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Saturday, October 4, 2014

David Fewster ---- four poems

A POEM FOR MARION KIMES  by David Fewster

A cause for bitter reflection
(I think it was ’90, ’91)
was the time I went into an antiseptic, nondescript
Belltown deli on a lunch break
To find Marion Kimes behind the counter.
“Well Hello David,” she drawled,
smiling in stained white apron.
Although I had been vaguely aware
Marion had some sort of food service gig,
the unexpected reality of actually seeing
Red Sky Poetry’s gritty Texan queen of truth & beauty,
pushing sixty and slinging hash, gave me pause.
I couldn’t help but feel that
underneath that beatific smile
Marion’s life must often seem
hard and sad.

Nobody today lacks a backup plan, in case
truth & beauty don’t pan out.
They’re all software consultants, systems engineers,
technical writers, public service administrators, web design
specialists,
with benefits and security supplied by Amazon, Microsoft, or the
State.
(The last three entities, by the way,
are one and the same.)
They can go from their jobs to
their featured reader gigs at chic new Greenwood wine bars
without having to change clothes.

But every Sunday night, Marion would put on her outfit
of striped yellow and black,
like a bumblebee in the drizzly Seattle night,
and teach us to fly free,

gathering pollen where we may.



HOW THE HOBOES DINE UNDER MT. TAHOMA

Catch Michael of “Operation Keep ‘Em Warm & Fed” in front of the library

Before seven-thirty for a wake-up coffee and day-old pastry.

Breakfast at 9 at Hospitality Kitchen.

Brunch at Nativity House.

Back up to St. Leo’s for lunch.

They have a big flat screen tv there now.

Last time I was there, I think they were playing “Jarhead”—I don’t know,

There were guys blowing stuff up in the desert,

And afterwards they were in a canteen

Like some scene out of “The Breakfast Club.”

High tea a Nativity House is three-ish.

Hot dinner at the Rescue Mission at 5:30—

Liver, tater tots, beans, macaroni & cheese

Spaghetti and unidentified meat chunks, bleached bread, creamed corn,

Powdered eggs and bacon shards

Oatmeal laced with high-fructose, artificially enhanced, maple-flavored syrup

And thousands of stale but tasty doughnuts.

For a midnight snack, there’s always the lucky hope of

Raisin bagels at the St. Leo’s breadbin.

Institutions know the value of the High Starch Diet.

You can always tell when one of the women has come back to the Ave.

After a stretch in the joint.

They go in junkie-thin & meth-skinny,

Nothing but a bag of abscesses and bones,

And come out ready for the clean-up spot

On the Kiwani’s Women’s Bowling Team.

They call it the Purdy Diet.

Hell, I even gained weight on this stuff

After I got out of St. Joe’s.

So the next time somebody at the bus stop

Hits you up for a couple of bucks

“For Food”—

Keep in mind

The only reason to go hungry in this town

Is because you were so fucked up

On rubbing alcohol and crack that you

FORGOT TO EAT.

And nobody feels sorry for you

Because you got a bad memory.






TOP 10 REASONS FOR PICKING UP CHICKS

AT THE AA MEETING 



TEN

Most of them are single. Or divorced.

For the usual variety of predictable reasons.

NINE

You share previous interests in common.

EIGHT

Chances are they’ve never practiced

Safe sex.

SEVEN

Free coffee.

SIX

Smoker tolerant.

FIVE

Don’t need to be taught rules

Of co-dependency.

FOUR

Mutual 2AM sugar cravings

Only to be satisfied by a pint each

Of Cherry Garcia.

THREE

No family baggage,

Because neither set of relatives

Have spoken to us for years.

TWO

Won’t be so lonely during relapses.

And our top reason for picking up chicks at AA meetings—

ONE

At this point,

They really don’t expect to do

Better than you.




IT’S HARD TO GET A GOOD LUNCH, ANYMORE



In 1953, Morris Graves, the great painter of

Existential Birds in various forms of

Spiritual Crisis, invited an elite group to

Careladen, his home in the forest 30 miles from Seattle

for a special art opening.

The expectant connoisseurs arrived to the sight

of a deserted courtyard whose center piece was

a banquet table covered with the remains of a dinner party—

tarnished silver, withered bouquets, coagulated gravy,

fuzzy green roast beef, decomposed frommage,

while aural ambiance was supplied by classical music

interspersed with a recorded pig fight.

The “exhibition” was a symbol of protest

against the pretentiousness of art openings.

The guests were not amused.

In 2003, Laura Bush wanted to host a symposium

with the crème de la crème of the literati.

Delicious refreshments would no doubt have been provided.

Sam Hamill refused to go,

causing the greatest publicity debacle

involving a poet since Robert Lowell told LBJ

to stick it where the sun don’t shine.

The First Lady was not amused.

Administrators and artists,

Bureaucrats and bohemians,

Sit uneasily together at table,

Unsure of who will be poisoned today,

Caesar or conspirator,

while the caterers of this sad world

weep Evian tears into the foie gras

and wonder where all the love has gone.


                                                                         David Fewster

                                                                         davidfewster@netscape.net

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