............
.........The Poetry Of.
................... Wayne Noone
.............
.............
.............
............. Mother Said
.............
............. Well sure it hurts, after
............. all he was banging around in there
............. trying to get that filling out,
............. but its not like you had an
............. abcess or a
............. root canal or
............. anything of that nature.
............. Think of your Uncle Teddy.
............. Remember how he used to sit
............. at the kitchen table with
............. his legs crossed
............. smoking his Kools and
............. drinking Silver Top Beer,
............. think about how long he must
............. have waited with that lump in his jaw
............. fingering it with his tongue
............. and worrying till
............. it got too much
............. and they put him in the VA
............. and took away half his jaw.
............. Your Uncle Ed seen him,
............. said he wasn't worth seeing, didn't
............. know anybody, his face all black.
............. Think of the pain he had then,
............. pain that would go on in waves
............. forever. Yours ain't nothing
............. compared to him.
.............
..............
..............
..............
..............
.............. Upon This Rock
...............
..............
.............. The Pope looks bad.
.............. In Toronto for World Youth Day
.............. in this Year of our Lord 2002
.............. he was all bent over like a
.............. gnarled tree, crooked
.............. and decayed with that
.............. pinched Polish face
.............. collapsed upon itself,
.............. a wrinkled deflated football,
.............. far from his glory days
.............. in the eighties when he struck
.............. deals with Reagan, broke
.............. the backs of the Latin
.............. Liberationists and drove men
.............. of good conscience to the Reds.
.............. Word is that his handlers
.............. maintain in him a semblance
.............. of life and reason
.............. by pumping him up
.............. with a near toxic combination
.............. of pharmaceutical grade speed,
.............. Viagra, and some of that
.............. bull testicle elixir
.............. the Nazis concocted for Hitler,
.............. Curial access to which was gained
.............. courtesy of a deal struck between
.............. George Marshall and Ratzinger,
.............. (who's older than we know)
.............. giving the Vatican dibs on
.............. the choicest cuts
.............. of the Reich's secret stash,
.............. including their strange apothecary
.............. moved by truck caravan
.............. in the night from Berlin and
.............. now kept in a subterranean stronghold
.............. beneath the nave of
.............. Saint John Lateran.
.............. Here's the truth:
.............. Its his lack of cynicism
.............. that terrifies, his absolute
.............. conviction that he speaks
.............. for God.
.............. But I'd like to think that sometimes
.............. ensconced in his bed in the
.............. Castello Gandolfo he dreams
.............. he's hunkering in the bunker with
.............. cyanide and a pearl handled Walther
.............. as the bombs rain down,
.............. or back in Kalwaria hiding
.............. in the straw
.............. as the Kalmucks slam their rifles
.............. 'gainst the door.
..............
..............
..............
..............
..............
.............. At Talotta's Bar
..............
..............
.............. Remember how the bar was a square
.............. In the center of the room how
.............. There was this kind of brown light
.............. Throughout how
.............. You could get those homemade raviolis
.............. That Jimmy's wife made
.............. In the little dining room in back
.............. How the bar felt cool and damp with
.............. Those cardboard Steelers coasters sticking
.............. To its skin and the Iron City and
.............. Rolling Rock on tap, and that time you saw
.............. This guy from 1936, just finished his shift
.............. At Superior Steel, lunchbox on the bar,
.............. Grimy from the bricks in the furnace,
.............. Leaning the bones
.............. Of his body to the bar he
.............. Looked like a ghost looked,
.............. And that old craneman
.............. Named Longo was usually there too
.............. He worked with your dad at Superior,
.............. Always a snappy dresser,
.............. Slacks from Hill's, sports coat from Joseph Horne's,
.............. Sweating all the time, even in winter,
.............. Sweating out the booze dad used to say,
.............. He liked to sing old songs, used to
.............. Sing em to Mark's wife when
.............. She was there, and one time you saw
.............. Those guys in 1943, their gray overcoats
.............. Stained with salt and rain and maybe they
.............. Were ghosts too but you know they weren't
.............. They were staring at you real hard and
.............. It had something to do
.............. With their war and the loneliness
.............. Applicable to us all and
.............. The jukebox had the old songs too
.............. Green Eyes and stuff from the Platters
.............. And the occasional woman left lipstick
.............. Stains on her cigarette, she
.............. Would look up at you
.............. From under her lashes how
.............. Jimmy Talotta played golf with your
.............. Brother-in-law Paul and they were always
.............. Standing by the bar Paul making
.............. Bad jokes and how the whiskey tasted
.............. And felt How they renovated the place in the seventies
.............. Yet that isn't so they never renovated
.............. Same place
.............. It always was
.............. Remember how Mark used to like to smoke
.............. Marsh Wheelings, they always had a box
.............. Behind the bar
.............. Remember how you would keep
.............. A Slim Jim at your elbow so you
.............. Could take a little bite right after a shot
.............. To keep it from shooting back up you
.............. Should have known something was wrong
.............. Even then but even so it's not gone,
.............. I want you to know that.
.............. No such thing as gone.
..............
..............
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