Details |
Russ Dupont Poem
WINTER, 1948 [40 Saxton Street]
for W.W
The winter nights that pass now
are so unlike the winter nights
that passed before, that I often
struggle back in those suspended moments
when sleep grapples for a hold,
to once again hear the voices of those nights
and smell the smells that lingered
in those well-worn days,
and see my grandmother
standing over her coal stove
where I huddled on frost-filled nights
watching my mother and father,
aunts and uncles play penny poker
while I broke pieces off an old straw broom,
poked them through the grating
and watched them explode into a kaleidoscope
of orange and blue and then die out,
twisting and snaking, all black and stunted.
When the top of the stove got finger-searing hot,
I'd lean over and let spit drop from my lips,
watch it bubble, scamper and dance across
the hellish top until it disappeared in a hiss, a wisp.
There were laughs and shouts
whenever someone won a hand
and raked the pot across the porcelain table-top,
occasionally dropping a precious penny or two
for me to reclaim from the darkness underneath.
While they played, I sometimes crawled
through my grandmother's bedroom,
past the creaking and groaning bed
where, on another night, they hefted
my grandfather to his feet, to the ambulance
that wailed him off to die;
past the rounded, heavy-handled bureau
where she kept the clutters;
the wrinkled and tattered paper bags
of string and stubs of tooth-marked pencils
wadded, worthless bills of the Confederacy,
stamped with the faces of bearded men in stiff collars --
"Naming your children after Confederate
Generals makes for slow, steady drinkers,"
Atticus said.
and now I think of the uncle named for Lee
and the nights I hoisted him
out of Eddie Connor's Tavern.
There were half pieces of Juicy Fruit gum
in gold cameo boxes stuffed with coins
and uniform buttons.
There were photos, frayed, crumpled-edge,
pale with time, of old women in print dresses
and always, aprons.
Into the parlor as softly as the old black cat
she kept to find some uncle dozing on the couch.
With a screech wild enough for any Indian,
I was on him, arms flailing, legs around his middle
as we rolled to the carpet and fought great battles
over the room and under the teeter-tottering library table.
Once we tipped over the statue of a headless angel
poised on the prow of a half-sunken ship
and a spider plant, its long thin arms
gangling clusters of finger leaves,
and the laughing stopped.
A shout and a scrape of chairs from the kitchen,
and we scrambled to the hall, to the uncle's room
where we crouched in a lightless corner
until there was only the sound of our breathing
and the hot, sweaty, rug-burned sensation
of battle on our faces.
When the laughter began again
and our breathing quieted,
we climbed onto the bed,
slipped out the smooth, metal-cold
Daisy Air Rifle from its nest
between bed and wall,
gently and quietly lifted the complaining window
and rested the oil-rubbed barrel
on the sill, while our hearts
pounded loud enough
for everyone in the kitchen to hear.
But they didn't.
I cocked the rifle
and aimed it across the street
at old lady Cinderella's shade-drawn window,
sucked in the cold night air
and gently, nervously, hesitantly
squeezed the trigger --
"squeeze it, don't jerk it,"
the uncle beside me whispered.
With a click and a whoosh
the barrel jumped ever-s0-slightly
off the sill, and somewhere in the blackness
a ping resonated in the night.
"Nice shot," the uncle breathed,
and a warmth spread over my face.
"My turn," the voice whispered.
After the card game
there'd be cocoa,
dark, creamy coffee and amber tea
in chipped white mugs, occasionally with
broken handles.
Everyone talked, stirred, tousled our hair
and slipped warm coins
into our damp, ready hands.
Heaps of doughnuts, bloody with jelly
pyramided on movie theatre plates
next to wedges of cervelat, sausage
and thick slices of cheese.
Full mouths chortled and garbled about the game
and Uncle Frank, he of the great beak nose
and occasional long, discolored teeth
let out throaty chuckles,
boasting of brilliant bluffs.
We knew that someday we would sit
at that table, snap and slide
the cards across the smooth surface.
Like Uncle Nick, we'd chew a big cigar,
blow rolling clouds of smoke to the ceiling
and watch them drift back around us
like a pale blue scarf.
The night ended all too quickly
when my father stretched and yawned
and unfolded himself from his chair.
I hated to swap the warmth and the light
for the long walk down streets
glazed with frost and people
walking head down and, it seemed, lonely.
We stood in the crisp night air,
stars flaring like kitchen matches,
until the bus ambled up, wheezing and coughing
like an unsteady drunk.
With a hissing of doors
and a jounce that sent us stumbling
first backward, then forward,
the bus plodded on into the night.
I sat on my father's lap,
braced against the brittle cold
of his leather jacket
as the bus gently rocked and swayed
its way up Dorchester Avenue.
I lay my head against his shoulder
and all eerie lights
passed in front of my eyes,
slowly blurring, blending
and fading into darkness.
Copyright © Russ Dupont | Year Posted 2015
|
Details |
Russ Dupont Poem
BREAKFAST AT VAUGHN'S
"...there are none like thee
among the dancers;
none with swift feet." Ezra Pound, "Dance Figure"
One has seen more than she cares
to tell and would cry if she knew how.
Another banters, known, knows the men,
flirts with "Moonlight Mauve" eyes
and lips hued with the insufficiency of love.
But you, sure at sixteen,
jete', plie', glisse' in the air,
heady with the musk of cooking,
coffee and the day's first cigarettes,
endure the rank flatteries
of rude mechanics in greased stripes
hunkered over your counter,
forking food into their mouths
while their knuckle-rubbed eyes
caress your pas-de-seul.
Copyright © Russ Dupont | Year Posted 2015
|