Miss Lena Raven and Other Poems

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Miss Lena Raven and Other Poems Page 1

by Thomas M. McDade


Miss Lena Raven

  Title Page & Licensing Notes

  Acknowledgements

  Poems (1-30)

  Poems (31-50)

  Title Page & Licensing Notes

  Miss Lena Raven

  By Thomas M. McDade

  Copyright 2016 Thomas M. McDade

  Acknowledgements

  Special thanks to the following publications that have published many of these poems: 265 Degrees of Grey, Barr’s Postcard News, Bitterzoet, Blind Horse Review, Bluepepper (AU), Catbird Seat, Catalyst, Chance Magazine, Crystal Drum, Dirigible, Experimental Forest, Freefall, Gadfly, Higginsville Reader, Jack Magazine, Mind in Motion, Nerve Cowboy, Our Wounds (Pikestaff Press), Overview, Panhandler, Paper Salad, Pawtucket Times, Poem, Poetry Fly, Potpourri, Quercus Review, Slipstream, Socet Tuum, The Moon, Tight, Unprecedented Review, Unwound, Weyfarers, Window Panes

  Poems (1-30)

  Miss Lena Raven

  Wind Plays

  Bowls

  Ingredients

  Outlaw Toys

  Off Route 34

  Short Poems – 1

  Short Poems – 2

  Black Shoe

  Lunar Feeding

  Valley Forge

  At the Bus Stop

  The Door

  Faulkner & Dickens

  Good Suburban Soil

  Siren

  Charlie Donn

  “In The Year 2525”

  Alive

  Rustic Living

  The Whitest Heat

  Extra, 1976

  Dance Lessons

  Tubes

  Like Magic

  Snow Beat

  What Sets the Sun

  Sabbath Contraption

  Luncheon

  Litter

  Poems (31-50)

  Grandparents

  Doorstop

  Cannoball

  Steel Shot Zone

  Mother Fog

  Wind and Sand

  Mythic Alms

  The Last Episode

  The World

  Arbor Day

  Redemption

  Dylan’s Last Medicine

  Vinnie’s Girls

  Petal Smoke

  Hal Lives

  Corpse Work

  A Student’s Williams, Yeats…

  Sarajevo Smoke Break

  Among Thieves

  Summit View

  Miss Lena Raven

  1009 North Fair Oaks Avenue

  Pasadena, California

  “Hello Lynx,” the 1928 post card starts,

  (It’s the Victoria Bridge in Montreal.)

  I’m here for a while.

  Nice, lovely town.

  Plenty of booze

  and French girls.

  Will answer your

  letter soon.

  Best regards,

  Lenny.

  He’s Drunk.

  His penmanship is worse

  than Dr. Perrini’s

  who pined for Lena

  while abroad in Rome.

  (A vista of the Temple of Neptune.)

  Wait for me,

  will return soon.

  Later from Venice (The Bridge of Sighs):

  Lena, I’m coming home soon.

  Not quite sure of her address,

  he wrote “1009?”

  Lena studied her postcards

  like a Gypsy at Tarot.

  Some she balled up for the cats.

  Some she vowed to clutch in the grave.

  She imagined others

  in the hands of curious strangers

  and she heard her name move their lips.

  Wind Plays

  No graveyard rules stop

  her from giving the kid

  a marker even if it’s just

  for an hour like the plastic

  Frankenstein she lifted

  off a Halloween lawn

  and edited.

  Humming “Surfin’ U.S.A.”

  she’s carrying a skateboard

  and in her other hand

  a shovel soldiers use for foxholes.

  Her red beret blows off and twirls

  about as if it’s alive and beating.

  Wind plays with her streaked hair

  and plaid skirt like men do at bars.

  Boots as high and shiny

  as some of the monuments,

  she squats and finds the ground

  too hard to even dent.

  But the snow is wet enough

  to build a mound to plant

  the skateboard on end.

  She kneels but doesn’t pray

  just spins the little wheels

  and talks to this kid the state

  took from her at birth.

  Promising a marble stone

  with a skateboard carved in it

  she stands and once again

  masters the tricky graveyard ice

  and snow as the wind plays

  with her hair and skirt

  the way she’s seen toddlers do.

  Bowls

  Sitting in a booth at Andy’s Diner

  I can’t help but eye a fellow alone

  so thin he’d fit though most gaps

  between prison bars I speculate.

  At a table set for six he’s staring

  straight ahead as if a defendant

  minutes away from a verdict,

  hands clenched in prayer

  real or disguised maybe hoping

  for extradition to Maine,

  Idaho or Long Island.

  The outcome is a mixing bowl

  of mashed potatoes and a basket

  too small for the bread it holds.

