david plumb | say the moon and two other new poems

Say the Moon

The year 2012
Your kids can go.
Too crowded here.
Not enough fast food
or rice for that matter.
It stinks, the air does.
No one walks without crutches
or a little cart that
scoots the forever aisles
in search of owner.
So why not the moon?
A station to STOP
Take care of the body business.
Johnny on the Moon Spot.
We can call it that.
Proceed to Mars later on.
Use caution.
Leave germs at home.
It’s for sale.
But watch the red sand.
It might be communist or worse.
Why wait?
Sign up now.

Migratory Obsession

Requires eagerness to fly
a hunch about low expectations
a slightly cynical, sexually explicit
right to hoot at strange feelings.
Credit cards excepted.

The Bishop

Richard, you’re dying and you
didn’t tell me until now?
This is way beyond the hilarity
of taxicabs we drove full tilt
down Taylor Street scaring the be Jesus
out of tourists, driving ten hours flat
for a yard, or sometimes nothing at all.
Cigarette butt hanging from your lips.
Cabs too small for your long legs.
“The Blue Cloud is around me,” you wailed.
Now you say it’s, “The HIV.”
You can’t say the rest.

Always broke, sloppy and a mess
your apartment, a gargantuan one-man disaster.
Your cat, the nastiest black and white reflection
of hate and madness, who ate spinach
from the crisper and tore my ankle to shreds.
How we raged against power mowers
The drone of overhead planes.
How we drove wildly, trapped by dark
laughter and hilarious circumstance.
How money or lack of it,
tore morality from our pockets.

This is the time I feared.
How many times did I say
stay close. Don’t isolate
when I meant friends need
each other to overcome hatred
and indifference my Buddhist
Shaman, macrobiotic cigarette smoker
chained to pack, ashtray and the beach.

I shall miss your joyful guffaws
when we met at Aquatic Park.
You, afraid of the cold deep bay
swam close to shore, sunned belly-down
a brown seal with blue eyes that danced
the mischief of a hundred bishops.
How we sat between silence, surf, bongo drums
talking about the women, the books
the money and yes, our foolish ways.

Good God it might have been me
telling you I’m sick, me
living with fear of wheeze, drafts
tainted blood caught in endless
nights of flashing teeth.

Richard, I wish my calls had been
more frequent, my letters clearer.
Maybe if I said, Richard I love you.
Maybe if I had stayed in San Francisco.
Damn, you never told me
though I might have guessed.

Hell, I’m glad you have Roseanne
to see you through forty meds a day
the doctor’s dance and as you say
the macro, the micro, the acupuncture
herbs, teas, rubs
the old sweat on the neck
hold-me-in-your-arms
unspeakable crying nights.

Today the fog draws near the hills
and passes down my body like smoke.
Today is quiet, hushed, the coffee’s good.
The waitress says, “That’s sad,”
referring to someone else.

Dick where is that taxicab in the sky?
or as a mustang Lieutenant standing
on the fantail of a cruiser in Honolulu once asked
“Why doesn’t the sun come up
at night when we need it.”

Dick, I lift my breast to great laughter
sweetness, pure foolish and goofy ideas
of what, who and why madness flew in our veins.
I thank you for our just plain pippin along
like a couple of sage pigeons picking the streets
for sense, or Jesus Christ, Dollars if YOU PLEASE!

Dear Dick, wherever you go and you will go
this time, save a place on the slab for me.
Keep the cement warm and your dear face
turned to the absurd and sometimes clear
side of the moon. We will go on.

One Reply to “david plumb | say the moon and two other new poems”

  1. I recall Taylor Street off California just before the drop. Filbert was even better. Flat and then abrupt drop scream — this coming in ordinary conversation, pointing things our, like Coit Tower, planned. Then drop and scream. Good tip.

    David

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