Almost Winter

 —Poetry by Richard LeDue,
Norway House, Manitoba, Canada
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy
of Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

 

ALMOST WINTER

Leaves yellow as a hungry lion
we're always so sure will eat someone else
while orange and red leaves
try their damnedest at being
allegorical flames
only for the only choice to be a slow descent
shaped like reluctant acceptance
that all fires eventually go out
leaving us used up like shriveled matchsticks 

 

 

 

 

NECESSITY BLUES

Shopping carts fill like graves,
and the assistant produce manager
is in love with someone he never met,
which is as safe as it gets these days.

Frozen corn begins to thaw
among days-off measured by empty shelves,
while down the toilet paper aisle,
two strangers notice each other
enough to let their silence go limp
as a white flag on a windless day,

just for a two-dollar steak to bleed
from being placed upside down
instead of being
another casualty of Tuesday. 

 

 

 

 

NEW YEAR’S EVE 2003

My case of beer left outside
on the back step because it was colder
than the fridge could ever dream of

Cigars because it was New Year’s Eve
and we were young enough not to care

Each flame from the lighter
seeming more and more like magic
filling us up with every empty bottle
only for midnight to arrive on time
our loud celebrations
swallowed up by blacked-out drunkenness
that years later reminds me
how old I am 

 

 

 

 

AN OLD MUSICIAN’S LAMENT

To write a song about dead friends
no one remembers except me
is a lot like a desert
where mirages quench bloodshot eyes

the oasis not real
the circling vultures not real
but all the skeletons familiar enough
to bring old names back to life
until I disappear
like a drunk god's magic trick

to wake up alone
arthritis silencing my hands
while darkness becomes a rehearsal
for forgetting I ever was
and winter howls hard
against my windows
so sure of its own musical genius 

 

 

 

 

A 43-YEAR-LONG TREK

The fountain of youth was a beer bottle
in my twenties
until high blood pressure drowned the buzzes
the doctor giving a lecture about walking
like someone trying to sell me shoes

Then the wrinkles in my forties
dreamed of being mirages in a famous desert
just to be so uninteresting
that they never got lost
and discovered middle age
tasted like bottled water

Old age a horizon I'm stumbling towards
so certain of the destination
I have no choice
but to stop
find a zoo in the clouds
admire how my hands are shaped
like yesterday and tomorrow
and complain about the weather
desperately hoping someone is listening 

 

 

 

 

Getting old

is a sore back
that isn't from falling down,
but a continuous condition.

is a black-and-white television
given as Christmas present
in 1989 and went all the way
up to channel 13.

is accepting the static
narrating the songs on the radio.

is writing another poem
in a dollar-store notepad
during this digital age,
when those who never learned
cursive reassure themselves
nothing will ever change. 

 

 

 

TREACHEROUS WATERS
(Or a Swimming Lesson From a Widow)

A last kiss is not really a last kiss
unless you're dead
because others will land afterwards
except they'll be disappointed by a flag
someone else they never met
planted on the shoreline in a soul
they were sure was an undiscovered country
waiting for their footprints and names
only for “It's me, not you”
to drown them
their fear of dying alone just
another rising tide

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.

—George Burns

____________________

—Medusa, welcoming Richard LeDue and his fine poetry back to the Kitchen!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that 

El Dorado County Poet Laureate
Stephen Meadows
will be reading today
in Camino, 2pm.
For info about this and other
future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
 during the week.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
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