Poetry: Selections from Mather Schneider

FUNERAL MUSIC  

 

Jose Jose was a great singer

and now he’s dead.

Mexico is in mourning.

2 weeks of drama on the tv,

his songs nonstop on all radio channels.

The problem is he’s got family in Mexico 

and family in Miami

and they’re fighting over where to bury the body.

They could cremate him and then split the ashes

but they won’t do that because he’s Catholic. 

They’d rather fight about it.

His song “Que Triste” is pretty good,

powerful stuff back when they knew 

how to make music.

“Que Triste” means “How Sad.”

It made me cry the first few times I heard it.

Natalia and I used to watch videos together and drink beer.

Those were good times,

long gone now.

Natalia doesn’t drink anymore

because of the sickness.

I drink enough for both of us and a couple more people too

but I don’t cry no matter how much I drink

or what song I am listening to.

I usually just get angry.

Sometimes I get angry at death

and sometimes I get angry at myself.

and sometimes I get angry at Natalia

and sometimes I get angry and I don’t know why.

Death is the main thing I think,

death and dying.

I probably need therapy. 

I wonder if Jose Jose went to therapy. 

His family needs to go to therapy from the looks of it

as they fight over a corpse.

It’s funny that his name 

is just the same name twice.

When I die bury me wherever you want to.

You can burn me up, that’s fine too.

Hang me in the town square 

for all I care, and play

whatever music pleases you.

MAYBE

 

Trying to sip coffee as quietly as possible

so as not to disturb Natalia.

 

Maybe she’ll wake up better today.

Maybe a dream will tell the truth.

 

Maybe the cats will stop tearing up the flowers 

and pissing on the screen door.

 

Maybe Chucho will grow wings 

and fly fast enough to burn the ticks off his eyes.

 

Maybe a new doctor will come to town

in a long black limousine. 

 

Maybe the Devil will go to therapy.

Maybe the smoke will blow away and the sea will calm down

 

and maybe the fish will come back

and maybe I’ll find a treasure chest 

 

buried in the yard.

Maybe the water will become drinkable.

 

Maybe the mango tree will stop wilting 

and stand up like Rumpelstiltskin. 

 

Maybe she’ll smile again.

THE KITCHEN SINK  

 

Natalia has been curled in bed 

crying for days.

 

No doctors have the answer.

They’ve thrown the kitchen sink at her.

 

I tell her maybe it’s menopause 

but she doesn’t like that.

 

I haven’t said anything right in a year 

or done anything right either.

 

This too shall pass,

I say to myself 

 

at the kitchen sink

with coffee cup rings

 

under my eyes 

watching the children skip to school.

URINE  

 

Up early to take Natalia to the urine lab.

They always want the urine from first thing in the morning.

“Maple syrup urine,” a famous writer said.  

 

Back home we both crawl back into bed.

Soon I am dreaming I am Superman.

I have a job as a waiter 

 

flying over the tables,

filling coffee cups from above,

cleaning 10 tables 

 

in a single bound.

No need for busboys or dishwashers. 

I run the cash register too

 

and I never pilfer. 

I even refuse all tips or if they insist 

I donate the money to the powerless.

 

After my shift I sit at the bar 

and drink 46 bottles of tequila

without catching a buzz.

 

I have to take a piss but can’t find 

the dick-hole in my super shorts.

The light through the curtains is blue as kryptonite 

 

and I walk to the bathroom like any middle-aged man

with a dying wife and a flabby gut,

flat feet on the cold tile floor.

Mather Schneider's poetry and prose have been published in many places. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.