  Attentively dividing the butter

  among thick slices and the spuds,

  he dines robotically, oblivious

  or indifferent to his audience.

  His methods whisk me back years

  to Laura’s Luncheonette

  where a man, much heftier and not

  as assiduous with toast

  and an identical vessel

  containing a wealth

  of thick oatmeal.

  A woman beside him, chin

  on palm, smiles in amazement.

  Had her friend somehow made bail

  and is making up for stingy

  prison portions I wondered.

  Devouring, as if any second

  a judge would renege, send

  him to place where porridge

  is instant, servings small.

  A chunk flies off his spoon,

  lands on his lady’s arm

  and they laughed away

  any early morning counter

  grogginess the caffeine missed.

  I do at Andy’s as at Laura’s, sentence

  the newest member the brotherhood

  of the mixing bowl to an evening

  ice cream helping

  of equal largesse—

  chocolate sprinkles like the filings

  off a thousand jailbreaks.

  Ingredients

  In a sandwich shop,

  the woman in front of me

  is a beauty, blonde and curvy,

  holding a girl, age three

  or four I’d say.

  Jake the clerk is constructing

  her foot-longs.

  Blondie, who might be pushing

  thirty, tells her daughter,

  “Jake’s leaving,

  going off to college.”

  No ESP necessary to know

  she wants or has had him.

  “Have you picked a major?”

  “Nope, play by ear,” he replies.

  Blondie rattles off ingredients
/>   to fill the foot-long subs:

  “lettuce, tomato, olives, peppers, pickles,

  cucumbers,” he smiles.

  I wager myself those words have

  been whispered during sex,

  Blondie capping them in his ear

  with her tongue.

  She tells her kid, “Jake might

  become an astronaut.”

  Licking his lower lip

  as if acknowledging

  she’s rocketed him to a places

  she never took her old man,

  he stuffs the bread with more

  ingredients than I’ll get.

  As she shuffles off the kid

  to the restroom,

  at 12:30 on this sinfully

  sunny Sunday, I figure all

  his thoughts are earthbound –

  what will his strategy be

  when her BMW rolls through

  the campus gates?

  All those juicy coeds stacking

  up against her mattress

  astrophysics mixed

  with a husband and kid

  that can’t be forever skipped

  as if onions and mayonnaise.

  Outlaw Toys

  Among the glut of wanted

  posters in the P.O. Lobby

  case is one with crime

  details half hidden

  by a burglar’s follies.

  What shows beneath

  is the least dangerous,

  most wholesome

  gentle face

  in the collection.

  She’s sought

  for possession

  and detonation

  of destructive devices

  not to mention

  interstate flight.

  Brown hair and eyes,

  three sons share

  the eleven aliases

  serving as wings.

  I’m struck with visions

  of these boys—

  their days

  of hide and seek,

  matches, lighters,

  timers and fuses

  handy outlaw toys plus

  impromptu fireworks,

  movie style chases

  and narrow escapes.

  What a nitwit I must

  seem, face so close

  to glass.

  Back of hand

  wiping my breath

  off as if admissible

  evidence, I turn

  my collar up, slip

  slowly away.

  Off Route 34

  In her poem she’s out to dinner

  with a younger man,

  candlelight and wine.

  Slipping off a high heel, red and spiked,

  she explores his crotch with her toes.

  But reading on the factory loading dock

  she’s wearing sneakers.

  Noise from Route 34 strikes her

  as a protest against her bawdiness

  that her lines shout it down.

  Stage right, a man

  who basks in his junkie days

  unfolds scraps of paper

  as small as fortunes from

  cookies, to find his words.

  He grimaces as a big rig’s roar

  beats his small voice to death.

  Demonstrating his old style,

  he pounds an arm with his fist.

  The next poet recites from memory,

  carries a walking stick.

  Route 34 goes quiet with a shake of it.

  “Tom, Oh Tom,” he calls out the way

  Aunt Polly used to do for the Sawyer boy.

  But no, he’s talking about a body found

  not twenty-feet from the dock

  last month -- Murdered!

  Each listener spots a suspect.

  Was that woman’s young lover named Tom?

  Had her red shoe been at his side?

  Couldn’t the ex-addict’s fist have made

  a stew of Tom’s face, imagining fat veins?

  Suddenly, a Harley gang’s thunder

  drains audience faces, fearing all

  the world’s alibis have been carried away

  in silver, studded, saddle bags.

