Poetry
Joel Chace
on the menuit said candid yams so we spoke with circumspection kept our eyes moving you said you knew no one should trust those fat sloppy peckers and that we should just order franks and beings it said for your desert and I said thanks but I've got more than enough sand in mine and that we should just order the witches gray formica that evening was a desert words in the pepper numbers in the salt tabula rasa magic screen shake it break it sand in a stream the sun that evening streamed across the gray formica across our faces we both said the flattened light was breaking our hearts there are certain things no one can order up to the thiefdear motherfucker first of all when you decided to smash our van window to smithereens it's a good thing you didn't know whose shit you were messing with that is an international crimebuster from way back and I'm not making this up there was the time in the late eighties my wife and I sitting in a soho cafe with two other couples one afternoon and a guy runs over from the next table and says to my buddy's wife "better quick check your purse and see if your wallet's missing" and of course it was and my two husband pals go tearing out the door and up the street as usual I was a little slow but partly because I didn't trust the guy who'd alerted us sort of seemed like a setup but once I'd realized the alerter had run out with my friends I took to the street myself thinking there's no way in hell we'll find this bastard he's slick he's a pro but I caught up with the other three just when one of them says "isn't that someone lying under that car across the street" and it sure was so we go over there and yell at him to come out from under finally he does and it's actually the pickpocket so the victim's wife's husband says "where's the wallet give me back the fucking wallet or we call the police" and the crook reaches into this shopping bag he's got I don't know about the others but for a few seconds in slow motion I picture him pulling out a 45 and we're all blood on the pavement but he just brings out the wallet hands it to my pal who checks it then says "yeah o.k. it's all there but now give me something for our trouble" the pickpocket says "you mean more money" my friend says "yeah I mean more money fucker give me twenty bucks extra and we don't call the cops" so we went swaggering back to the cafe the other customers even applauded and later on in little italy my buddy says "goddamnit now I have to go to confession for robbing that cocksucker" then a couple of years later at a paris metro stop with my wife and kids and a group of american students I'm a teacher you see more about that later I just happen to catch with a random kind of bored glance a guy's hand coming out of the raincoat pocket of one of my girl students and in the hand is this girl's wallet again it was a sort of frozen time cinematic moment as I pretty tranquilly walk over from behind put my hand on his shoulder turn him around coolly take out of his hand the wallet which he's still holding down along his pantsleg and look right into his eyes he's little even smaller than me and I'm about to say "no!' but fortunately remember this is a french pickpocket sorry voleur so instead I shout "non!' with I figure exactly the proper accent and the bastard takes off like an express before I even have a chance to think how to ask him for a couple of hundred extra francs for my trouble anyway guess you realize now you're awfully lucky I wasn't there up in that boston parking lot hope you enjoy the suitcase full of clothes most of them dirty hey try on that red t-shirt that got so sweaty it has salt stains from my chest and gut on it from hauling my ass up and down three flights of stairs moving furniture into my daughter's apartment yeah I'm that old and yeah you broke in right after we unloaded all her stuff every stick of it you sorry son of a bitch by the way I've got four kids you have any wait a second maybe there were more than one of you huh maybe you are really motherfuckerS not just singular and what did you think about our quilted cloth toiletry kit that we've carried to bathrooms all over the globe check out those cuticle scissors they're perfect for clipping nose hairs feel free to use my razor that I've had forever it's heavy the way I like it for shaving not just my face but my whole head which you've noticed already no doubt from the photo on my license that was in the bookbag but before we get there back to the quilted bag try taking my antidepressants and my prevacid for the ulcer attack that put me in the ER two months ago in fact take all of them that are left all at the same time could be a pretty good rush the almost bleeding to death incident apparently was caused by my popping aspirin and motrin like candy for neck and back aches the last couple of months of the school year which aches were probably the result of stress from sometimes hating teaching because it takes so much time energy and concentration away from writing which is what I'd like to be doing full time what would you like to be doing full time which brings us to the black it's either land's end or l.l. bean you tell me bookbag which had my wallet in it you've seen my shaved head hope you've tried to use the visa card and in the bag you'll notice notes from the opening english dept meeting knock yourself out with those babies and let me know what you think of the two paperbacks each of which I was halfway through one is a critical study of louis zukovsky's huge poem "A" the other is a collection of pretty avant garde poetry by Jake Berry it's called "Brambu Drezi" and in that manilla envelope you'll find mostly scrap paper but also and here's the real killer for me you putrid asshole(s) there are quite a few pages of a first draft of a poem I'd been working on about the house I grew up in in upstate new york that we had to sell this summer because my mother had to move into a nursing home and my longtime fantasy about owning it myself some day didn't pan out since we couldn't afford it when the time came remember I'm a teacher and a fucking poet right hey that's a truly tearjerking story now isn't it bet it rips you apart bet you thought we were pretty well off with a minivan and all though I'll admit we're probably better off than you I'll level with you I thought I was going to turn this into a poem that ended up being sympathetic to you sort of p.c. where you actually become the star or stars of the piece you know you're really the victim(s) of this shitty society that kind of thing but I guess because I've gone three or four days now without my depression drugs I've changed my mind so fuck you(s) p.s. if you can read and you see this printed anywhere and have any suggestions about this poem hey just let me know I'll maybe work off the rough edges just for you motherfucker Joel Chace's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in print and electronic magazines such as the following: The Seneca Review, The Connecticut Poetry Review, Lost and Found Times, Tomorrow, No Exit, Pembroke Magazine, Crazy Horse, Kudos (England), Porto-Franco (Romania), Ninth St. Labs, Recursive Angel, Highbeams, Switched-on-Gutenberg, Kudzu, Pif, The Morpo Review, Snakeskin, The Experioddicist, Big Bridge, potepoetzineseven, and potepoettextsixteen. Northwoods Press, in 1984, published his collection of poems entitled The Harp Beyond the Wall . Persephone Press, in 1992, published his second book, Red Ghost, which won the first Persephone Press Book Award and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in that same year. Big Easy Press, in 1995, brought out a collection entitled Court of Ass-Sizes. In June, 1997, came a full-length collection, Twentieth Century Deaths, from Singular Speech Press. The Melancholy of Yorick and maggnummappuss (nominated for a 1998 Pushcart Prize) appeared in 1998, and Naluca Rosie--a bi-lingual edition of his poems--has just been published in Romania. Uncertain Relations was published in June by Birch Brook Press. Greatest Hits is forthcoming from Pudding House Publications.
He is presently serving as Poetry Editor for the Antietam Review
(Hagerstown, Maryland), as well as for the electronic magazine 5_Trope |