lightning flash
signals back from limestone cliffs.
Thousand one.
Thousand two.
Thousand three.
___________________
Thousand one.
Thousand two.
Thousand three.
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.
—Thomas Gray
___________________
Welcome to the Kitchen, Bob Boldt from Jefferson City, MO: Filmmaker, artist, retired commercial film producer with an abiding appreciation of all the wonderful people and occurrences in his life. Bob pursues community organization, still and video production, and various artistic endeavors. Our collection of SnakePals from Jefferson City is growing, all of them fine poets and most congenial, indeed. Welcome again, Bob, and don’t be a stranger!
___________________
—Medusa
Bob Boldt
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world, including
that which was previously-published.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
