Category Archives: Poetry

W E Patterson's avatar

the bill

. Poetry . , . Leave a comment

I dare you to come after me
I dare you…
…to taunt me from the shadows
of the side alley on Williams Street
after I have been drinking at that
no-name joint next door to the
pizzeria that’s open all night
and I dare you to try to find me
in the morning when sun is
five minutes from rising
and the last hangers-on have
toddled off to the serenity of
comfortable beds and crisp sheets
and morning love
and champagne cocktails
and I dare you to locate me
through some long forgotten
personal ad in a bankrupt
magazine,
or from the 1978 Mankato, Minnesota
telephone directory
or through some
mutual friend whom
I haven’t spoken to in 15 years
or some
long retired
derelict watchman
from a Denver train yard
who reported my death
two decades ago
and I dare you to show up
where you aren’t welcome
poking and prodding me
telling me I have to
pay up one last time
submit to a final examination
so I can make plans
for the next transaction
and I’ll watch idly by
as you exhibit your superiority
in matters such as these
So
I dare you to locate me
when I don’t want to be found
when I want to be left alone
But you will find me in the end
you’re a treacherous old
merchant.

W E Patterson's avatar

thirty eight fifty

. Poetry, Uncategorized, Writing . 2 Comments

One day last month

I put on a clean shirt

shaved and said

that today

I would write:

The Most Profound Poem

ever written:

so

I left 2 dollars on the

nightstand (for the maid)

and walked across A1A

to the Bamboo Bar

and ordered

the vanilla Eclair

from Claire

and I said:

today, great words

will be written about

important causes —

— causes

that must be addressed

and it will ALL start here

on the back of a cocktail napkin

conceived

in a wave of post-blackout

clarity,

such words will

inevitably

be read in Congress

and met with pious nods

and quoted by the President

before being met with

self-righteous indignation

by members of the opposing party

and decried as heresy

by the Vatican

and cause

street signs to be desecrated

in the Third World

and

billboards to be burned

and words of protest

to be painted by rebels

in lime green paint

across a railroad car in Honduras

and to appear

on the rear window of a 1954 Plymouth

on Obidos Street in Havana.

and nailed to the door of a police station

in East Timor

but Claire simply nods

and

sits my coffee before me

on a plain napkin

with a bill for 38.50

from last night.

W E Patterson's avatar

hammered at the intervention

. Poetry . , , . 2 Comments

I was hammered

at the intervention

drunk on a

bourbon bender

–walking in

at first light of day

into a

crowded room

crammed with the pious

the teetotalers,

the caffeine junkies

the newly saved

the members of the clergy

the neglected son

the vindictive daughter

the condescending,

next door stoop sitters

and

the supercilious shrew

from the paint store

who’d dropped in

to watch the mop up

to see the boss

meet his match

ungloved at last

there to see the

New Reality unveiled

when the old bastard

finally gets his

and to watch

(happily)

as he’s driven away

where Jim Beam

can’t find him

and when it is time

I clear my throat

and carefully construct

a most eloquent

rendition of the facts

at the end of which

I wish Russell well

in his recovery.

W E Patterson's avatar

washed up

. Poetry, Uncategorized . , , , . 2 Comments

                        i

when i was about nine years old

I asked my old man

about a guy I saw on television

talking to Howard Cosell

He’s a washed up fighter

my old man said

he took so many punches

that it scrambled his brains

was he ever good? I asked

yeah, in the beginning he was good

but they pounded the crap out of him

so bad that he couldn’t win big fights

so he only took little fights

because he knew he could win them

but after awhile,

he couldn’t win those either

so he’d just go in the ring

and wait for the first punch to land

then he’d go down and kiss the mat

playing it safe, just like he was told to do

by the evil bastards who used him up

and when that didn’t work anymore

he quit being a fighter

and now all he has left is Vegas–

maybe some gambling joint will hire him

to pump palms at the door

or smoke cigars with East Coast mobsters

or show up at restaurant openings with strippers

 

