Five Poems by Wayne F. Burke

 

THE LITERARY LIFE

Under the Weather

Am rereading Lowry again--

the inerrable one

from Mexico and

Dollarton, British Columbia;

self-doubt rampant but

with an assist from Primrose

the wife, plus the O.M., Old Man;

the English cotton broker's

prodigal son, on another bus

with bottle in the socket

(no mescal but tequila

por favour) now in cantina

or beer parlour, and

posseebly, imposseebly

borracho, no?

Into the sea and down the

hatch with it; the voyage

that never ends ended in

Ripe, but not quite--

the forest path to England,

Commander Firmin on

board plus the missus

stuffing pills into Malc's

Satanic mouth that told

much of Hell, some of

Heaven.

Hall of Meeshegan

pot-bellied, and

slump-shouldered, ursine

Donald Hall, a father Abraham

beard; he

talked baseball with Mahoney

and me, gave us the

lowdown on gays

in the Major Leagues 

(Mahoney always asked

about gays: Who was

queer? Who not?) (All are.)

Hall was guarded in speech,

spoke as if reciting lines

from one of his books;

after he shambled-off, 

Mahoney said "just imagine

what a prick he could be."

Geez Louise

Bone-y sibyl and

cunt-less child of the

gods--she wore a

little cock in the Fall

and cut her father, a

bastard, out the

family album; her

sister distorted as

through a prism;

her mother, of

mothers, turned

archetype; and

a husband, John

into a railroad tie

in an unused bed...

Now, since all the gods

are dead, she

has been elevated

into a secular pantheon

and put upon a shelf

with old New Yorker

magazines--

between Bishop and

Symborska, Irene.

Lynn

Had eyes like a bee's, dark

brown, solid, without  an

iris;

I saw something in there 

I could not name, and

did not want to look at

any longer--

full of herself, dating

her life by the 

books she published:

"it was just after my 6th book

came out"

"the time before my 3rd book

was published."

She won a Guggenheim and

afterward the National Book Award, but

was more disliked than

many others, because

predatory and humourless:

the Bee-Girl from

Lynn, Massachusetts.

Al Dugan (1923-2003)

In a corner of the

bathroom

he stood

drinking from a can of Bud

he shoved

into his valise

as I entered;

I followed the stench of his B.O.,

his brick-red face, and

his corduroy jacket with

elbow patches, up the

corridor to the

classroom, where

Al argued with the professor

over the merit of Joyce's poetry

(which Al, unlike the prof, thought excellent)

and later

that night

Mahoney my asshole poetry buddy

and me

went up to Al's suite, and

he, Mahoney, and me

got drunk, and

I shouted LONG LIVE HENRY MILLER

and Al asked

had I read Miller's essay on money?

And I said NO and

afterward

kept my mouth shut and

listened

as Dugan and Mahoney rapped

back and forth

like the pot pipe being passed

and

at some point

Al brought out a manuscript

given him by the professor

whom Mahoney called A LOUSY HEBE

to which Dugan said MY WIFE IS JEWISH

and Mahoney said I DID NOT KNOW

and shortly after

I blacked-out and

when I come-to remembered

nothing else of the night

except

Mahoney and Al,

thick as thieves

had agreed that the professor's

manuscript

was SHIT.

poem published in ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET CROUTON, 2019

Wayne F. Burke's poetry has been widely published online and in print (including in LOTHLORIEN POETRY JOURNAL). He is the author of 8 published poetry collections--including the highly praised A LARK UP THE NOSE OF TIME, 2017--and one book of short stories. He lives in Vermont (USA).