Post by LeoVictorBriones (poetremains) on Dec 13, 2007 17:43:11 GMT -5
In the left corner of the universe,
she’s the gal in Boston Red Sox hat
munching on Cheez Doodles,
mumbling under breath, “Bambino, my ass.”
She exclaims, “Baseball is akin to divinity.”
And no one within a thousand square blocks
of her dare disagrees.
She doesn’t know how it happened,
only that she woke one day and everything seemed
like Walden’s Pond, in just the way Thoreau described.
On the way in there were plenty of strange things to talk about—
meeting a old bearded Walt Whitman singing songs to himself.
She stopped and asked why he didn’t just walk through
the luminescent arches, “Shiny as pearl” she says,
“and it’s only a few feet away?”
Whitman pulls her over and whispers in a sort of fear,
“God’s pissed off. He says I was way too into myself.
But he’s giving me credit for loving ole Abe Lincoln so,
he wants to talk again in seven weeks.”
She smiles, thinks.
The Red Sox won the World Series
and God’s a Catholic.
I knew it!
Right before the dappled pearl gates, she stops,
says out loud, “I don’t know if there will blues on the other side,
can I have one last song. Suddenly, from every angle, every side
she hears B.B. King belts out Riding with the King. She dances
with a rhythm rarely seen among the Irish. Then she’s done.
It’s anti-climatic as she walks through the huge arches.
She’s calm and hardly notices as the fog recedes.
Then in the distance it’s the strangest things—
brown paper bags everywhere.
They’re marked #1, #2, #3, #4…all the way until #250.
On a big granite boulder a handsome,
roughneck of a man is sitting opening up #58.
She looks over and begins to cry.
But this is no ordinary cry, it’s a cry like the silver river of ages.
Her tears stream and stream
and when they touch the manl he looks up.
“Maggie,” he says as if he cannot see her yet.
Only feel her spirit roll over him
like a warm New England afternoon in late Spring.
“Kenny” she says, “Whatever are you doing?”
Kenny answers, “I’ve read them all up to #58. They’re so beautiful.”
She holds her palm to her cheek. She doesn’t know what to say.
Kenny looks up and like a nineteen year-old
in college English Literature class and says,
“I have a question about this one in the blue bag #58.
Is this one about the bald, arrogant guy. Right?”
She answers, “Ken’s not arrogant.”
“No, no” Kenny says, “the other one.”
Not sure, she pulls the poem from the blue paper bag and reads.
She sighs, “Oh, the Age of Romanticism.
Kenny he’s not really arrogant. Just a bit over confident.”
“Kind of like me?” Kenny laughs.
“Yeah” she says, “Kid of like you.”
Then she smiles as wide as a galaxy.
Tehn from every angle, every side—
Muddy Waters begins to wail Trouble no more
in a real bluesy, heavenly sort of way.
