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Len Solo Poem
It was a sunny day,
mid-July,
the heat seeping
softly down into his bones,
out there in the back yard
where the grass
meets the woods,
just ambling around,
looking at the shrubs and flowers,
when a mosquito
landed silently on his arm.
It was small and black,
and he watched it settle
among the hairs just up from the wrist.
Then, he felt a slight prick
as the proboscis
went into his skin,
and he stared
as the mosquito
began to plump up.
That's when he
smacked it,
flatening the mosquito
in that one bright,
red drop of his blood,
out there in the
early afternoon sun.
Copyright © Len Solo | Year Posted 2005
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Len Solo Poem
It was the
middle of the song
and all the instruments
kicked in,
keyboard, guitar and accordion,
two trumpets blasting,
the drummer pounding out
the one-two, one-two beat
of the Chicago-style polka,
the young couples hopping
and rocking side-to-side,
old couples sliding their feet,
when he began to twirl,
going 'round
and around,
keeping the beat,
from one end
of the crowded dance floor
to the other,
past the bride and groom's table,
past the bar,
everything reeling
in a a whirlwind
of colors and shapes,
smoke and beer and wine,
whoops and shouts
in Polish and Slovak,
"Hej! Hupaj siup!"
his partner laughing,
dancers stomping,
clarinet wailing,
the one-two, one-two
in him now,
pulling him in circles,
a dervish spinning,
right palm raised.
Copyright © Len Solo | Year Posted 2005
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Len Solo Poem
Chugga became our hero in third grade
and he passed into myth in eighth grade.
Chugga wasn't a Catholic, but his parents
sent him to school with us anyway.
In third grade, one early fall afternoon,
Sister Mary Grace was going down the line
hitting each of us on our up-turned palms
with a large wooden ruler.
She swung the ruler at Chugga's hand
when, poof, he pulled it away
and Sister hit herself in the leg.
We all laughed.
Of course, Chugga was marched down the hall
where Sister Mary Bertha made him kneel down,
smacked him across the face with her hand
and then struck both of his hands with the ruler.
I don't remember what he'd done wrong in eighth grade,
but Sister Bertha, all 4' 8" of her,
yanked all 5' 11" of skinny Chugga
out of his desk and dragged him across
the hall into the bathrooms.
He told us after school how she had made him
take down his pants and she
got her rocks off by
beating him on his ass and back
with a piece of oak wood that was
the foot rest from the back of a student's desk.
The board was over a foot long,
four inches wide and over an inch thick.
Chugga told us that Big Bertha had
broken the board while smacking him
across the back.
Copyright © Len Solo | Year Posted 2005
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Len Solo Poem
It was a brisk day
and he was out walking,
going up the road
through a tunnel of trees,
slanting sunlight on his back,
the wind urging him forward,
billowing his pants and coat,
leaves raining down,
skittering and scratching past his feet.
At the top of the hill
the trees ended suddenly
and his vision opened,
the wind driving sunlight
at the lone tree ahead,
green, brown, yellow and red leaves
twirling,
a giant pinwheel of
w
h
i
r
l
i
n
g
sequins,
spangling.
Copyright © Len Solo | Year Posted 2005
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Len Solo Poem
Sister Mary Grace
was my third grade teacher.
Like all of the other nuns in our school,
everything but the front part of her face
was hidden by a starched, white wimple
and a black habit,
layers of robe-like cloth which fell
straight from her shoulders to the floor.
I remember how her face
had a pale, never-in-the-sun look
and how the fingers on her left hand
were stiff, frozen and twisted.
Every Friday afternoon, she made the entire class
stand in a line along the front blackboards
with a hand extended, palm up.
Sister Grace would then go down the line
smacking each child's hand with a ruler,
once for each wrong committed that week.
We all got smacked a number of times because
we all had, of course, sinned that week.
Copyright © Len Solo | Year Posted 2005
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Len Solo Poem
After mother
died,
our grandmother
moved in
to take
care of us.
She'd bake bread
early in the morning
and I'd have it
for breakfast,
still hot,
steaming,
slathered
with butter,
and
I'd
dip
the bread
into my coffee,
hot, too,
with a heaping teaspoon of sugar,
and I'd make it tan
with the sweet,
canned milk.
When she
got cancer,
grandmother
moved
away,
so her daughter
could
care for her,
while
she
died.
Copyright © Len Solo | Year Posted 2005
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Len Solo Poem
He was walking,
as he often did,
out back by the patch of peppermint
he'd planted
at the edge of the grass,
a low hedge against the weeds,
the dark a canopy
over the hill,
one of many,
suddedn and high
like Indian mounds,
there in southwestern Pennsylvania,
no stars in a moonless sky,
no holes to let the light in,
weighted clouds passing low and
moving slowly toward the mountains,
which hung black in the darkness
a few miles to the east,
bulking the landscape,
with the sharp smell of mint
rising all around,
a slow, green mist
spinning there with him
in the night.
Copyright © Len Solo | Year Posted 2005
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Len Solo Poem
We had lined both side of our driveway
with a variety of pine trees,
what we called evergreens,
each a different size,
the tallest by the road.
Before mid-November,
my Dad would take me
to where he had spotted
a good tree, a place
with no houses near,
in his travels to the bars,
the beer gartens,
he frequented around the county
to whet his whistle.
A good tree was about five feet tall,
no wide and not thin.
We'd dig up the tree,
keeping a big root ball,
place it in a metal wash tub,
which was about 2' in diameter
and a foot deep,
carry the tub
back to the car
and set it in the trunk.
We kept the tree outside
until a week before Christmas,
unless it got too cold,
which it did most winters,
and then we'd put it in the celler
by a window.
We'd bring the evergreen up
into the living room,
still in its tub,
center it on one wall,
(the recliner squeezed into a bedroom)
and my sisters would decorate the tree.
After the holidays, we took it
back down to the basement
where I watered it every week
until spring.
Dad and I would lug the tree out,
each with a hand on the tub's handles
and one underneath.
We'd plant it next in line
along the driveway,
moving toward the house,
making our history that way.
Copyright © Len Solo | Year Posted 2005
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Len Solo Poem
I hold her
as she leans back
into me,
standing there
on the gazabo,
among the lilacs,
flowers and willows
by the lake
in the afternoon sun,
as we watch
geese come winging
across the gleaming water,
glide in a line
and swoop to land
in a spray
of silver and gold,
gaggling,
as we gaze,
held there
in the
perfumed light.
Copyright © Len Solo | Year Posted 2005
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Len Solo Poem
In the room
a fist penetrates
the meling air.
A slender
long
line
is moving,
bent backwards,
arched in
still wonder
at its shimmying splendor
in the dark.
What could be as smooth,
as
slimy
smooth,
as
a
snake
wiggling
and
calling
in
the
night?
Copyright © Len Solo | Year Posted 2005
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