The Poetry Of.
Steve De France............................................
PERSONALS
I woke to the personals in the LA Free Press:
Kids grown, dog dead, coast is clear!
Minimalist seeks woman!
Theater & fine dining & worshipping me!
Transgender seeking stable couple for fantasies!
Independent, fat & stubborn & deserving the best!
Soulmate sought by spiritual sex vixen!
Theater, travel, fine dining, no anal!
Wealthy one sought! age/gender unimportant!
Sinner seeks Jesus Christ
Buddhist into rubber & water games & pain!
I stare out my kitchen window as
two seagulls hump each other
until the widow next door
turns the garden hose on them.
They shiver & steal away into the bushes
I watch bees assaulting flowers
& hear the heat-cry of the neighbor's cat!
Across every city park--pods are opening
& throughout the county
every garden is dripping with nectar.
Ahh...spring has arrived!
NERVE
Somebody's father, someone's husband
anothers' lover---a person like you & me
dangles his body over the 105 overpass
& wants to splash himself all over the
Harbor Freeway.
Why here?
Why now?
Unpaid bills, unrequited love?
Human withering & dying?
Disease?
Mortality & dust?
Living life on only raw nerves?
Whatever the reason---there he is
Perched on a ledge tilting like
a hawk in wind---uncertain.
Down in the tangle of traffic
We stare up at you
Helicopters churn like flies over garbage
Ambulances shriek and rush forward
Most of us just want to get down the freeway
We don't want to care
Other people are paid to care.
We pay the STATE to care
for sick cases like yours.
We underpay immigrants to care
for the old & the sick & all the mad.
We don't have time to care--we are far too nervous
& just want to get down the LA. Freeway.
Sleepless & sweating---dreaming an L.A. dream
Some of us think of taking the same shortcut
until we confront the jump, the darkness
the pill, the barrel, or cringe at the razor
& find we haven't any real nerve at all.
I squeeze off the freeway
Horns honk below
Men wipe sweat from necks
People turn their eyes
Not toward God
Not toward heaven
But toward a tiny figure
as it hurdles down like a stone thrown.
THE SHORT LIST
He's dying from congestive heart failure,
pulmonary obstruction,
bones so brittle they break with breathing,
kidneys shuttling down.
He can't pee
gurgles like a broken pump,
each breath labors, it rattles through him.
Flat on his back & still he smiles and
thanks me for coming to see him.
I deliberate on the brutality of death,
on what grace is and I wonder at his dignity,
& I hope maybe, if he's lucky,
he will pass in his sleep.
As I open my door, the phone rings.
I answer. It's a poetry friend. "Listen," she says,
"I ran your name by Mr. Poetry
He said, "I don't want him to read
at the forum. He was very negative about you.
Did you know he made the short list
for the Pulitzer?" "No," I said.
"So," my friend says, "I changed the subject.
I hope I didn't say the wrong thing,
"It's all good," I said, "thanks."
I step out into the coldness of night.
Stare toward a distant star.
Chris, my neighbor, cares nothing
For Mr. Poetry or short lists.
He's fighting for his life
How many people will leave our world tonight?
Will we feel them leave?
will we be distracted studying a star,
or answering a phone call,
or lost considering some cold galaxy,
or perhaps listening to Mozart?
or will we simply be at the frigidaire
making a late night sandwich.
Those leaving this world will
slip by us to vanish into the ether
sliding through eternity into other forms,
as easily as we slip between the sheets,
or as absently as we turn on the television.
