dixie moline

Dixie Moline was a dancer of sorts
At clubs where the o’erhead was low,
and the ceilings were leaky and drinks were a buck
and the patrons were usually named Joe.

She’d dreamed of ballet and of theater, too,
Since her days as a girl of fourteen,
But her mom ran away and her dad was a drunk,
and her hopes just eloped with her dreams.

She asked for no pity, she asked not for help,
just began waiting booths at “Big G’s,”
‘til the day her boobs blossomed, from here out to there,
and thought she, “I’ll just cash in on these.”

And she did just fine, by the way, story goes,
‘til the day Larry Bobby walked in
with a nod and a wink, said, “Howdy, there, ma’am,”
and melted her heart with his grin.

“I’ll make you my princess, I’ll make you my queen,”
he told her if she’d leave the show,
“But I can’t wait forever, don’t make sense to do,
“So, it’s never or now, shall we go?”

That was two years, last April, now Larry’s long gone,
And Dixie’s still pullin’ her shift.
Dancin’ and twirlin’ an’ smilin’ the smile
That’ll earn her a tip or a gift.

She thinks ‘bout him sometimes, talks ‘bout him too,
When late night the girls wish away.
She wonders with wonder ‘bout what might’ve been,
If she’d left instead’ve deciding to stay.

But, Dixie Moline was a dancer of sorts
At clubs where the o’erhead was low,
and the ceilings were leaky and drinks were a buck
the truth was always a guy name o’ Joe.

regenerative

What if there’s nothing next but
nothingness? What if the
brilliant, white light
is a rumor, or, worse, a
lie? What if we don’t meet anyone in
Heaven, because
there
is
none? Some might assail a faith
at the questioning,
but isn’t “faith”
supposed to be
in what’s
right and good and honorable and
just,
and not in
some sort of
reward? And what if “heaven” is
simply
a
splinter of a moment,
maybe even furtive,
a millisecond of awareness,
a knowing that what good
you contributed will
regenerate in other good? Isn’t
that
enough?
(P.S. The correct answer is “Yes!”)

unsaid

What the newspaper story didn’t explain was that Percy James Beauxcoup, though fervently anti-religious, had made a vow, a spiritual vow, no less, the day he committed his life’s savings to the purchase of his shrimp boat, which he later christened “The Emerald Queen,” even though it was, at that point, as sorrowfully downtrodden as he. He didn’t exactly look skyward, just out, out there, across the diamond blue Gulf, and promised that if he were able to make this work, this shrimping business, that he would respect, with all appropriate dignity, and defend, with whatever force necessary, the waters in which he fished. And he meant it. So, it was with that in mind that he listened to the East Coast-educated BP veep, in shirtsleeves and Red Sox cap, offer him and the others from the tiny fishing village 15 miles east of Biloxi $100 an hour to help try clean up BP’s mess. Percy didn’t move a muscle nor bat an eyelash, until the vice-president, one of 16 in the international firm, said it was the company’s way of trying to help the fishermen. “It’s not a handout,” the BP VP said, “it’s honest work,” at which point, Percy stepped forward and shot the sorry motherfucker right between the eyes.

I like airports

I like airports, have always liked airports, and not because
of the airplanes, which
I
liked 2. It’s all the coming
and
going. People on the move,
and I can sit and imagine from whence and
what
they’ve come and to
who or where – or both –
they’re headed. There is
promise in that, mostly, though
I’m sure that
some of each – the comings and goings –
are those of sadness and loss and
maybe both. So, I sit,
here, watching, observing
folks
at
that in-between place before
the
destination finally is
met. I wonder about them. Some
of
them. I can’t fit in all.

peli-can

I would be a pelican,
with ungainly grace and
indigenous dignity, knowing
my place, for the pelican
does not try to be an eagle,
nor aspire to be a hawk. It does
not strut like the egret, nor preen
like the cardinal, nor flit like
the roadrunner nor flutter like
the hummingbird.
It stands, quietly, in wait, then, when
the time comes, when its
time
comes,
it
spreads its brown-blue wings and flaps
and soars, not too high
and not so low, but in its
own
space.
Always.

matriculation

They are fresh-faced and honest, mostly,
honorable, we like to think (though they would
have trouble defining just what that might mean
in real-world terms), and they are about to enter
a universe that is part friend, part enemy, part mystery
and wholly sobering, at some points, at least.
They will leave behind much less than they
will grow to meet, but, as they do, what they’ve
recently left will prove to shape them more than they
can imagine and more than anything they encounter
down the road.

They will smile and weep and toss their hats into
the air, for they have been freed, they think. It is
only later that they will realize that their freedom, a
freedom,
is not presented to them, but, freedom, if it is that
that they choose (and that which they should choose),
is earned, though never really understood, nor ever really
appreciated until later, though in their impatience they
will try to understand it now, right now, and, more,
to celebrate it.

