Six Poems by Wayne F. Burke

 

Story

Where do I go from here? "Down the wishing well," said Alice.

     We dropped in a bucket--straight down to Howell's Cavern, a mile underground. Black onyx water, stalactite drip; I wished myself back up and sure enough came-to on the Jersey shore.

     "It is a funny old world, alright," my grandfather said.

     "The best of all possible," said Pangloss.

     "Oh dear, oh my," whined Hardy Har har.

     "Why are we here, anyway?" someone asked.

     "To dream a further dream," said someone else in the crowd.

     The ocean roared.

5 O'Clock

Put my work boots on and go out the door and wait under the streetlight for the truck to pick me up, take me to JOB. Dream of being laid-off and having time to make art, write and read; in the meantime run a jackhammer, the smell of exhaust in my face, shovel dirt and wet cement, work my ass off; return in the dark to my room and do it all again the next day and the next and the...So many days at JOB: too many--I decide to quit: cannot quit, need the money; I am caught in a vicious cycle. There must be a better way to live. What is it?

A Taste

Like Proust with his madeleine I think of the cream puff eaten in my childhood: the delicacy of the puff and light creaminess of filling. Grapefruit sized cream puffs from the Polish bakery, up-street from where we lived, a mile distant from more populated sections of town.

     The puffs had little caps like hats that were removed for access to the cream dipped into and extracted with a spoon, unless you simply tore the side of the thing open, ripping it like cloth and eating it off your fingertips, using torn pieces to plow the cream and deposit the bolus into your mouth.

     What a treat. And though as a teener I had fore-swore desserts, I ate the puff. Ate strawberry shortcake as well. And on my birthday, when given a choice as to the flavor of the cake I desired--always vanilla--I partook of that.

     Yeah I did.

Haiku

his hangover

the leash

of his worries

Dream

she only had three teeth

but was kind of cute, and

after she asked if I wanted to buy

a bottle of whiskey

I hesitated in response, and

off she ran, for the 

liquor store

as I called her

to come back

because

I do not drink alcohol anymore.

No,

I don't.

 

The Shadow of City Hall

crept across the road

as I slept sitting-up

on a park bench, my

head hung low.

I woke numb and

with a lariat around my tongue, and

horney

for cub-scout den mothers

meter maids

nuns...

Dirty sun and a frog

smoking a cigar

and

Mole-Man with a cane, the

hirsute leader of Bohemian

hordes.

Wayne F. Burke's poetry and prose have been widely published online and in print, including in LOTHLORIEN POETRY JOURNAL. He has authored ten poetry collections, most recently WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY WAYNE? Hog Press, 2025, and two works of fiction, most recently NO TAB FOR SULLY, Alien Buddha Press, 2025. He lives in Vermont (USA).