he loved
spending
time with her...
especially
when she’d decide
to shut up for a minute.
he
didn’t know
what he liked more...
her or the silence.
“you’re lucky”, she said.
he
rolled
on his side
and said half
to the pillow and half to the wall:
“luck’s nothing to be proud of.”
it was
one of those days
when the wind seemed to be talking
and
the sun
hid behind a cloud.
poetry is
not
a science...
the
truth is not
a secret for the few...
and
this dog
sleeping in the sun
has it
all figured out.
his poems
always
tried to tackle
the “big issues”...
Death,
Life, Love, Good, Evil...
all the
usual stuff
that needs to be
spelled with a capital letter.
his only
other goal in life
was to one day be The Village Idiot.
the poems tried hard,
but never quite
hit the mark.
but, after
he married Betty,
she told him (every day of his life)
in no
uncertain terms,
the town could stop the search.
the place smelled like the blues
it
smelled of
sweat and poverty
and last night’s turnip greens.
but,
it’s where he
did his best writing.
poems
filled with sadness
and
the agony of
a shot glass left empty
in a sink filled with dishes,
tears and more than a little regret.
my friend Ted
always
wanted to write.
he said
he said he knew
he had a book in him...
of course,
everyone does...
but, Ted really did.
the
problem was
Ted loved to talk...
he
was a better
talker than a writer.
when
he talked,
people listened.
and
when he paused,
they held their breath.
Ted used to
call me and talk about
the book he wanted to write...
about
what it was like
for him growing up during the war...
it was
World War II
and Ted had some stories...
good ones.
interesting ones.
the problem was,
except for some notes,
he never really wrote them down.
and
the only one
left to tell you that
is me.
a rock band
had asked me
to be their opening act
for
a concert
after the release
of their latest album.
it was
a double album
and
it was good,
and so were the band.
they’re
not young anymore,
but neither am i,
so, i said yeah,
i'd do it,
and it was
the first time in decades
that my wife came to a reading of mine,
mostly because
it technically wasn’t my show,
and
the place was
also a restaurant,
so we could eat...
and
anyway,
she sat there,
in the dark,
at the back of the room,
but i could still see her, smiling,
and
for some reason
i didn’t get nervous.
the band
was already up
and i did 15 or 20 minutes,
and i was good,
and
people laughed
and smiled and clapped,
and
for the first
time in a long time
i left
a reading
with a good feeling,
a full stomach
and
an amazing woman
who for some unknown reason
still loves only me.
she used to
piss him off
with her habit of saying
supposably
and
for all intensive purposes,
but,
in the grand
scheme of things
it didn’t really matter,
because
every now and then
she’d
stop her talk
and they could just
sit there, doing nothing,
while
the dogs of summer
barked and the day grew old.
John Yamrus - In a career spanning more than 50 years as a working writer, John Yamrus has published 39 books. He has also had more than 3,500 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. A number of his books and poems are taught in college and university courses. He is widely considered to be a master of minimalism and the neo-noir in modern poetry. His two most recent books are the memoir THE STREET and a volume of poetry called PEOPLE (AND OTHER BAD IDEAS). In addition, 3 of his books have been published in translation.
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