Five Poems by Chuck Kramer

 

Seasonal Transformations

 

As fall folds summer into the bottom drawer

and pulls the winter sweater from the back closet,

I gaze once again at the wonder of Chicago

draping the colours of autumn across her brawny shoulders

before turning her back to shelter from winter’s icy breath,

sharp and cruel with the arctic cold of the Canadian tundra.

 

Bare branches will scratch the sky

till the winds shift and spring dresses the elms

with lush, green jackets and the city

slides into sandals and shorts to wade

in the blue lake water which will bathe the sands

and kiss the feet of the skyscraper skyline

 

to remind us that before the brick and steel city,

there was water and earth,

sun and moon, life and death,

and the eternal mystery

of the changing seasons.

 

Poetry Today

 

In this dark American night,

there are too many poets

who are blind and unaware

they stand at the altar of truth,

dressed in the vestments of art.

 

Lost in the tangled swamp of narcissism, 

they settle for the simple, easy comfort

of worn clichés and infantile emotion.

 

But a great poem goes beyond

the sloppy sentimentality

of the human heart

and refuses to wallow in self-pity and tears.

 

Real poems are forged from thought,

powered by intelligence,

and honed on the whetstone of pain.

 

The poet’s tongue must strike the heart

with piercing assaults that stir the blood

and remove the cataracts of conventional thinking

which blind so many to the jaundiced world

that festers beyond the door.

 

Writing poems is a sacred mission

and the poet needs to say that the days of

turn on, tune in and drop out are over,

that using religious freedom as an excuse

to commit wrongs in the name of Jesus

is fear dressed in the cloak of faith,

and that barbarians with hard, hungry

eyes are coming to take away our

Facebook, our smart phones and our

smug, puerile sense of entitlement.

 

Yes, the gravy days are over,

the high life is a punctured balloon

and our children are in trouble.

 

That’s the truth.

 

That’s the face of the future

and it’s time for poets to deliver

the sermon no one wants to hear.

 

 

St. Francis and the Animals

 

St. Francis suffered a six pack of

symptoms—

 

depression, malnutrition, constipation,

megalomania, hallucinations, and despair—

 

and the animals were merely a

            soft distraction and a moment

            of tactile connection

 

until he returned to the dark

isolation of his cave

 

where his sins swirled in the

dark, luminous ghosts,

singing the songs of his failures

 

and he ground his teeth to

stop their shivering chatter

in the chill dampness of his remorse

 

which whipped his back till dawn

and left him feeling sanctified

 

Weatherman

 

Jim was a Weatherman, an underground radical

shot in the foot by a Chicago cop

during the Days of Rage.

 

Now he lives in sunny San Diego

and sings madrigals to the California climate

that caresses his Midwestern flesh

with a soft, citric kiss.

 

But the sun hasn’t been able to burn

through the clouds of ganja smoke

that braid his hair with yesterday’s fantasies

and float him across a Third World playground

where he’s still the American Ché,

rescuing natives from imperialistic exploitation

and the poverty of disease.

 

When the pipe goes out and Tijuana coughs

its rancid breath in his face,

he yawns and remotes across the cable,

searching for programs to lace the sneakers

of his preconceptions with facts

that won’t squeeze his feet

into the wingtips of reality.

 

Turned on and tuned in,

he waits patiently

for the comatose Sara Jane

to wake from her fourteen hours

of beauty sleep,

so she can join him in the sauna

where the water’s always warm

and the coyotes howl in the arroyo.

 

Home

 

Snow blankets our street and dusk blots the light

as my family lingers with coffee and cake,

the grandchildren yawning, ready for bed.

I step outside to clear a safe path to their parked cars.

 

Bundled in wool I clear the sidewalk,

my fingers stiff as my breath fogs over

my head, the shovel scraping beneath the stars,

the moon glinting in the dark, December night.

 

I pause to rest, coated with glistening flakes,

and regard my cold, snow-muted home, the bay

window glowing warm with laughing faces displayed

around the table which has always nourished them.

 

My heart bursts with love and fatherly pride

as I resume my work, sheltering these people,

who fill my life with golden satisfaction,

while the indifferent storm swirls overhead.

Chuck Kramer - Chuck Kramer’s poetry and fiction have appeared online and in print, most recently The Raven’s Perch and The Good Men Project. Memoir in Chicago Quarterly Review (a Notable Essay in forthcoming Best American Essays 2023), Sobotka, Evening Street Review. Journalism in Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, Reader, Windy City Times and Gay Chicago Magazine.