Poetry: Selections from John Yamrus

the name

 

Angel Face

never seemed to fit Angel Face.

 

first,

there was that

scar that ran from under her chin,

 

to just

over her right eye.

 

then

there was that skin

that looked like a pot of boiling soup.

 

Angel

could whistle

by the time she was two

 

and

claimed

to remember the day she was born.

 

she

worked

the counter

late nights at Manny’s,

 

had

a collection of hairs

from a Persian cat that died three years ago

 

and loved

her god-damn little boy

with a force that made all the sense in the world.

the poems

 

that

need to

be written

are the ones that

 

bleed

before they

ever say a word.

Carl

 

had

strange

reading habits.

 

he read

thru the books

on his shelves alphabetically.

 

he

was right now

working on Pound, Proust and Poe.

 

he

loved

Proust, hated Poe

and had no opinion on Pound.

 

Carl

was also

an aspiring writer,

 

but

he knew he

didn’t have what it took.

 

besides,

he also had a cough

that was long and ragged and rough

 

and

could actually taste

the blood back deep in his throat.

the university poet

 

had

a beard

and wore a

tee shirt that read

“going nowhere fast”.

 

he

read

his poems

with intensity

 

and

leaned

against the bookshelf,

 

stroking

his beard and

pausing in all the wrong places.

 

his

students

loved him.

 

the

young girls

thought he was hot

 

and

he had an

apartment down the street

filled with an unfinished novel,

dirty dishes and dreams that would

 

never come true.

Paul

 

wore

shirts the color of

old wedding bouquets.

 

his father

was the school janitor

and he (Paul) would get up

while it was still dark and help his father

wax the lanes at the bowling alley

which was in the first floor

of the school building

that housed grades

1 thru 8.

 

it was

the 1950s and

nobody thought twice

about putting kids to work early

 

and Paul’s father was no exception.

 

in the

summer,

Paul would

go out to the farms

and pick strawberries

for 25 cents an hour and

then he’d come home late in the day

and play baseball with us in

the school parking lot

before the bowlers

came in their cars

and we had to

call it quits

for the

night.

 

Paul wore

steel cleats on

the heels of his shoes

that clicked when he walked.

 

it was the

coolest thing i ever heard.

 

Paul

had blonde hair.

 

his father was a drunk

 

and

his mother

is lost to the memory of time.

you can tell

 

a

lot

about

a person

by looking

at their hands.

 

let

someone

 

look

 

at

yours.

i asked her

 

her name

and she said

it’s Zipper Unrippable –

 

when she

saw me smile

she said: i know,

but baby, it works!

 

it used to be Ondine,

but nobody reads Miller anymore.

 

she said:

how about you?

what’s your name?

 

i told her.

she laughed and

said: that’ll never work.

 

i took a drink

and looked around.

 

she said:

so, what do you do?

 

i said:

i’m a writer.

 

she said:

even worse.

 

then she

paused a bit and said:

 

so,

what are you

doing at this reading?

 

i heard writers

hated things like this...don’t you?

 

i’m here

because i know the guy

 

and he needed a ride.

 

besides,

he said he’s sick.

he’s even wearing adult diapers,

but don’t get too close, it’s not working.

 

he’s a good guy, though, so i put up with it.

 

Ondine, huh?

you really should

go back to it. it fits you better.

 

and,

for the record,

Miller didn’t write it.

 

who did?

 

it

doesn’t matter.

it’s like that Dylan song...

 

the

one that says

the only thing they know

for sure about Henry Porter is

his name really isn’t Henry Porter.

 

and

then i said:

goodbye, Ondine...i gotta go.

gotta get ready for the long ride home.

Don

 

needed

a good woman

to kick his ass now and then.

 

he

said it

kept him in line.

 

being

neither good

nor a woman, but still

the best friend Don ever had,

 

Mike finished his drink,

punched Don in

the face

 

and walked on out the door.

he found her

 

far less

glamorous

 

and

far more extreme

than any woman he’d ever known.

 

he

was

attracted.

 

he

was

repelled.

 

and

he never

could figure out why.

sure,

 

they’d fight

a grizzly bear or

well-arm’d burglar

with their bare hands...

 

but,

there ain’t

one of them that

won’t slink out the door

sooner than face a final good-bye.

 

i don’t get it.

 

every

one of ‘em

is good for shit...

 

same as you...

 

so,

you can take

your doo-wah-diddy

and shove it up your ass.

he was in

a nursing home

memory unit.

the

last time

i was there he was in

wrinkled blue pajamas and a robe.

we sat

in the community room

and

the tv was on

and the place had that

smell of medicine, sweat and old age.

sitting there,

across from him,

trying to cheer him up,

i said:

my father-in-law

always used to say: don’t get old…

i guess

he liked that,

because he smiled,

looked down at the floor

and said (almost to himself):

i’m not old,

i’m just a young guy

something really bad happened to.

i worked

as a

bill collector once…

for 

a week.

that’s

as long

as it lasted.

maybe

not even that long.

maybe

just a couple of days.

I just

couldn’t take

the sad, transparent

excuses made by people

who had even less than me…

and i

had nothing.

I already

knew their excuses 

and

their lies.

I knew

that all they wanted

was for me to turn around

and get

off their porch

and leave them alone.

maybe

that’s why it

hardly even hurt

when i got pushed down a flight of stairs 

by

some guy

in a red shirt

who couldn’t take

getting pushed around anymore

and

finally decided

to

just

push back.

John Yamrus’s career spans more than 50 years as a working writer. He has published 35 books (29 volumes of poetry, 2 novels, 3 volumes of non-fiction and a children’s book). He has also had nearly 3,000 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. A book of his selected poems was just released in Albania, translated into that language by Fadil Bajraj, who is best known for his translations of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Pound and others. A number of Yamrus’s books and poems are taught in college and university courses. His most recent book is Selected Poems: The Directors (Concrete Mist Press)