Stubs Poems

Josh Moore Montana

Cheap ale pools in a Styrofoam cup.
She’s barefoot in gravel,
anklet flashing beneath the floodlamps.

Pickup window ajar, radio blaring
“Friends in Low Places.”

Her jeans slung low,
hips marbled violet on the porch-swing,
ash winnowing across her thighs
from last night’s guttering fire.

I watch the buttes flatten at gloaming,
a silo blinking red—
a wound stitched into the earth.

She speaks of leaving at firstlight.
I say nothing,
fingers tracing the stubs of dead cigarettes
between her knuckles.

Coyotes keen beyond the barbed-wire.
The stars loom Pendulous
We do not lift our gaze.

Unrequited

Katie’s ribs pressed against her skin,
the sharp angles of a body once soft.
She lifted her blouse, let me see—
the stubs, the little bumps,
two perfect incisions smooth as marble.
I swallowed.
Physically lubricious—I couldn’t do it.

Her perfume fought the chemo stench.
Coiffed mascara, a careful face,
a practiced smile, teeth too straight.
She asked if I still wrote poetry.
I said nothing.

Once, she stretched across the hood of my car,
blonde roots peeking through red box dye,
sipping melted ice from a gas station cup,
her freckles a map I traced in secret.
She could talk  for hours,
a queen without a kingdom.

She whispered after the hysterectomy,
baby gravy’s got nowhere to go.
No need for rubber—
I trust you.

I left the room, shame humming in my jaw,
the sound of her voice stuck in my teeth.
Later, I cried.

Gladys the Welcome Wizard Lady is Here

Miss Gladys the Welcome Wizard lady is here
She is full of sass, beyond an insane level of cheer
No one wants to let her in, we try to ignore the bell
She climbs in the front window, demolishing the sill.

Hi we say, faking a smile, pretending to be pleased.
She retains weird enthusiasm, her pitch a little wheezed.
We are yawning through her brochure-filled presentation
She feigns happiness, another welcome wizard celebration.

She gets paid for every family whom she annoys
On the way out, she stubs her toe on one of baby’s toys
We did not apologize, maybe this is why she is suing
But judge, we argue candidly, her getting in was not our doing.

Underground Grafitti

Numb…jammed like rows of canned sardines,
bodies  avoiding faces   labeled as print,
ticket stubs, and coats on a 7 pm bullet train
bound for home along dim lights on railways :
shadows gaze blankly from tight decks
cold     frozen  as still life  masking their alienation
through buried heaves under woolen scarves…

And how passengers’ skin  touching 
each other’s loneliness cringe
in the  tram ...their expressions hollering loud
through silent wails ,
words hammered like scribbles
from neon paint on cans,
abstract forms zigzaging
on broken halls...
graffiti  and urban doodles
imitate this isolation more
black than white ... surreal 
imprints speaking 
of holy and irreverent whims..
untold.

All about depression

Depression is a shape poem 
A difficult one in times of contemplation 
A shape that gets you, almost in nothingness 
Whispers darkness in the valley of your chest. 
Where the minaret stood in the bed of the eternity 
Till the very last minute, that along the way, divinity sent 
Modernization knew demolishing much too well 
and much too vivid in the end, to stress what it meant. 
Oozing secretion dampens in cold and clutters on and on... 
And we call it the pseudo-pen 
That mentors to shift the shape 
Straight path should be the straightest one, to be frank, 
My utterance calms me there 
As it does mostly, unconditionally enough 
And I knew along the way, that 
God is enough for any befitting pay stubs 
To carve with a knife on any life, whatsoever. 
Man is mortal.

Honeycomb Hair

her honeycomb hair was dripping with saccharine.
The most liquid hair in all of Ohio, especially Ackron.
I laughed myself sick when it was sliding down her neck
And her back, down her legs onto the outside deck.

Tell me again why she replaced all her hair?
It was a dare, someone said. A silly innocent dare.
But will it grow back? Are there stubs under there?
Don't know, yes, maybe, who cares, said a gossiping bear.

Medicine

When you are five going on six,
you don't need answers to all the great questions,
you want small snacks of info.

Mum clutches a glass in her hand, it's not orange juice,
or any drink I am familiar with,
I ask her what's in it?

"Just my medicine."

Mum drinks a lot of that stuff, every day
when dad is at work.

Later she gets happy, a shadow falls from her face,
she hugs me,
sweeps me off my feet in an awkward dance.

By the time Dad gets home, she is in bed,
taking her 'evening nap'.

Dad says nothing, as he stubs out her still burning
cigarette into an ashtray.

What Can You Save

What can you save when you go the grave?
The answer, my friend’s, not a thing,
Yet the way we behave (and so few of us cave)
Is to add to mementos and cling.

The clothes out of style we’ve not worn in a while,
The souvenirs bought on a trip;
The bills that we’ve paid and the copies we’ve made
Of each document once in our grip…

The books we once read (not much use when we’re dead),
Aging kitchenware, no longer used;
Old cd’s and cassettes – there should be no regrets
If they’re tossed. (Even thrift-stores refused!)

