....Collected Poems...of Richard Brooks
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_______________________________________________________ The Guy Before Someday I oughta thank the guy for banging her up the way he did, 'cause look see what he left for me was a blueprint to her heart. Every corridor and doorway has a sign says don't come in if you've a previous engagement, simultaneous chairs at the heads of other tables, this is where you'll sleep, and see that door---it only opens out. She'll get no argument from me. I know a home and what it costs and what the loss to ever lose it. I've forgotten there are rooms beyond this room- it wasn't hard; I guess I made my mind up. Pockets full of time, I'll spend on her- she is my only store of calm. I'm not afraid. I bare my wounds and she will spread herself like balm. Mother Slapped Me At eight, I took a dollar from my mother's wallet. Red leatherette with pictures of the dog, my dad, the twins, (both girls), and I was missing. That was the year that I had the scarlatina when the picture man came to school. Never got a snapshot of myself all crooked-toothed in front, the runt of the litter. The day I stole the dollar, I believed I deserved a bit of something sweet- I mean, she could have kept the one from second grade when I was gap-toothed, uglier still, at least included, so I treated myself when the ring of the ice cream truck came rolling up the street, but mother slapped me. Ice cream tastes like broken tooth right to this day and if anyone ever says that scarlatina won't do damage to the heart never saw that cheap old Woolworth wallet when hankering for a thing to replace the thing that should have been but wasn't there. Queer Perceptions Running around the track, I had a feeling I was being watched, and sure enough when I looked left there was a retired marine I'd seen a few times before. How I knew he was a marine--well, I guess it was the graying crewcut and the way his lats were huge from pumping iron. He had an old Ford pickup, primer on the doors, and on his bumper was a faded, peeling sticker that said Semper Fi. Aside from that the guy looked mean. He was pulled off at a picnic table, newspaper spread in front of him, doing pushups off the table edge and watching me. As I passed him, bastard stopped, straightened up and hiked his shorts up as he turned his back, giving me a view of two white cheeks. Made me angry that the jarhead thought I'd be interested, until I got to thinking that I was the one who looked first. You gotta be careful even if they are the picture of hard-assed male, the way you study folks, so now, I'm looking closer in the mirror, and finding that I'm so much more appealing. Middle age and loneliness do strange things to the mind. His/ mine. I may just buy a bulldog. Name him Spike. Unspoken What they don't know is while you're talking to them, looking in their eyes and nodding, smiling- saying, yes dear, that is inter- resting you're off somewhere, taking in the female sights- the breasts that bounce the way they used to back when porno movies were called blue and there were girls who had real jugs before each and every single boob was full of plastic. But the one you're thinkin about now is not a porno star, it's that bimbo in the mailroom you wouldn't be caught dead just talking to: she has no brain at all, but boy does she have rebound chest action. What you don't know is while you're hidden deep inside your head, your thoughts tumescent, she's reading them and wishin you were- naturally, quite dead. They have a way. Awareness Sat in my car in stopped traffic, the world stopped like a fairytale but this was no enchantment, no this was something darker- there was no sound. Felt like two seconds before Enola Gay dropped payload on the twentieth century. Surreal till the images got clearer at the edges. I was in a pan of developing fluid with the moment coming into focus in a way that left only one black, squawking bird pecked by a squadron of the smaller ones forever. Then the radio cut in with the top ten of the week and some guy two lanes over yelled hey buddy you gonna sit there all day or what. Triggers When my wife left the first time I recall the way the screen door spring screamed instead of me. The sky was bluer than on any day I can remember, but ever since that Friday in September 1983, the sight of blue veins on worn women's hands can make me cry just like a baby. Old Scores My father was a snorting bull and all my life, I wished some picador would skewer the sonofabitch till a cancer cough gave doctors the excuse they needed to test their radiactive isotopes they stuck into his brain, up where the carnivorous cells were eating all the anger that made him snort- after eating out his lungs- somehow, it's not the same- I never got a chance to throw his hard ball back at him and when he died I felt his anger jump inside. The Summer Before The year I rode the subways was a Dante journey, sure, I was a running sore among the more nightmarish gars and goyles. That was New York nineteen sixty eight, the year before the media's Summer Of Love. Sitars were tunin up even as assassinations whipped on past the consciousness like billboards out a Chevy Malibu window whips the appetite for more than fucking factories and slums- fuck that. I wanted to see a beach- boy, I was scruffy perfect, hair grown partway down my collar- muttonchops, and only cause I shook too much from booze to use the razor. I remember all the pretty girls were somewhere else. The ones who looked at me were fat old ethnic ladies, sitting with their knees apart in dresses big as drapes. I remember how they always made me feel they saw my two day, piss stained underwear and even worse, I knew those heifers wouldn't care; they watched my crotch- shifted slowly cheek to cheek. That town, it may have toddled for some but it ran my sad and hitchhiked ass right down the summer before the Summer. A Man's View Because you know the way that breath feels on my neck and the gooseflesh ballsac tightens at your name doesn't mean I don't respect you means I want you touching while you talk. Show Me You always turn away as though in apology when slipping off your things but every rolling bump and curve is magic simply magic mi amor, and no victoria's secret is as good as yours- I'm hard to please.  _____________
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