Anthony Watkins's Blog, page 23

Funeral Cousin, Babymoo, and the Fatman

The girl with big hair

and the loud laugh

hugged me and said

it was good to see me again.

I tried to remember,

and I think the last time

was at my aunt’s

forty years ago

I don’t recall her name

or how we are related

I do remember

the red wine to sharp

for my unaccustomed tongue

and now we are sitting on

some dead persons couch

with my eighty pound pit

curled up between us

and the fatman walks in

he’s somebody’s uncle

but not mine

he pops a bull whip

near my dogs head

and she buries into my thigh

he roars in laughter

and I rise and throw a left

like I used to be

 forty years before it went out on me

it hurts like hell but

when I connect with his chin, he crumples.

I take his whip, feel in his pocket

find the tiny revolver,

and look in his sock

for the knife

When he comes around

I show him his stuff

and tell him to leave

and no, he isn’t getting

his stuff back

and next time he

won’t ever get up

he stumbles out

muttering something

about people who

cant take a joke

I resist popping the whip

in the middle of his back,

the funeral cousin finishes

the harsh wine

and leaves me alone

on some dead relative’s sofa.

Man Selling Watermelon

in the park,

slices and whole

in big round metal wash tubs

 filled with melting ice.

The sun is high

the kids are noisy

and a slice is two dollars.

A tenner covers the crew

we retreat to the shade

flies and bugs and all

this is a moment of happiness

In the midst of

a glorious summer day

that does not seem special

until many years gone.

I still hear the sounds,

taste the cold sweet melon

and feel the shade

against the heat.

Somewhere in Chad

is a piece of paper

which describes how

to ride chariots three abreast

upon the walls of Jericho.

Somewhere in the desert

Gideon, later famous

for his hotel Bibles,

hides from the truth,

like most of us do,

at least,

from time to time.

And the dew

is under the cover,

is over the cover,

is wherever he wishes it wasn’t,

and yet, eventually,

he knows, he must act.

Like us, he has to do

what he knows to be right,

no matter how much he is afraid,

no matter if you believe

the story to be true,

or a myth built to make a point.

Someday, you have to

blow your trumpet and march

around the city thirteen times,

without fail, with courage,

for less and the walls

will never come tumbling down.

The Hand Painted Caterpillar

crossed my garden walk

in its elegant way

like a new years’ dragon

with one hundred feet

“How far is it

to Jericho?”

she asked me,

though I did not know.

I answered instead,

“A thousand miles,

when you have

the splendor of wings.”

This seemed to

satisfy us both

and I drank my coffee

while she ate the leaves

of my marigolds.

A Big Sad-Eyed Mustang

rolling up the highway

like it was his

to take home.

Going to the Sunday’s

saloon and he looks

like the last thing he needed

was one more shot.

Me and Jesus

and wildflowers

a couple of shaggy horses

and a field full of cows.

A House Made Out of Chinese Paintings

I’ve been working on my dissertation,

to be clear I’ve never finished

my undergraduate degree

and probably never

will but I don’t let that stop me

the first thing I did

was build a basement

out of blue plastic

55 gallon drums

I planted a tomato plant

In each one and

set up an irrigation system

I know by the end

of the summer

each barrel will be

completely full of roots

that no one will ever see.

You have to ask yourself

what does tomato want?

You have to ask yourself

55 gallon barrels are

made out of blue plastic.

When I was a kid they were

made out of rusty

red and white steel

and we called them drums.

Do they still call them drums?

From this basement

and blue barrels

with a framing of tomato plants

at a thrift store near me

I found a large collection

of Chinese paintings.

I’m not sure how I knew

they were Chinese.

I don’t live in China

I don’t have family

members from China

and yet I knew they

were Chinese paintings.

And there were a lot of them.

either a Chinese restaurant,

a very, very large Chinese

restaurant or a hotel that used

Chinese paintings as part

of their theme seems to have

recently remodeled so there were

dozens of various size Chinese paintings.

When I planted the tomatoes

I used huge tall heavy bamboo poles

because in the summer the tomatoes

get heavy and all the roots in the world

won’t save the tomato

if the vine is broken

I have the superstructure

of tomatoes and heavy bamboo poles

it wasn’t that hard to attach

the Chinese paintings to the polls

and create walls

The difficulty is building a floor

between the blue barrel basement

and the Chinese wall house.

I’m putting a roof on

putting a roof on will be easier

if I have a floor to stand on.

If I Added Sixteen

wheels to my bicycle

would you call it a semi,

for it would surely be

an eighteen-wheeler?

Or would I need a trailer

would the trailer need

to be tall enough

to get stuck

under low bridges?

If I had a bridge

in my mouth

could you cross

the river of my tongue?

and could I

still use a toothpick

And does a dentist

consider it roadwork

when he takes

a tiny pickax

to my tooth?

and if I added

sixteen teeth

to my bicycle

would it be

a bite-cycle?

Just got off the phone

With my elderly father

(of course he is elderly,

I’m sixty-two).

The previous owner

of the place they recently bought

notified him they were

taking the refrigerator.

In the sales agreement,

the fridge went with the seller

but they had left it for months

and now he is worried.

They don’t have money for a new one.

I reminded him of the old black

Whirlpool in the garage

but he says Mom

would never allow that

in her new white kitchen.

When I hung up,

I realized it was

a dream.

They’ve both been dead

since two thousand sixteen.

The Constant Current

does not flicker

yet, so much

of my life

goes in and out

leaving me uncertain

with no reassurances

no money back

guarantee, if not

satisfied, only a promise

that when my light

goes out it

wont matter to me.

The Poet Explains

Of course,

having written the poem

should be enough the poet,

though so many seem to think so,

has no reason, no need,

and no expectation

to have any idea

what the poem might mean.

Though bravely, he goes on

giving it his best shot

struggling over

conjunctions and verbs

focusing on the nouns

while disavowing

the very nouns

he discusses.

I have spent

a lifetime writing

I know not what

yet, you insist

I must surely know

so, of course, I must.

Thus, I say this

and it surely

must mean that.