ii

so I’m forty five years old

and I’m thinking about the fighter

and my old man, who’s been dead

for twenty three years

as I sit in front of the Olivetti portable typewriter

on the porch of the farmhouse

up in the Poconos

and Leah comes home

from work at the diner at 1:30AM

and asks how the writing is going

and I tell her

I haven’t written a line all day

nor did I write a line yesterday

or the day before that

and the rejection notice

that I received two weeks ago

is still attached to the door of the refrigerator

under the Carlsbad Caverns magnet

where I plan to leave it, until the next one comes

at which time it shall be removed

to join the assemblage of others

in the knife drawer in the kitchen

You think you’re washed up don’t you

she says to me, and I tell her that:

I have had too many blows to the head lately

so it may be time,

to notify Vegas, and let them know

I’m on the market.

nonsense Leah says,

you’re germaphobic

you’re allergic to smoke

and you’re going nowhere near

a restaurant opening.

 

W E Patterson's avatar

the last poet in North America

. Poetry . 4 Comments

I heard on the evening news
that the last remaining poet
in North America
had gone missing
after losing his key
and locking himself out
and they showed a shadowy
and unidentifiable figure
taken from a seventh floor vantage
— a tortured, lost soul
wandering at 3AM —
in the East Village
the poor penniless bastard
slumping along
with a messenger bag
slung over his left shoulder
presumably packed with
unfinished verse
his head presumably packed with
unfinished verse
not to mention deep concerns
for his cat, Winslow
his angelfish, Clyde
his three ex-wives
and his first edition copy
— of a volume of rhyming verse
by Sara Teasdale
but my friend Alicia says
I am being presumptuous
in assuming that the last poet
in North America is male
and that she is certain
that her friend Cali
a fine poet who is on
a year long sabbatical
in the Dominican Republic
who despises despotic rulers
and is a champion of human rights
and an author of neglected verse
is the last true poet in North America
and if she returns
(a matter up for discussion)
it will be on her terms.

W E Patterson's avatar

My guitar

. Poetry . , , , . 5 Comments

I bought a guitar

for six bucks

from Santiago

my neighbor from Columbia

who was selling everything

in his overstocked garage

so he could buy a used Hyundai

for his daughter

for her seventeenth birthday

“You need a lawnmower, Sport?”

he yells to me

as I walk my dog past his house

at half past nine on Saturday morning

“such a beautiful machine,”

I shake my head

in terror at the thought

of mowing the goddamned grass

he goes on:

“You need hedge clippers?…three bucks!!

CHEAP…amigo”

fuck the hedge I say to myself

so

I let the dog pee in the bush beside

his house…

then it comes:

“hey…you want paint?”

but I tell him

I hate painting

and I’ve come to like

the lime green paint

that’s peeling off of my house

in strips…

(it’s good for five more years

maybe more)

then he tells me he has:

a Portuguese Bible,

a convection oven,

a five ton floor jack,

a ten ton box

of romance novels,

and a Henry Hill, autographed

ice pick

plus

snow tires for my Subaru

and

the third season of Dallas

on VHS…

then he tells me about

the guitar?

 

so I bought it — for six bucks and I took it home

…the guitar

and for two and a half hours

I sat on the back porch with the dog

and put my bare feet on the railing

and pretended I was Ernest Tubb

singing

Walking the Floor Over You

plucking at the strings with my good hand

until my wife came home

and reminded me

that I don’t

know how to play

the guitar.

 

W E Patterson's avatar

bus to Laramie?

