Category Archives: Uncategorized

W E Patterson's avatar

Working night security

. Poetry, Uncategorized . , . 2 Comments

the foot soldiers of the packing plant

march with heads bowed

destined for the graveyard shift

and I watch them file by

through the west gate

of the plant in South St. Paul

as I sit accompanied by my badge

and other accouterments of my position

dressed in my finely pressed

ShurFire Security uniform

wearing my best black patent leather

Red Wing steel toed shoes

and I watch them carefully

all of them

the reluctant executioners

some carrying vegetarian fare

in coal black lunch pails

as they crush out

half smoked cigarettes

in the sand buckets that stand

outside of the guard shack

directly beneath the sign that reads

ABSOLUTELY NO SMOKING BEYOND THIS POINT

and in some cases they aggressively

but seldom carelessly

punch time cards into

the unforgiving grey metal clock

11:58PM … clackity clack it goes one time

11:59PM … clackity clack it  goes another

a girl in a denim jacket

blue jeans and knee high gum-rubber boots

pushes her black horned rim glasses

higher on her nose and looks straight ahead

looking frail and out of place

in the pale green light

doomed time card in hand

12:01AM … clackity clack

she’s docked in what could have been

a simple twist of fate

brought on perhaps by

a crying baby – unsavory husband

overheated car

an unforgiving day

“Hey,” yells the foreman

“you playin’ with yourself out there?”

tardy girl shuffles in like

she didn’t hear it

W E Patterson's avatar

So you call yourself a writer

. Uncategorized, Writing . , , . 2 Comments

“The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.”

—Pico Iyer

In thumbing through my writer’s notebook, I came across the above quote by the British essayist and novelist of Indian descent, Pico Iyer. The quote has been hanging out in the coffee stained margins of my writer’s notebook for months now. Then as now, I am not sure what to make of it. At first the quote did not resonate with me. Were these words the overindulgent musings of a man who is already a successful writer? Or was it perhaps some form of backhanded condescension to the obscure and struggling writers of the world (of whom I count myself a member).   After all, what would a writer be if not a writer?  Would he or she be a plumber – a dietician – NSA analyst?

“What did you do all day dear?” asks my wife.

“Well sweetheart, I completed the final chapter of that novel I have labored over for the past fourteen months.”

“That’s wonderful,” she says.

“No biggie,” I reply. “That’s what a good electrician does – write novels.”

Of course I am being facetious here, but I have to ask myself if I could work on a piece of fiction, non-fiction, poem, or even a technical document and not think of myself as a writer? In fact such thinking flies in the face of everything that I’ve heard about how we should view ourselves in order to achieve success. Remember the “so you think, so you shall be” philosophy, popularized in self-help books, tapes, DVDs and infomercials? Whatever happened to visualization? We all remember that, right? Close your eyes and imagine yourself wealthy, a non-smoker, twenty pounds slimmer, a confident speaker, the life of the party. Whatever you want to be, just make it happen by believing it so much it happens.

A number of months ago, I attended a lecture by a moderately successful writer, not a writer in Mr. Iyer’s league, but certainly a writer who has achieved a modicum of literary success. This writer suggested that to achieve success we should begin to think of ourselves as ‘writers’. He suggested that writer wannabes have business cards printed, websites published, and at all times think of themselves as ‘writers’ no matter what their profession. He said that writers not writing but are working at non-writing jobs, are simply miscast, and like starving actors waiting tables, they are simply waiting for the world to realize their talent.

And so, Mr. Iyer’s words rang hollow with me and I did push them aside for awhile, until I happened across them again recently. Then it occurred to me that perhaps Iyer is referring to the writer’s ego, and not the actual writing profession. Perhaps by putting aside the ego, a writer can more fully concentrate upon the writing. In any case, that is where I am with this now…if you have any thoughts, please feel free to comment here.

W E Patterson's avatar

On a balmy afternoon in Ft. Lauderdale after the fall

. Uncategorized . , , , . 4 Comments

I write:

“the bees from the hive,

won’t come home alive”

I am sitting, knees up

on a chaise lounge

poolside

golf pencil in  hand

writing doggerel poetry

on the back of an envelope

supported by a cocktail menu

that reads (I quote):

