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Edmund Linton Poem
Who
Ever
knew,
according
to Wikipedia’s,
chronological list
of inauguration portraits,
that Richard Milhous Nixon
was the last U. S. president not to
show his teeth. He could have
been a television crime scene detective,
anchorman, or even the famous Cyrano de
Bergerac before Steve Martin in Roxanne. And
think about the high-double-hand-double-V-
salute! President Dwight David
“Ike” Eisenhower may have once offered the
salute. Similarly, half-Vulcan and half-human,
Mr. Spock made a single-hand-double-V-salute,
and Winston Churchill made the single-hand-
single-V-salute. As well as Steve McQueen, a
few protesters and several rock stars. Even
before that, a low relief, discovered by
archeologists in Magnesia ad Meandrum,
Greece dating back almost three-thousand years,
displays a person offering
a single-hand
-single-V-salute.
But never in history has
anyone been more
recorded offering
a high-double-hand-
double-V-salute.
If President Barack
Hussein Obama
gave a high-double
-hand- double-V-salute, we
would call him a dictator. And although Mr.
Obama was the first president to offer a single-
hand-salute with a cup of coffee, all the firsts
and first lasts, lead me to believe that an
extraordinary man became the thirty-seventh
President of the United States of America.
But there’s still something else
about Richard Nixon.
Maybe he just looks too happy.
Copyright © Edmund Linton | Year Posted 2015
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Edmund Linton Poem
We were chasing each other through the woods,
behind the old neighborhood
where your parents still live.
I was heaving with bent-over laughter,
trying to catch up to your looking-back smile,
and then you disappeared into that opening
where the sun used to break through
during our childhood Summers,
shimmering across strained mirrors
and chrome plated bumpers of long forgotten broken down cars.
When I saw you,
leaning against the flaked hood of our old rusty green car,
chin resting in the palm of your hand,
beautiful shine written across your face,
you were reaching through a missing windshield
shaking that bent steering wheel,
reminding me this was the place
where we learned to drive.
A place where the musty smell of rain-soaked vinyl and dried oil,
doors fused shut by seasons of rust and stillness,
and tireless dreams would take us
anywhere we wanted to go.
We drove a thousand miles and back
on one tank of gas,
leaning into curves so tight
that I could smell the soap
your mother used on shirts,
and you would push me away with an elbow,
never even taking your eyes off the road.
I pressed the pedals
and you changed the gears,
because you said you were older,
and I said ladies always go first.
Except when we drove along the beaches,
moving slowly in white, low tide sand,
so you could toss breadcrumbs to the Seagulls,
worrying over whether each one got a meal.
I would say, let’s go see some city lights,
where you could look out the window,
and blow fake kisses to people standing on the sidewalk,
and you would say, one more ride down the boulevard please,
just one more.
Then one day you turned and blew a kiss at me,
knowing that I couldn’t tell if it was fake or real,
so you pressed the palm of your hand to my cheek,
and I felt dizzy because your lotion was so strong.
That was close to the time
we spent an entire afternoon,
cruising the back-roads,
searching for the cat you found
that didn’t come home for three days.
The one you cuddled and kissed,
and wouldn’t let anyone hold.
The one your father chased through
every bedroom of the house,
until its claws got tangled in a bedspread,
and he tossed it right out the back door -
blanket, pillows, and all.
You snatched up the blanket,
eyes puffy and red,
throwing it over a low hanging limb
like you were setting up a new home.
You cried for a solid hour,
until I got quiet,
and you started a pillow fight under that homemade tent,
feathers flying across the yard
like a flock of white moths.
Summers later,
you finally let me drive first,
so you could ride past your friends,
waving with sunglasses,
tossing your head back like a famous movie star.
You always knew that when I changed gears fast,
pressing the pedals hard to the floor,
we were heading to open road,
where you would lean out the window,
turning your arms like airplane wings,
glancing over at me with a playful grin,
hoping that I would notice how beautiful you looked.
And I would turn on the South road,
where we would drive across long bridges,
to islands that were lit by small flames,
holding on to each other’s arm
like we were never coming back.
And when we did
we made a promise,
knowing that some turns in the road
may take us on a different path,
we would never forget the rides we took
in that old green car.
Copyright © Edmund Linton | Year Posted 2015
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Details |
Edmund Linton Poem
Valentine’s Day:
The annual sabbath of pacifists,
exhibitionists, and abiders,
conflated into a single wilting of wills,
destined to the jaws of a shredder,
or landfill,
blocking the visibility and scent
of sustenance for buzzards
and other parasitic organisms,
designed to sustain
the ecological balance of decay,
when if forgotten,
will leave one
in a similar state of graces
with the non-recipient
of manufactured gestures.
So don’t forget the impassioned poetry
stenciled across
a stock photo of strangers,
or the waxy bister
of formed chocolates,
or you might find yourself
listed among the outcasts
who take a break from love
on Valentine’s Day.
Copyright © Edmund Linton | Year Posted 2015
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