Lifestyle
They
want only privacy – freedom
from
conscience, taxes, or any
comparisons
but theirs –
but
through the long afternoon
they
have to show me
their
wine- and gun-cellars,
stables,
pool, cars (insisting
they
only ever drive
the
Ford), her designer shmates,
his
pills, embarrassing documents
from
every encrypted or vaulted
depth:
the whole thing
in
fact. And though I ooze
humility
– sipping microns
of
the same two fingers’, grazing
one
congealing canapé, not
knowing
what to do with my hands,
my
brain, the dead – I
still
inspire hostility.
She
asks about “my people,”
yet
however hard we search
we
find not one being
in
common. He, increasingly icily,
talks
sports. Gazing out, I plan
a
park, reclaimed farmland;
they
have too much glass
for
a picturesque ruin. Day wanes,
the
oil flows, security cameras
pan
hopelessly back and forth, and thus
eternity
finds us.
Tuna Melt
He
liked such places more than he could say.
A
mumbling speedfreak busboy cleared away
The
old, slapped down a new soiled fork and plate.
The
wrinkled waitress, focusing her hate,
Mistook
his order, meanwhile loosely pouring
Some
cloudy lukewarm stuff he sat adoring,
Tasting
the walls, the clientele, the grill.
He
peered and ate delightedly until
The
shadow of the offices across
The
street dispersed as if the sun were boss
For
fifteen minutes, looking in. He waited.
The
coming horror could not be overstated.
It
might take place outside, where ambulances,
Tour-buses,
cruisers, cabs were taking chances
Past
lesser vehicles, and passersby
At
great unconscious length prepared to die
While,
armed, an as-yet unembodied grin
Began
to light … It might occur within.
Or
not. That place is safe, if any is,
Whose
sadness welcomes other sadnesses.
That
place is good, is home, which lets one sit,
Will
never close till someone closes it,
And
fills your cup unasked while you think, vaguely:
Evil
is better than being merely ugly.
Frederick Pollack is the author
of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS, both published
by Story Line Press, and a collection of shorter poems, A POVERTY OF WORDS,
forthcoming in 2015 from Prolific Press. His work has appeared in Hudson Review,
Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, Die Gazette (Munich),
The
Fish Anthology (Ireland), Representations, Magma (UK), Iota (UK), Bateau,Fulcrum,
etc. Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Hamilton Stone
Review, Diagram, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire Review, Mudlark, Occupoetry,
Faircloth Review, Triggerfish, etc. Adjunct professor creative writing
George Washington University.