Little Ottawa Motel

Your home in The States

The home of the 5 dollar

Dirty Canadian Martini

Tiki bar open till 2AM

Karaoke Saturdays 5 – 7

“they’ve lost their wings,

in a million stings”

it’s four and a half weeks

since Candice went away

to Duluth, to live with

her therapist, Ralph

and 16 days after

Mr. Waters had to be put down

due to a liver condition

and I’d given away

a full box of Kitty-Krunches

and half dozen bags

of Walter Henshaw’s cat nip

to the lady downstairs

with the Siamese

“they’ve buzzed their last,

in a final repast”

a Cuban girl named Debbie

drops a rum and coke off

at my chair and I say to her

that Debbie is not a Cuban name

I demand that she come clean

she smiles, and says if I come back

after 5 she’ll tell me a secret

but she’s full of it – just like my poems

then she takes a ten from me

and walks away toward her next victim

a terribly inflated and bleached

and beached

elderly gentleman

in a lime green thong

“and they now join their brethren,

in insect heaven”

I drain the cocktail, then

wad the envelope

poem and all

into a tight ball

drop it into the empty plastic cup

and hail Debbie

for another round.

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Jimmy Stewart’s Dog, Beau

. Uncategorized . 5 Comments

I don’t usually reblog but I am making an exception today. This was originally posted on “Shootin’ the Breeze”. If you’re a dog lover, you’re going to tear up at the end of this one. But don’t just read the poem. Play the clip of Jimmy Stewart reading the poem he wrote about Beau. This starts out humorous, but takes a sudden turn at the end…

–Ed

Colorado Cowboy's avatarShootin' the Breeze

I have written many posts about our dog named Beau.  Jimmy Stewart, the actor, had a similar dog with the same name.  He wrote a poem that he read on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show back in 1981.  It is funny and more.  Click on the link below.  I expect that you will be glad to have the experience.

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W E Patterson's avatar

mortality

. Uncategorized . , , , , , . Leave a comment

You don’t find him

he finds you

like a lottery lawyer.

You start out on Sunday

early in the morning

before sunrise

you haul your ass out of bed

last night’s debauchery with Leah

a fog shrouded  memory

she’s face down now, snoring

and you’re hoping she doesn’t

remember all of it

but it’s a new day,  so you…

pull your jogging shorts

from the dryer

lace up your one hundred fifty dollar

cross-trainers

tell yourself that with vitamin B1

and a pot of coffee you’ll be good as new

and don’t forget that

pomegranate juice was handed down

from heaven

as an elixir for the decadent

and then…

you kiss the dog goodbye

crank Commander Cody on the iPod

and next thing you know

you’re jogging down the 4-lane highway

past the freshly mowed alfalfa field

blood pumping through your veins

and pressing on bravely

through barely passable arteries

Hot Rod Lincoln is racing

through your ear drums

and you are hauling rear for the mailbox

a mile past the house

where the kid

that you’ve forgotten to pay

for the past six weeks

is supposed to leave

the Philadelphia Inquirer.

But halfway there it happens

a shin splint

a muscle spasm

you’re cursing – kicking the blacktop

with your one good leg, so

you hop back home to  the porch

you sit in the swing

you kick off  the cross trainers

“damn” you say

a glitch in the training plan

and then he’s there

standing behind you

three feet behind your left shoulder

like your old man

the day you tried to snitch

a PBR from the basement fridge

when you were fifteen  years old

and…

you recognize the arrogant bastard:

Mr. Mortality.

W E Patterson's avatar

Baggage

. Uncategorized . , , . 4 Comments

The lady who rents,

Space 560C -,

That’s the space next to mine,

At the North Miami,

Rent-a-Space,

Unloads her stuff,

From a Toyota truck,

One that has,

A crushed-right-front fender,

And a missing end gate,

She tells me that she borrowed

The truck from her brother,

To haul her shit up,

From Florida City,

Now, she’s sweating in,

One hundred sixty seven degree,

July heat,

That boils in from the Everglades.

She swears effortlessly,

f-this, and f-that,

She lugs out boxes,

Like a longshoreman,

Jesus saves, reads the tattoo,

On her right arm,

Jerod R.I.P. on her left arm.

I ask her if I can help,

But she says no,

It’s just a box of books,

Crap she can’t bear to part with,

From her first marriage to,

The fucked up history teacher,

And I say that I have books too,

And she says books are not really,

Important after the fact,

After you’ve read them all,

They’re all the same.

She says that leaning on the hood,

Of the Toyota – smoking,

“Harmonicas and magic wands”

Reads the next box,

“Toddler to 2  yr” reads another,

“Letters from J — People mag,”

“crap from Jacksonville house”

“shit from Pop”

I help her carry a heavy box:

“pensacola dishes”,

Should’ve thrown these out in 1986 she says.

