The Unauthorized Autobiography of Me. Section Eleven. Hobo Days.

 

It was at Van Cleve Park where they

held Hobo Days each summer.

I went with my sister Sue Ellen

every year from 1959 until 1965.

Our hobo costumes were judged

and awarded prizes.

I never won an award,

but Sue Ellen did every year.

Mom dressed her up as a 'cute'

hobo, with long eyelashes,

dirty white gloves, and a 

long empty plastic cigarette holder --

a la Phyllis Diller --

and put a black soot beard on her, too.

I got to chomp on a stale pink bubblegum cigar;

which was pretty good compensation 

for never winning anything.

Even better,

I was allowed to wave around 

an empty whiskey bottle,

courtesy of Aarone's Bar & Grill

where my dad worked.

We each had a sawed off broomstick

with a red bandana bundle tied to the

end, to heft over our shoulders.

The bundle held a peanut butter

and jelly sandwich to tide us over

until dinner.

The mirror cracked in half

when it came to hoboes

and others grouped with them

sixty years ago in America.

There was Weary Willie and

Freddy the Freeloader --

lovable and comic characters.

But then there were the cutthroat

demented dark figures under the viaduct

that mom warned us about --

if they caught you wandering

around the railyard

they would remove an arm to

roast over a kerosene drum fire.

They were filthy, crawling with lice.

I was never to take the bus to Nicollet Island,

in the middle of the Mississippi River;

it was a land where men drank Cold Duck

in one gulp while sitting on dirty stone stoops

in front of flop houses.

My parents barely escaped the Depression,

and their message to me was clear:

the homeless and disenfranchised,

who didn't make it out of the Depression,

were not human enough for compassion.

Either laugh at them or keep them far away.

I'm still dealing with that cruel falsehood today.

**************************

This piece so offended @markgmaurer of the Wall Street Journal

that he requested to be removed from my poetry

email list. 

Three Winter Photographs.

 

A bowl of dirty ice.

Good for nothing

but pity.

Waiting for spring

without hope or faith --

 nor instinct.

Not waiting at all, really.

Just being.

Hardiness is all.

Brittle. Unyielding. Colorless.

Yet returning to life.

To suppleness. Color. 

This is God.

Empty and marvelous

 

I walked down a street that was not a street

to enter a shop that wasn't there

and asked the clerk who didn't exist

for a lottery ticket that was already expired.

It is marvelous to be so empty.

But that very contentment 

escapes me like water in a sieve.

So I will tell you a story

that illustrates nothing:

Not long ago

there lived a man and his daughter.

They were too poor to cook and eat

so they went door to door to 

smell the frying and baking of others.

The aromas sustained them for a long time.

But people began to resent their great pleasure

in something they had no hand in providing or

preparing.

So they were taken to a high cliff and shoved off.

The man and his daughter weighed so little

after so many years of not eating

that they floated gently to the ground,

unharmed.

And the site of this great miracle became

a gathering place for many rich and dyspeptic

people. Eventually a great temple was built

on the site, using slave labor and decorated

with looted gold and gems from around the world.

But the man and his daughter

who started the whole thing

were never permitted to see the inside of it.

They couldn't afford the entry fee.

Besides, none of this ever happened

and you didn't read about it.

So it doesn't register as anything

and won't be remembered,

like smoke meeting fog.

Hit with a salt shaker

 

When I asked the Venerable Sashi,

on the island of Hondo,

during the Plum Blossom Festival,

'Who is the Buddha?'

he asked me for a plum branch

and then whipped me with it.

And so I was enlightened.

But later in life I married

and wandered from the Pure Land

as I became distracted with 

my household.

One morning I asked my wife

'Is there any marmalade left?'

The blessed woman hit me 

with the salt shaker, and my

vision was restored.

Then I worked with the lilies

of the field and fowls on the ground

to provide beauty and sustenance

to the world,

which led me to a listical existence,

a grasping of names,

craving more details,

that was frustrating and very limiting.

At last I fled back to the island of Hondo,

to the Venerable Sashi.

He held up his hand to me,

with the fingers spread apart,

and said

"Point to what is between my fingers."

I threw a custard pie at his outstretched hand.

And we both knew a new enlightenment

as we dined on the smashed pastry

with our chopsticks.  

Faithfulness stronger than the cords of death.

 

Death reaches out its binding hand

to drag a neighbor from the land;

reminding me I too must go,

soon or late, and fast or slow.

I pray when death keeps awful tryst

with me my faith remains in Christ.

Three Pounds of Flax.

 

I went to my stall at the Farmer's Market 

to sell three pounds of flax.

That's all I had.

The weather had been bad.

First flood. Then drought.

Then hail. Then flood again.

Then a heat wave. And finally a winter tornado.

The flax was the only thing to survive.

My children said not to go, to give up.

Stay home and pull cedar blocks from the 

cellar walls to burn for heat this winter.

But I told them I had faith in the Farmer's Market.

Good people went there.

My kids just laughed at me, 

saying I was dumber than a bolt rope.

"How much for a pound of flax?"

asked a man in a black sleeping bag coat.

"That all depends on what you're going to do with it"

I told him.

He looked at me quizzically,

so I explained:

"If you're going to cook with it, it's five dollars a pound."

"If you're going to spin cloth out of it, it's two dollars."

"If you're using it as mulch, it's only fifty cents."

The great thing about dealing with customers 

at the Farmer's Market is that they are always

down to earth and truthful. 

"Well, I'm gonna take it over to the stall that

sells tomatoes and barter it for a bushel of tomatoes.

So I guess that counts as cooking with it?" he said diffidently.

