Four Poems by Timothy Resau

 

                                                 

Bar Scene



Midnight, the bandit, has come again.

I’ve gone through another vision,

facing a dry sundial,

& I thought, as I sat before the party,

who lifted their distorted faces:

— No camels today, only more armies.

Their hands held beer cans,

like priests hold chalices,

& their clay voices, full of pretend,

shattered when they spoke.

My friend, the sun,

passed the bar window unnoticed.

I could have leaned like a beggar

against the door & cried for air—

I could have sat among the plants an atom of soil

& become absorbed by my own leaves.

Instead, I turned up my collar

& walked across the sky, bombing like the night.




Old Poets



Still unpublished—



Shooting beer, coffee, and nicotine

at crazy nerves—

waiting in un-pressed Dickey’s khaki in stashed

Eighth Avenue cafeterias,

caught hiding behind Dick Tracy

with yesterday's news:



Extra ... Extra … Truman Drops Atomic Bomb on Japan!



War Ends!



A mid-town lockout,

spilling his draft beer

across the Saturday Review of Literature,

where Wallace Stevens' s heavily insured eyes

stare back like dead olive pits

from the bottom of a martini—



The nutty poet-uncle as obscure bum,

muttering to Whitman's ghost

with handwritten copies of poems

dating back too far to remember—

To find himself he can now Dial-A-Poem

and discover obscurity sitting there—

just another busy signal to hold onto.



He does a lota eccentric weeping

upon the bumpy lines,

while keeping detailed lists of memories,

written in blunt pencil

on the flip side of our minds.



Published in Down in the Dirt – April 2020




Anna’s Parting, or about Angelo



—Sunday, isn’t it? Sarah’s sister said,

giving discreet glances to her reflection

in the Art Deco wall mirror.

—But it doesn’t matter, she says,

—no matter what they say.



Anna, an old-young lady,

standing among the broken glass,

the forgotten names,

& cat’s eye lashes.



Anna, warm in antique raccoon coat,

smiles & says hello to Angelo,

who sits inside a snowstorm

upon a battered barstool—



They breath loud music & laugh their words

while tears roll down their tongues.



—Forgotten? Who me, baby? Sarah’s sister says,

pulling what’s left of her face together:

—They remember me, honey, they do, I tell you.



Anna shifts her weight, smiles for herself

& hastens for the door.

Angelo, among old friends & other cowards,

inhales deeply Anna’s parting, as if he were in love.




Female Fruit Picker

(a southern scene)



Into the harvest light with dirt-clogged hands,

sweat tearing down dusty cheeks—

Strawberry clouds sweeping past

through a pale blue haze.



A burnt rust goes way down on Donna’s neck,

gold in her vision, gold in her head,

but her eyes

are damp with clay—

but her eyes

are wet with fatigue,

and the future hours will burn way down

tomorrow’s youthful bodies.

Timothy Resau’s writings have appeared in The Poet, The Decadent Review, Green Ink, Red Wolf Editions, e.ratio, Green Ink Poetry, The Sparrow’s Trombone, Better than Starbucks, Fictional Café, BlazeVOX, Ephemeral Elegies, The Metaworker, KGB Bar Literary Journal, and Superpresent among others, and is forthcoming in, Soul-Lit, and Poetica. Find him at www.words-by-tim.com