Mooneyham Returns
Kevin Mooneyham
[kibbinkev@yahoo.com]
Cold Morning
Stepping out --
into the crazy gray dawn
the sack of trash to the corner morning
the wet brown grass and green weeds daybreak
the black cat in the neighbor's driveway morning
the limp limbed willow sunrise
the urban flotsam of convenience store packaging morning
the distant rattle of bums going through dumpsters morning
the old widower walking his dog mourning
the leaf-strewn cobweb covered porch morning
Stepping in --
I know how it feels to be cold.
Ode To Doug Jerome III
This is not
sycophantic babble
Doug Jerome.
I write this poem
for me
and not for you.
I want my word snapshot
of the crystal moment
before everything explodes.
I want to know where my feet are
before the whirlwind
lifts us skyward
before we cloudburst
into a thousand million drops
of poetry drenching
this dark haunted land.
I want to remember you
while I'm still a hungry poet.
I want to remember you
before I forget I should remember you.
I want to remember you
before we grow complacent
sitting an a back porch
sipping sweet poison nectar
of raspberry mead
like a couple of old Ken Kesey's.
I want to know always
this time of passion.
Walking
After I died
an old acquaintance
came to my room.
In our youth we
ran along the trails
in Lithia Park,
beneath the shadow
of Shakespeare's festival.
Once we stood on the grassy verge of
hard packed dirt
and gravel to cheer our
female teammates and
appreciate their supple
young beauty.
Now that I had been dead
and was old,
we walked together down
disinfected, sterile, fluorescent, hallways;
past brittle, faded nurses;
arm in arm
like old lovers
remembering prom night.
He led me into sunlight
on a breezy, azure washed rooftop --
my guide out of the
land of the dead.
I wondered at what
time had he been a
woman so that he
could take his proper
place in the ancient
play of wisdom?
He encouraged me
to travel in the
way of my youth
as that was the better
way to come again
to the land of the dead;
the way I chose before
brought me there
too soon.
From my youth
this acquaintance came
to my youth
he would guide me again.
After I died
I traveled in the way
of my youth,
by my own power,
as I had traveled
across Wikiup plains
passing La Conte's crater
beneath the shadow
of the Three Sisters.
I walked this way
on bike paths and sidewalks,
but old, dead men
from New England
had taught me how
to be in both
places at once.
So I found myself
searching high meadows
and lava flows
for the one Chinaman
who sailed the Pacific
landing in San Francisco
or Portland
or Seattle,
who
walked past the laundries,
walked past the railroads,
walked past the business associations,
walked past the chance to make his fortune,
and followed a nameless path
into the snow and lava and trees.
As I could revive within me
that symphony of memory,
I searched for that immortal
that never really was
and found that, perhaps,
it was enough to search
for the real man inside.
Slider
Slider you hurled your teen age
body down iced over schoolhouse
rooftops -- never once flying into
asphalt, playground oblivion
Slider you climbed the tallest
trees on the thinnest
branches -- never once crashing back to
sun baked earth
Slider you rafted the roaring
rapids on nothing but an
inner tube, no life-vest, no
helmet -- never once going under
the turbulent flow
Slider you mixed your
drugs like a mad Spanish chef
creating the ultimate
paella -- never once succumbing
to the toxins
So
I got a letter from home
read it
went to work
theater manager
set up the snack bar
set up the box office
let the crew in
let the customers in
answer questions
answer phones
paperwork
deposits
cleaning
say goodnight to the crew
say goodnight to the last patron
say goodnight to the projectionist
walk into the auditorium
lie down on the filthy carpet
and cry
Cry like my best friend's new born baby brother,
just home from the hospital
Cry like a toe-headed kid that
just scraped his knee for the first time
Cry like a spoiled brat that
just got his first spanking
Cry like a kid with nothing to lose
Slider,
you weren't any better
you weren't any worse
than Hemingway
or Cobain
just younger
The Last Time I Flew
The last time I flew,
I rode my bike
down a grassy hill
brown end of summer grass
like the grass in the overflow lot
at the county fair.
I came off the bike
straight up
not over the handlebars
shoulders and back tingling
blue sky air rushing over my face
as I soared, toward the cirrus clouds
everything on the ground getting
smaller
and
smaller.
My father shouting to his four year old son,
"If you fly too high
You'll never come back."
So I struggled
returning to the ground
using all my strength
pulling myself back
to the dead summer grass.
I feel my shoulders and back
tingling again
and daddy's not here to call me.
Poem © 2002 Kevin Mooneyham, all rights reserved
appears here by permission
