..................................................................................................................................................
The Poetry Of
Wayne Noone..............................................
Black
My Uncle Joe was black
when Skudgie found him,
lying on the newspapers
they used to spread
over the kitchen floor,
which makes me think
about dead Pope John Paul
who's looking bad,
all puffed up
with gray patches
like his face is
on the verge of caving in,
those little feet sticking out,
which makes me think
about Paul VI, he turned green
after a few days
of hot Roman summer,
but John XXIII,
there was a good one,
when they dug him up
in 2001 so the faithful
throng could more easily
view his tomb
he was as fresh
as when they first
laid him down,
but Mother Theresa, now
she was a tough old bird,
ended up turning black,
like Uncle Joe
on the newspapers
by the kitchen table.
Pat Wallace
Pat Wallace standing at the kitchen sink
washing dishes in a tee shirt
and cut off jeans,
my best friend's mother.
Me, around twelve years old,
sitting on the living room couch
looking out into the kitchen at Pat's legs,
feeling like butter in the sun.
Firm tan meat jutting down from those cut offs
to the pucker back of the knee
then sloping to the tendon
and the pink underbelly of her feet.
Pat was fucking
an enormous whale of a cop named Woody
who was married
but not to her.
Pat loved to drink.
She and Woody had this huge bottle of Seagram's
with a plastic pump on top to pump out their whiskey.
When Woody was with his wife
Pat would cry and drink alone.
I used to think that if Pat would drink enough
one night I would come
looking for my friend
and find her passed out on the couch.
I would roll her onto her belly
and run my hands up those fine legs,
work my hand up the underside of those shorts
and squeeze her ass cheek
then roll her back over.
Her mouth slack and open,
maybe her tongue lolling out.
Pat's in her seventies now
if she's still alive.
I haven't aged a day.
Sick
In bed 15 hours
rendered down
in my own ooze
Went outside and let
the sun crack my head
3 small ants
roaming my bare feet
I killed them all
Not yet I said