W E Patterson's avatar

Canoeing on the Delaware with Christine

. Poetry, Uncategorized . , , , . Leave a comment

Last night I dreamed one of those dreams,

the kind that doesn’t go away when you wake up,

it was early autumn,

and there I was: drifting down the Delaware,

in a rented canoe, with sweet Christine,

a girl who loved to canoe,

and sail, and play badminton and lacrosse,

unlike myself – fresh from office servitude,

a cube dweller,

an indentured servant to a chair.

I study her closely from behind,

and watch in wonder, as she dips her paddle,

so gently into the great Delaware River,

like she is afraid to hurt the water.

We’re heading south, mid-stream,

a mile or so past Dingmans Ferry,

“on to Washington’s Crossing,” I yell,

“here’s to the father of our country,” she shouts back,

“a merry old soul was he,” I shout out to no one in particular,

we’re throwing caution to the wind,

I notice the stencil on the back of her seat,

NO ALCOHOL ALLOWED ABOARD THIS VESSEL

” what’s up with THAT shit?” I say,

she laughs and

then I tell her she looks just like Pocahontas,

from the back that is,

with her black hair pulled back,

Christine: “Aye Aye Captain Smith,”

I steer us deftly around a rock,

dodge a log, put my back into it,

Pocahontas doesn’t break rhythm,

my heart pounds – my back aches,

“You having fun back there, Jake?”

she says that just to taunt me,

she knows I’m trying to find a beer in the cooler,

with my free hand,

but then she is gone,

so is the river,

so is the canoe,

I’m staring at a white ceiling,

right leg busted in nine places,

strung up like a Christmas goose,

pins and plumbing running every which way,

pans and pulleys,

morphine drip and a nurse from hell,

a doc with no manners at all,

let alone bedside ones,

but, I see the face of my sweet Pocahontas,

as I drift away again,

so glad to see  her face,

instead of the face,

of the bastard,

who cut me off on the I-80 overpass.

W E Patterson's avatar

Considering Facebook

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A colleague of mine, a very technically savvy guy, a gentleman some years younger than myself, told me last week that he did not have, nor had he ever had, a Facebook account. Even though his own wife, his 75 year old mother, and his two teenage daughters, all had Facebook accounts, he was resistant, and when I pressed him for why he’d never opted for an account, he told me he didn’t have time for such foolishness. What I wanted to say was, why is your time so much more valuable than that of your wife, your mother and your very own offspring, but before I could say that, he was gone, leaving me standing in the proverbial dust contemplating my own relationship with social media, Facebook in particular.

Having been a semi-faithful user of Facebook, almost from the start, I confess to having a love/hate relationship with it. Actually, love/hate is far too strong of a term to attribute to an online social networking service – maybe “like/don’t care so much for it” is better. Best not to give too much power to the relatively insignificant. In any event, for those readers who happen to have come of age after Al Gore laid down the information superhighway, let me briefly outline the way life was for us before we all became so interconnected.

During our elementary/high school/college years, and on into the work world, we made friends (or we tried to make friends). Sometimes we made friends that we stayed in touch with for the remainder of our adult lives, and in some cases we even married our friends, but in many cases, we lost touch with them. Upon parting with our friends, we would exchange telephone numbers and addresses, and say to one another that we would write and call, but lots of times that never ever happened. Life became hectic. People moved, and telephone numbers changed. Sometimes a letter to an old friend would be returned as undeliverable, or a call to an old friend would be made to a disconnected telephone.

As years ground on, with no word from our old friends, we would reminisce about them over coffee, or cocktails. We would think about so-and-so, and we would wonder if she ever made it into medical school, or if he ever wrote that novel, or if she ever opened that organic restaurant in the Catskills, or if he/she had really ever married that guy/girl that he/she dumped us for…

We would wonder such things, and occasionally we would find out the answers. Sometimes, we would get a card around the holidays from an old friend who had somehow unearthed our address. Or, perhaps late at night, we would get a call from the truck stop up on the Interstate. An old friend, having recognized the exit for our town had pulled off the road, and after finding our number in the local telephone directory (the one that was bolted and chained to the phone booth), had called us and we’d chatted for fifteen or twenty minutes about old times until he/she ran out of change.

Old Friends From Out Of The Blue (OFFOOTB), that’s what I called them. And on the flip side of it, we too were OFFOOTB to others, dropping in and out of old friends lives sporadically and when we did so, we were always on our best behavior, always wanting to put our best foot forward.

In those days, the following conversation would NEVER have occurred:

Phone rings. I answer.

