HUNDRED FOOT WELL
Maybe I'm lonely, I dunno.
I spend a lot time by myself--
hey, who doesn't? Think again.
'cept for guys in jail in lockdown,
maybe no one. Well, what about
them monks that don't talk?
I mean who's my peer group?
Jeez, I hate to think it's just me.
Now I know I don't wanna be in the slam.
Maybe I oughta been one of them monks.
They got good food, right? Plenty of wine.
No pussy though. But jeez, to tell the truth,
I ain't gettin' that much, an' if I don't lie,
it's more like none. But still . . . .
Instead, I hear they got this quiet
inside them like a hundred foot well
where if you got a thought it drops like a pebble,
makes one sound, spreads some circles,
then all's still, dark, deep again.
Hmmm.
CLOSE CUT
So I go to the barber, the same one
when I was a kid. Only now
the guy gots the shakes, which ain't
too good for business. No matter,
I go 'cause me an' my ole man usta.
There gotta be some tradition, right?
Still, somethin' gotta change,
I gotta draw a line somewhere.
Like when I come back today
I sees there ain't no hair
on the left side above my ear
an' there's wiry bristles ona right.
In the back I look like Alfalfa,
only the cow lick is limp.
I mean how obligated can a guy feel?
Stashu Kapinski Strikes Out
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Stashu Kapinski, the guy who wrote these poems, is a sometime bum living in my skin. He doesn't get out much, but when you hear (and smell) him, you know he's noone else. He's pissed about a lot of things--being out of work for so long, the steel mills in Pittsburgh closing down, getting old, the price of beer, you name it. But he hasn't given up. There are still moments when he feels like the King of Polish Hill.
From 1986-1996, Joseph Lisowski was Professor of English at The University of the Virgin Islands; he is now teaching at Elizabeth City State University. His detective fiction novel, LOOKING FOR LISA, has just been published by Fiction Works |
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