charles martin

winter barracuda

wintry cold sets in and freezes the ground solid like ice,

sometimes with a cover of snow until the city streets are

salted and turned gray to rivulets of slush, then frozen again,

slippery and treacherous like

presidential currents of power,

which since winter in america, january 2009,

are negotiated by a new winter swimmer

who suits up not to

swim the english channel

nor to circle around manhattan or out to alcatraz prison,

but, yes, to swim presidential waters where the barracuda are plenty

and beautiful jellies float with tentacles long and tenacious

in any and all kind of weather.

what manner of stroke will obama be able to bring to the tide

of frozen floes

what manner of flesh eater will find him spicy,

a special delight for dining

slow roasted or fried

bones to crush

a brain to poach

send in a better beggar

one less versed, less thinking

better trained in diplomacy,

more easily trumped.

these winters in america,

these seas so cold.

*

5 a.m.

I’m walking around the streets at 5 a.m. all by my

Lonesome

like a damn dodo bird.

I woke up in the middle of the night just a few minutes

ago.

it’s hotter than hell and no breeze, dead quiet and dark too;

I heard it was a hundred degrees the other day.

had a fool’s letter on my desk;

the fool is me.

wrote the damn letter to some damn one who’s giving me

one damn problem.

you say you love me

but you act like

no!

you don’t even kiss right.

at my forward tilt towards lips—

you swivel quick and

front a cheek.

  

can’t talk to you, no I can’t.

you’re always asking crazy questions

about what I like and what I feel.

be damned if I know (not on the spot).

I’m reflective by nature, a writer by trade.

so I wrote it all down—some of it—

and put it in this letter I’m writing about.

I told you I can’t always be poetic and have something

ready to say,

verbal repartee packaged and sharp

like writing

and all set to go whenever you start posing

questions.

that’s something I truly believe and I read it too

in a magazine

as coming from the mouth of charles bukowski,

poet: (the days run away like wild horses of the hills; and you do too).

bukowski put it in the way of a quote in an interview.

I plucked it first for my letter and now

for my poem.

if I ever meet the old boozer

I’ll thank him for it.

so just about 5 a.m. when it was hotter than hell

and there wasn’t no breeze,

I woke up

and I took that letter and put a stamp on it and

marched myself to the post-office before I had time

enough to do something sensible like open it up and get

embarrassed and throw it away.

damn.  it’s so early that even

the 24-hour marketplace around the corner is empty.

a friend of mine, she told me that the real city starts

at 5 o’clock.

what happened today?

but my letter’s in the mail-box.

you’ll get it maybe today, maybe tomorrow.

I passed by 5 guys, they were walking along, jocose.

I said hello, good morning-good night, and cracked a joke.

they started laughing and we started to chat.

I wonder if you had been with me would I have found the joke?

would you have laughed?

be damned if I don’t feel silly having sent a love letter

to some one who lives only two blocks away.

you’re old enough to ought to understand

these things.

wonder what you think I am?

nuts?

I hope my poem’s a best seller.

then I can talk about it on a talk show and

pass myself off as the star my kids think I am.

you may not love me,

but it’s literary.

— © charles martin

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