“Hi Ed!”

“Hi.”

“It’s me, Ralph. Ralph Thornwhistle.”

“Oh, hi,” I say, trying to remember if I owe anybody named Ralph any money.

“You remember me, right? From Mr. Bricker’s 3rd period biology class – 10th grade.”

“Oh hi Ralph. What’s it been, 42, 43 years now?”

“More like 45 old pal. Hey – do you want to hear the top ten reasons why Obamacare sucks…”

Ok, so maybe my example is a little extreme, but similar encounters seem to happen often online. I mention it here to illustrate how I am starting to view Facebook – I now know far too much about people that I’d almost forgotten about. And it’s not that I don’t care about maintaining contact with friends and family scattered afar, because I do. If there is one thing that Facebook, as well as other social media like Twitter and LinkedIn are doing very well, it is changing the entire dynamic of how we interact with each other on a long term basis. And if I had, in fact, stayed in contact with (fictitious) Ralph Thornwhistle for the past 45 years, I probably would not be as put off by his political views as I would be if they were suddenly dropped on me from out of nowhere, after accepting him as a Facebook friend. If he and I had kept up with each other over the years, maybe we would be friends in spite of our differences (always the best), or perhaps not.

Marriage counselors, family therapists, as well as pastors, priests, rabbis and anyone else who is in the business of listening to peoples marital woes report a surge in infidelity brought on by people who have hooked up with old lovers thanks to Facebook. And I suppose there is something to that, as it is hard to hook up with those we can’t locate, and Facebook has changed that. I know of two marriages that ended due to cheating spouses who ‘found ex-lovers’ on Facebook. Personally, I feel it is unfair to blame an online social networking service for marital discord. After all, people tempted to cheat have been doing so for…maybe 10,000 years.

But sometimes I do find that I would rather have just remembered some friends the way that I remember them, and not as I find them today. I also imagine that some of them feel the same about me.

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Autumn leaves

. Uncategorized . , . 10 Comments

The first leaves of autumn

Gather under the empty, grey, park benches

That are arranged so neatly

Beneath the one hundred year old oak trees

In the county courthouse yard.

I ask the waitress at the cafe on the corner

Where they’ve all gone –

The old men who used to sit out

On the now forsaken grey benches

Every day that it didn’t rain

They were there until the first snow

The ones who still wore overalls and work boots

Even in retirement – in less than perfect conditions

The ones who carried pocket watches on Brockway fobs

And smoked pipes packed with Prince Albert

Or Muriel cigars or Lucky Strike cigarettes

As they discussed…

the drought and the flood

the County Attorney and the last election

the heat and the cold

the John Birch Society and the N.F.O.

the Warren Court and Richard Nixon

the checkout girl at the Save-a-Lot

the Chicago Bears and the price of gas

the price of haircuts, and Kaiser-Frazer cars

the good war and the bad war

the new war and next war

the wife they’d lost to cancer

the son they’d lost to drink

the daughter they’d lost to Jesus

the friend they’d lost to carelessness

the farm they’d lost to the bank

the life they’d lost to toil

the dreams they’d plowed under

…those men…

the waitress shrugs

and says that nobody like that has sat on those benches

in over thirty five years.

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The Victory Cafe

. Uncategorized . . 4 Comments

Forty minutes before the bus from Omaha rolls up,

At five oh five AM, I crack the first egg,

On the grill at the Victory Cafe,

The owner, Gracie, she’s owned the place since 1943,

She stares at me from the register – a freshly lit Bel Air in her lips,

But I am responsible and I know my eggs.

“It’s Kool inside” says the sign on the front door,

Two farmers walk in, in tin cloth coats and four buckle boots,

They order the morning special and talk about oats,

They talk about the price of hay.

They smoke Camel cigarettes and they order up…

Three more eggs hit the grill – and half a slab of bacon.

I light a king sized Viceroy.

A trucker from Missouri takes his place at the counter,

He’s fresh off an all night run to the River, and he wants coffee,

He orders a tinfoil pack of No Doze and tells Rita the waitress,

That he makes two hundred fifteen dollars a week,

And if she ever wants to leave her old man – that silent pacer,

The usher at the Antioch Baptist Church, and run away,

To Saint Joe, where she could have such a fine life raising babies,

And raising hell in the shadow of the Missouri River,

That she should say so.

Not to beat around the bush.

But Rita is quiet and she’s a shy girl,

She hasn’t the need for the Missouri River wild life.

She is quite fine at the Antioch Baptist Church.