| Michael Schneider USA A Supermarket in Pittsburgh In a Pirates cap and mirror-tinted glasses
I'm hiding behind the cantaloupe
with my dark spirit
the rotten cabbage of my soul
diffusing through the avocados.
I dodge down the numbered aisles
looking for seltzer water
turning from any familiar face --
my neighbor, the racist painter
of houses, my ex-wife's friend
our lady of the benevolent smile
and that grubby poet, him especially
who loiters in supermarkets
composing breathless odes
to the wheat fields and fruit farms
of America, his green fiber
and organic good cheer, tonic
for sulking poets everywhere.
Go away word monger.
Today my life is liverwurst.
I could be a pair of ragged claws
scuttling toward the take-a-number-please
dispenser, to take my stand
end of the line, waiting
for chipped ham. I'm shriveled
ready to chuck it. I am, I am
and my last rites will be
a few of these juicy strawberries
and those tomatoes, vine-ripened
says the sign. They actually
smell like tomatoes, and you know
I'd enjoy a slice of this red beauty
on fresh bread with pepper, black
from a grinder -- ah, the smell of it
and sweet tarragon mustard
a smear of horseradish. Life
you have your moments. I'll give you
that, as I savor this imaginary sandwich.
Just don't make me talk with anyone
until I've swallowed every bite.
for Andrena Zawinski
[earlier version appeared in yawp, v. 1 no. 1 (2000).]
In a Hammock One Night at Bear Run "Go away itch in my crotch" he says, scratching himself contentedly, thinking "I really am too restfully slung between these trees beneath the dark roof of summer, too happy." The dizzy orchestral hum of cicadas and locusts scratching their legs electrically on his ear drums and quivering katy-did -- pure delight comes close enough to pull inward out of the starlessness down through the leaves and branches settling over him. The full moon shimmers out from a smoky curtain of cloud-drift. Snug in his nylon bag, he says "Go away itch in my crotch. I really am too restfully slung between these trees beneath the dark roof of summer, too happy." [earlier version appeared in Loyalhanna Review (1996).] Rainy Season, Dawn From the rain that rained all night
mist still clings to the air in clumps
and patches, heavy and gray
like a frayed moth-eaten blanket.
Even before first light, a cock cries
and one by one each roosting bird
up and down the wide valley rouses
rattles the bones in its throat
like stones or dry beans on a plate
and crows, sound
like claws scraping the air.
Farm dogs join in howling.
Kittens and little pigs
paw at their mama's pink belly.
A campesino rising from slumber
begins as the blaze of day
comes over the mountain
to lift his life. He raises it
into his hands and sees himself
born swinging a worn machete
and to see this is to become
like a blade of steel
persistent as life itself
ringing over the wide valley.
He takes it into his hands
and says for the first time
"Esto es mio." This is my own.
a village outside Managua
September 1984
[earlier version appeared in Pittsburgh Quarterly, Summer 1995]
© All Copyright, Michael Schneider. |