Once-bright towels and sheets, piles of stubs and receipts,
All the playthings of children now grown
Should be given away, so what’s left on display
Are just sparking-joy things that you own.

All this sounds very nice but to heed this advice
You’re much better than I seem to be,
But just take it to heart and at least try to start 
(Or procrastinate – that works for me!)

I Remember

As long as I can remember
came Christmas cards in December -
     my aunts back home to thank.
With glad tidings at yuletide 
      and always tucked away inside
      a cheque from Barclays Bank.

Looking back as I live and muse
on Boxing Day I’d gamble and lose
       on some pony my bet to lay.
In the birdcage or at the tote
   my losing ticket stubs in my coat
        but I’d be back on Cup Day.

Playing poker and alley pool
on our summer break before school
       cos that’s what gamblers do.
And with my stake on my way
     for a brand shiny new LP to play
  off I’d go to Record Rendezvous.

And from the Sweet Briar fairy
came a birthday card in late January
      just a few short weeks hence.
Which was a master stroke
        for by then I was always broke
 as I had more dollars than sense.

As long as this heart of mine
hearkens a carol at Christmas time
         or candles a long age bode…
I’ll remember a season’s joy
    and all the many cards as a boy
       I got from Sweet Briar Road.


        Written: January 2018

At Least I Am Trying

Milk
I try to pour myself a glass of milk
The milk thinks the counter is a glass

Notebook
I try to grab my notebook to write this now
The notebook slips down to the ground

Doorway
I try to walk through a doorway
What could go wrong?
My toe stubs the solid wall

Music!
Music can heal anything! Hey, it’s my favorite song!
I’m dancing and singing at the top of my lungs
The best part is coming up
Then right before the big chorus drop
My ears are magically too small
And to my delight, the earbuds fall

Toast!!
What is easier than toast?! Even I could manage that!
The toaster is opened and lo and behold
The bread is black as black

Nutella!!!
“Nutella can fix anything!” I thought
So I run to fetch my gold
I turn the nob then bam! 
My head meets the corner, the sharpest corner in fact
Now my vision is blurry and a heart beats in my head
A doctor will be seen for that!

The Rudiments of Wings

THE RUDIMENTS OF WINGS

Barely stubs,
these soul nodules, 
not yet protruding the surface,
still part of the wormlike me.
The force of metamorphosis 
thrusts hard against filmy chrysalis;
meconium pulses, dilating miniscule veins.
The terror of change soon will cease,
bring release,
to the rudiments of wings.

February 24, 2022

Trimmings

They've trimmed the tops off trees outside,
Where will the black crows now reside?
Perch upon the remaining stubs up high
To view the cold but clear January sky?

They've trimmed the tops off trees outside,
There's nowhere left for the crows to hide.
Perhaps they'll pepper the park trees left behind
And contemplate why humans are unkind.

Intruders

INTRUDERS



She brought with her a bus queue of troubles,
All waiting for a place in the warm dry seats of my ears:
They trampled my quiet like Mexican spurs,
Insistently prodding me to respond to her fears,
Ringing my stop bell, dropping ticket stubs 
Under the seats where a brush won’t sweep
And a mop never rubs.



9   April  2021

Fever

A man with no fingers
waves his fingers at me.
My third day of amoebic dysentery
and though my yellow eye
can see, they see what they choose to.

The guy is not a feverish delusion,
he comes to my house
every morning to sweep my veranda.
I hear my young wife
scolding our Siamese cat,
its brought another snake home,
Chiang Mai abounds with them,

but today my skin is crawling enough.
The guy with no fingers – just stubs,
goes under the house
to hunt for larger snakes;
the house is on stilts
and I imagine his head
under my cot.
his skull is slowly blooming.
leprosy flowers are sprouting 
from the hole at the top of his head.

The word ‘puce’ will always
make me think of puss from now on.
From now on
I buy only red flowers for my wife.

There is hardly any blood-letting
at the leprosy institute
just a slow wearing a way of dry flesh,
and me with a fever
that will return forty years later.

Tropical Ohio lasts for some days.
I imagine the cot, the mosquito nets,
a slow moving fan too high above
to save me from a febrile drowning;
then the serpent in my brain
passes away from lack of sleep
and an excess of chicken broth.

A Heartfelt Action

A HEARTFELT ACTION 

It was a bitter, gloomy, windy  day,
The sun didn’t show us even a ray
It was raining buckets of torrential rain
A vendor stood shivering and in pain
With only a t-shirt on his back,
We were cozy, we did a backtrack,
My father jumped out of the warm car,
The sorrowful human being wasn’t far
Picking up stubs, smoking, had no packet
Dad ran in the rain taking off his jacket,
Helped the drenched man to put it on,
So he didn't think my father was a con,
Oh what a darling Dad I had, such a kind
Soul, a heart of gold, and a thoughtful mind!
He put a hundred rand in the man’s pocket,
He noticed his eyes were deep in their socket,
The vendor was shocked his silence a thank-you
My father nodded, he was touched, for he knew!

Entering in competition: Kindness
Sponsor: Regina Riddle
05 June 2020

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