"Not to worry" I told him.

"I'll trade you a pound of flax for your

sleeping bag coat."

"Can I keep my mad bomber hat?" he asked.

"Of course" I said. "It's cold out here!"

So we made the trade.

Then a guy in a bus driver's uniform sauntered up.

"You have to pay the flax tax, you know"

he said arrogantly to me.

"That'll be ten dollars."

"Like hell it's ten dollars" I told him.

"You're just a bus driver, so beat it!"

He left. But he came back with two more

bus drivers and they tipped over my stall,

spilling my flax all over the cold wet ground.

Now what was I going to do?

Lucky for me, the man who traded his coat for flax

saw the whole thing.

He gathered up all the stall owners,

told them what happened,

then led them to me in groups of twos and threes.

Each one gave me something from his or her stall.

I got green tomatoes. Onions. Dream catchers. Beaded purses.

Dilled okra. Smoked salmon. Dried apples. Mincemeat.

Kettle corn. And so much else.

I sold it all.

By the end of the day I had made enough

to replant my entire crop of winter wheat,

with enough left over to thatch my roof with flax.

Those bus drivers had done me a wonderful turn,

it seems.

I found them huddled against an elm tree,

whittling nutmegs. When I began to thank them

they suddenly grew wings and flew away.

It's like I told my children, 

there's good and more than good

people at the Farmer's Market.

Man gains power at great peril

 

Man gains power at great peril;

it most often turns him feral.

Mercy, charity, and trust,

with his wisdom all go bust.

God alone, who rides the storm,

wields his power with sweet form.

Season's Greetings from Don Lockerdew.

 

I was in a nearly deserted Walmart

doing some early holiday shopping.

My mask was beginning to smother me.

In the distance I saw a familiar figure.

He was walking with a peculiar limp.

I hurried up to him.

"Hey" I said to his back,

"are you Don Lockerdew?"

The man slowly turned around.

His eyes crinkled with delight.

"Holy moley!" he exclaimed. 

"Is that Tork, from Bentley High?"

"You bet your sweet bippy it is!" 

I hollered at him.

There were so few people in the store

that I felt no constraint about shouting.

"How long has it been?" I asked him,

touching elbows with him.

"How long has it been?" he echoed back.

We stood six feet apart, looking

each other over.

"Well" he finally said, "Season's Greetings!"

"You too, old pal" I replied.

Suddenly I had an irresistible urge 

to tear the mask from his face.

So I did.

He had grown a mustache since high school.

He gave an angry yelp of surprise

and tore my mask off.

"You had your teeth fixed" he said.

So I suckered punched him.

I was remembering how much

I hated him back in high school.

He was a bully and a thief.

He took a swing at me and missed.

I could smell whiskey on his breath.

"Turned into a drunk, didja?" I jeered.

"I bet that's a wig" he yelled,

snatching it from my head.

"Give it back, pizza face" I said quietly.

He had terrible acne in the tenth grade.

On a hunch, I swatted his nose.

As I thought -- it was a fake.

He had a prosthetic nose.

It went flying into the housewares aisle.

Then we grappled until the security guards came.

Afterwards I took him to my brother-in-law,

who's an orthopedic surgeon.

A simple operation fixed Don's clubfoot.

He could never afford it on his salary,

with no health benefits.

But I had done very well since high school.

We took a road trip together to South Dakota.

I asked him how he had lost his nose.

He said "It was bitten off."

We never discussed it again.

My Pickleball Sandwich Hero.

 

"I'll have one pickleball sandwich, hold the onions"

I told the guy at the counter.

He just stared back at me

like I had three heads.

So I repeated my order to him.

"You can't have one" he finally managed to say.

"Why not?" I demanded.

"Your sign says 'Pickleball Sandwiches' out front!"

"I don't . . . " the guy at the counter began.

He looked very confused. Then terrified.

Some young punks at a corner table

began sniggering and pointing at him.

"Why do you want a sandwich from me?" he

eventually stammered out. "I'm a CPA; I don't make

sandwiches, or sell them."

"Well, your sign out front advertises 

pickleball sandwiches -- made to order!"

I told him, rather sharply.

He took off his pristine white apron

and ran outside. After looking up

he slowly came back in, his face

cupped in his hands.

He was weeping.

"This is what I've been afraid of"

he told me. "Transmigration."

The punks in the corner got up

and shuffled out, not making any

eye contact.

I remained silent. 

The sandwich shop smelled of onions

and sour mayonnaise.

Afternoon sunlight crowded in from the front window,

waxing everything a dirty yellow.

The man put his apron back on,

drying his eyes with a corner of it, 

went back behind the counter,

then turned resolutely

to face me.

"You said no mayo, right?" he asked quietly.

I could have hugged him,

if it weren't for the social distancing rules in place.

He was the first real hero

I'd ever met. 

Today's timericks.

 

Arctic leases are the best/making lolly with great zest/Prices now are very low/just remove that worthless snow/It's another gold Yukon/once the permafrost is gone.

COVID-19 fairy tales/put the wind in Facebook's sails/Users seem to think the site/is the source of truth and light/They can censor all they want/the nuts will some new page just haunt.

And now the deer are running roughshod over urban spots/These herbivores are munching on beleaguered flower pots/They're stripping trees and leaving scat so joggers get a shock/The vicious creatures even chase our kids around the block/We either get a gun to shoot cute Bambi tween the eyes/or let 'em breed until they march to get the vote franchise! 

I'm sending out my Xmas cards and they are virus-free/I do not mention anything about calamity/I brag about the children and give my dear mate her due/and hope that Santa wears a mask when he comes down the flue!