. Poetry . , . 4 Comments

I used to walk, to the mill
where I worked
trodding:
six blocks up Kandleman
to sixth, past the Tremont Bar
where a hooker named Janie
would shout
from the bar stool nearest the door
on summer mornings
when the doors were open
and you’d smell disinfectant
from the night’s ‘mop-out’
mixed with the stench of old beer
and cigarette smoke
and charcoal
and she’d act as if she knew me so well:
“hey, Big Shot, come on back here,
play me some music on the juke
…and buy us round,”
but I’d laugh at her
and I’d laugh at the others who were there
for role call
at the seven AM opener
and I would rush past them
black lunch box in hand
up Charleston — uphill to the end
breathing hard…
to the Trailways station
where the grey behemoths slept
at idle…
…Laramie…
…Salt Lake…
…Billings…
read the destination signs
and sometimes I would wave
to the people aboard,
and imagine them running
from
missing husbands
demeaning jobs
or their vanished lover…
…you know, the unvarnished one
who’d stayed long enough
to make a mess…
..like the one that she’d
married far too young
(six weeks shy of her nineteenth birthday)
to the old wino, who cared
too much for cards
and drink
and
smug introspection
and
cowardly destruction
and you think now
that
perhaps
she is in Laramie
wondering what the hell
had taken her
so long
to leave.

 

W E Patterson's avatar

my last cigarette

. Poetry, Uncategorized . , , , , . 7 Comments

last night I dreamed of you

wept for you, called out to you

but prayed fervently

that you would never

resurrect,

not you…

…you one hundred millimeter

mentholated bastard,

because I see you yet

in the last moments of

disintegration

your heinous life, snuffed

and ending in a bitter blue haze

that steams forth, as you lie

crippled beyond repair

your slender body

crushed and fragmented

into a cluster of a half dozen

tiny glowing cinders,

embers that gleam

like demons’ eyes

phosphorescent

and dying

as they devolve into ash

and join the others

in the black, hard-plastic ashtray

that sits beside a white, bone china mug…

“Patty’s Diner”

“Open all Nite”

“Since 1955”

it says on the mug

a mug that’s beside

(and slightly to the left of)

a plate of scrambled eggs

and overdone potatoes…

…the platter uneaten

as Charlie Pride sings

on the tablejuke

“Just Between You and Me”

and I declare that tonight

on April the eighteenth

nineteen hundred and eighty two

at ten thirty seven PM

we are officially over.

W E Patterson's avatar

beach day

. Poetry . , , , , . 7 Comments

oh, you habitual absentee

you flagrant devotee to the sun

to the sand, to the salt air

you – the steadfast student of the

Royal Tern and the Western Sandpiper

who dares to lie about your

mid-day, mid-week

forbidden trysts

upon the sands of Pompano Beach

your face buried in the folds

of your Polar Fleece solar blanket

your golden hair scattered – unfettered

across your bronze, barren shoulders,

your lavender bikini askew and terribly

undone in a lone act of worship

to the Sun god

and you say to me that

the damned Bookshop deserves to be shuttered

because today…

…no one requires another second hand

romance novel by Nora Roberts, nor

Tom Clancy thriller,

nor used-boorish-business-book by

a self absorbed New York

billionaire

nor a moldy volume of earthy poems

by some

sodden old New England poet

nor a slim volume of

waggish verse

penned by a decrepit old beatnik

nor a magazine with prattling

celebrity scuttlebutt –

for

as you tell me so often –

and quite gently

that our days are measured

often in inches

and not in yards.

W E Patterson's avatar

the defiant

. Poetry . , , , . Leave a comment

I watch them in the afternoon

when the days of spring

bend close to summer

and I see them, in banter

flocked together

at the Bamboo Bar

in scuffed sandals and

Bermuda shorts and

nondescript dark glasses

drinking rum punch from

pink plastic cups

…they’re…

unruffled and warming themselves

seeking relief from the worst sorts

of high end dislocation

and seeking solace in diluted drinks and

in the company

of those of a feather

they’re the last of the snowbirds

…the ones who hang on, far too long

waiting…

for word from Grosse Pointe

from Upper Saddle River

from Cambridge

and the far shores

of the Delaware

to tell them that the final drabs of winter

have escaped

and cross-pollination is afoot

as the first daffodils of spring shoot

from the ground of

Chestnut Hill,

and Cherry Hill

and Beacon Hill.

and the pink dogwoods

are abloom in Brigantine,

and in Sea Gate, Brooklyn

And although the update is clear

it is unenforceable, and perchance

totally ignored

by these reluctant birds

the defiant and liberated.