Steve
West
To
Two Posters on my Wall
(Homage to the Faulkner Conference at Ole Miss
1988-1989)
Nine
drink machines stand in front of the pool hall,
Sun
bearing down relentlessly on the Mississippi
Dusty
dirt. I imagine six men inside, probably black,
Shooting
pool listlessly and idly sipping Old Milwaukee
Until
the sun disappears and they can go home
To
television and the window air conditioner
That
makes August and their families bearable.
#
# #
This
church, and a gray background of winter.
Snow lines the steps;
Be careful Grandma, don’t break
Your hip again. The Good Lord might not let it heal this time.
Paint peeled and cold air mocking the wood trim
Of this building that the Baptists abandoned 20 years ago,
So we poor might assemble before an even sterner God.
Poem
for Fred
Maybe
we should have had a jazz funeral,
Sashay down Flower Street
With horn and drum, celebrating
Your trip to the promised land.
“Some
glad morning. . .”
Maybe
we missed our chance that day in January
With sunshine, like coffee and beignets
At the Café Du Monde, on our shoulders.
“When
this life is over. . .”
Or
maybe, by golly, we missed the boat,
Like watching the red lights of the last ferry
Across the Pontchartrain disappear at midnight.
“I’ll
fly away. . .”
I’m
no musician, but I could have banged
On a triangle, made the sound of the street
Car on its way to Audubon Park where a little
Old Cajun man sits under a live oak tree,
And tells you that he wrote Jole Blon,
And then tunes his guitar to sing a sad ballad
Of Evangeline in a minor key.
“To
a home on God’s celestial shore. . .”
Yeah,
I think we should have had a jazz funeral,
Don’t
you?
***
Steve
West teaches English at Martin Methodist College in Pulaski,
Tennessee. He has poems in the most recent Number One and
in Prairie Poetry, Phantasmagoria, Mount Voices,
Roanoke Review, CrossRoads, and others.
©
Steve West