They are to be welcomed, yes, but not dispirited, even
for their naivete, or, better, least for that, for the
value is in the journey, as they say, and not
the destination. And they are, at the very least, willing to embark on
the trip. Wish them well.
Wish them Godspeed.

the kathies

At nine, we all wanted to be priests,
for it seemed like a holy and wholly honorable thing
to do – to care for the needs of others in
a way that seemed hard and virtuous and somewhat
sacrificial.
But at some time, soon thereafter, give or take a year,
we
discovered the Kathies – Lutz and Bisjack.
We didn’t exactly understand the pull of their smiles
or the sheen of their hair,
much less experience the secrets
hidden chastely beneath their school uniforms. (Eventually,
Paul Slapnicker did, it was surmised,
or Tommy
Mulhol.)
But there was a time when we all decided that
the “call” we were told to listen for wasn’t the one
coming from Sister Angelica and Father
Englert.
It was a loss
of innocence, perhaps, that secularization,
because it severed a final tie to an idea
bigger than each one of us. But the pull was too strong.
And, besides,
the Kathies were really, really
cute. Sometimes, now, I wonder
what might’ve happened to them,
and I think
that if our paths crossed, again, I would
thank
them
for my liberation.

predator

It was the smile and how he looked
at them that told them they were special,
somehow, or, at least, different than the others,
at a time when differences were important and
made them feel special, because that’s how they
wanted to feel, away from home and
more than a little bit lost. Others saw it, all of it, but
just washed it away. It wasn’t any of their
business, not then, anyway, though it would
eventually become everyone’s business, because
the predator eventually oversteps his mark and
everyone is sullied, if not branded.
By then, he feels invisible to any scrutiny, of course.
He feels
almost entitled to his prey.
And, then, by then, innocence has died, and everyone wonders
how it happened, even though it happened in front
of everyone, right there, and the next days and weeks
and maybe months are spent recounting, bringing back, all the
hints that everyone saw.
But the innocence can’t be recovered, dusted off,
and returned.
It’s gone, stolen by one, responsible to many.

Freddy's brother

It was Freddy’s brother who had died
and we weren’t even sure of his name
because he wasn’t Catholic and we were.
But we
did attend the funeral in a dark, open,
empty church and sat in the back and
when it came time to kneel or stand,
mother told us to stay seated, to pray
from there, because he wasn’t Catholic
and we were.
And it not only seemed odd,
but it seemed wrong, but I stayed seated,
too, and to this day
I wish I’d not.

2 jewish

The call came early Thanksgiving morning
and her voice sounded desperate and his first
thought was that something had happened
to the baby and she said no, no, no, that the
baby was fine, but his name
was
not.
10 hours east, her parents and those else had decided, as all but her and her
husband gathered for a holiday meal, that the
name
was
too
Jewish.
Abraham.
One of the early names of honor and
leadership was
too
Jewish. As it turned out, they resorted to calling him
“Rusty,” but his father thought “Fuck that,” and
did the only thing he could think of: purchased a “My Name is Abraham”
t-shirt, rather, had it made, for none were currently
available, and
he dressed the boy for
the next visit.
Too Jewish.
Imagine
that.
Abraham.
My name
is.

mother

She carried a secret so tightly
that it slowly choked the life out of
her, breath by breath, which was
ironic, because she thought
the only way to stay alive was
to keep everything hidden away,
inside, deep, deep inside.
It was difficult watching her die
for all those years, decades, really, though sometimes
we weren’t so keenly aware of it, maybe because
we didn’t want to be.
Besides, it wasn’t our job as children
to understand everything, or, before even that,
to unravel what bound up her soul.
She had no last words, none that anyone
could understand. She simply passed from
finally forgetting to release.
At least that’s what we hope.

denny

The call came late, in the quiet, in the
bleak before the break, and her voice was a
whisper that woke something in the back of his
mind, startled it awake, followed by a silence, for
a moment that felt too much longer.
She said: “Denny is lost at sea,” and he wanted
to ask, “How?” but he knew the answer to that,
how friends he knew and those he didn’t got
“lost at sea.” It happened all the time, except
it didn’t, too, and he has lived for 35 years with
the image of a friend desperately trying to live,
in the dark and swirling deep, fighting
against his fate. It’s never a
nightmare, though, for it’s not nightmarish. Indeed,
there is a measure of
peace to it all, it ending, that way, oddly enough.
More than that, it was just
a fact of life that became a figure in the safety log:
“Lt. Dennis O'Malley: lost at sea.”
"We launch tomorrow, at six!"

liza

They climbed onto rockets and launched
themselves into the blue because they were
young and patriotic and because it was heroic,
and because Liza, the waitress everyone lusted after
at the Blue Oyster, the waitress everyone was trying
to save from the Blue Oyster,
thought they were sexy and brilliant, even while she went home,
every night to a UPS driver, who wore brown
shorts and high brown socks and knocked her around a bit, and fucked his brains
out – or so they thought.
And that’s why they did it – for her and for women like
her, and the chickens didn’t really come home
to roost until what was left of Wally that cool,
autumn day in Kansas was shoveled into
a body bag, fire-proof flight suit intact with
his ashes and wedding ring. But even then, a few pops and
everyone was good to go, again, “Shit hot,”
again. That’s the way it was. That’s the way
it always was. And, by the way, Liza wasn't worth
dying for, they figured out. Some,
too
late.

it IS what you say

Have you ever wondered who you’ll call for
when your time to call for comes?
Your mother? Father? A wife? Husband?
Or a friend or … lover. Or a child – and
which one, now?
And
when you say what’s needed to be
said, what will the others think? The
ones you ignored, for that’s what they might
feel, that slighting.
And should you worry about
that?
Is it too soon to think about that whom, because
you never know about the when, though
it certainly is closer than ever, isn’t it, now?
And
can you imprint in your subconscious
who the who should be, ahead of time?
Suddenly the deathbed becomes
a bit more difficult, eh?