  Short Poems-1

  AUGUST

  Tempting eyes

  Sucking night

  Lies of fireflies

  NEW YEAR’S

  Dresses dancing

  Clothespin castanets

  Winter snapping still

  RING TIME

  Fallen fir’s dusty

  Mainspring failing

  Early autumn

  DECOYS

  Mosquitoes wooing

  Dandelion chutes

  Curtsy of fog

  FINALLY

  Ashtrays overflow

  Marlboro perfume

  Nipple filter tips

  PAYDAY

  Torn drapes tossing

  Breezy dice

  Snake-eyed sun

  Short Poems-2

  BLOCK DANCE

  Swirling linen

  Wringer of dawn

  Steam iron days

  FREIGHT WALZ

  Train-crushed nails

  Shiny hobo tie tacks

  Boxcar dancing

  PET SHOP

  Flute charmed

  stockings molt

  Fork legged fantasy

  STORM ART

  Candle whipped shadows

  Slaves painting walls

  Heritage of bees

  LIDS

  When you are

  Sleeping

  Do your eyes

  Continue

  Splashing

  Colors

  On their lids

  Like neon

  Signs once

  Performed

  On hotel

  Room shades

  Where you lived

  With electric air

  And radio?

  Black Shoe

  For two years plus it sat,

  toad-like by a strip mall

  entrance as if the grounds

  keeping contract excluded

  footwear removal.

  Then poof, it disappeared.

  It was no Florsheim, not even

  leather I suspect, anyone’s guess

  to right or left.

  A braided band was where

  you’d find the coin slot

  on a Weejun penny loafer.

  The sole never flipped up

  and I never cared enough to check

  for hole or rip.

  I imagined an amputee flinging it

  in a fit of limb loss rage,

  a tot tantrum toss or a bad-step

  slip off a thief's fleeing foot.

  Once I picked up a railroad spike

  not far from it that became

  a paperweight and got me

  thinking murder,

  maiming and sabotage,

  escaping on a westbound freight.

  Mid-January, a snowmelt

  revealed the shoe’s new home,

  on a grass border in a medical

  center parking lot,

  forty or fifty yards away.

  I figured a plow responsible.

  Lately I envision it on a canvas,

  just a splat would do it right

  and a viewer locked

  in a toad stare, puzzled

  what set of toes

  to wiggle.

  Lunar Feeding

  A plastic

  milk jug

  feeder

  hanging off

  an apple tree

  is a moon

  with two

  oval craters

  that trill

  "welcomes"

  in the wind.

  The perch

  is a piece

  of an arrow toy

  Titmice

  as crazy as

  thirsty moths

  visit most.

  Ju
ncos are

  skinny silo

  rodents high

  inhaling seeds

  spilled just

  for them.

  A squirrel

  sailing off

  the feeder

  like a

  moon-tripped

  dairy cow

  scatters them

  momentarily.

  Valley Forge

  Mouth harps, flutes, whistles,

  playing cards from France

  they forgot to put

  undressed women on.

  Pressed paper dice,

  sometimes ivory.

  No matter.

  We owe each other

  our land and savings

  even the grinning teeth

  we are lying through.

  Marbles, pretty fired clay,

  remind no one

  of the colors on mother’s

  calico cat.

  They just click

  like flintlocks that failed.

  None of these is allowed

  after dark but you can hear

  the buzzer work.

  The musket ball pounded flat,

  two holes pricked for a string

  to loop a finger on each hand.

  Twist tightly, pull, release

  spin a whirring calm.

  Dream an empty ammo pouch;

  the ball to save

  your combat life a toy.

  No nightmare.

  No trade for this.

  This lovely sleep.

  At the Bus Stop

  A woman whose

  earrings are globes

  like the ones that sat

  on little pencil

  sharpeners in

  grammar school

  fingers the left one.

  Its diamond equator.

  equator of diamonds.

  If she had smiled

  I would

  have called her

  Earth Mother.

  Beside her an unlucky

  man who supports

  his belly that’s too

  big for his buttons

  with his hands.

  Recall a pregnancy

  or think earth:

  blue rivers, pasty lakes.

  A stumbler who juggled

  who caught his world

  before it hit the ground.

  Give him a break

  call him Atlas

  as she might.

  The Door

  The adult day care

  center used to be

  the Canopy Club

  and some recall

  romances

  launched there.

  Still hearing

  saxophones’

  familiar riffs

  they taste

  the tension

  as a bouncer’s

  flashlight shines

  across an ID

  as fake as

  they all seem now.

  And with no hint

  of the old

  protesting, they

  escort themselves

  to the door

  they’d love

  to exit and slam.

  Oh, for those nights

  they prayed it would

  never shut behind them!

  Faulkner & Dickens

  The professor expert

  in how much

  Dickens

  Bill Faulkner

  read,

  slipped

  an old poet

  with long hair

  like ours

  into the class.

  His Lucky

  Strike fingers

  as yellow

  as attic paperbacks.

  And whatever his high,

  it did right

  by his poetry.

 

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