PoetryPause Blog – Matthew Ashbrook

She was tall
And she was lean,
Freckled with
The Irish gene.

Quick to smile,
Quick to laugh;
At thirty-one
She joined my staff.

For a decade
Side by side
Up and down
On every ride.

A melody
Upon the staff;
In the end,
A Bell Curve graph.

Books and movies,
Songs and verse
Start and end,
It’s nature’s curse.

And that was that,
The whole in half –
No more freckles,
No more laugh.

He’s carved out a spot,
A nest for his bones;
Removed all the twigs,
The sticks and the stones.

A surface as smooth
As a road freshly paved
And scented the spot
To assure it’d be saved.

In the dappling of sunlight
He peruses his realm;
A confident dog
In charge, at the helm.

We all should find fortune
This canine has found;
A place to call home
To which we are bound.

Where resting comes easy
And fears are at bay;
A place we can ponder
Our birth and decay.

The musty scent of an old pool hall,
Where smoke still hangs in the air and all;
The fabric worn from the table tops
By years of use and pool hall props.

Where rough-hewn men would wield the cues,
The corner juke-box boomed the blues
And blue jeaned girls in halter tops
Nursed the beverage brewed from hops.

The faded posters, parched and dry,
Reflect the time of times gone by;
Farah Fawcett, Indian bikes
Long before the friends and likes.

An ancient pack of Marlboros sits
Upon the counter where time quits;
Yellowed now like those who smoked
The cancer sticks that smokers choked.

Remnants of the seasons passed,
Preserved in dust like sculptures cast;
The juke box silent like a muse
Still can fill a room with blues.

I like the way I feel
When she’s sitting next to me;
It’s not a feeling of what’s gone
Or a future that might be;
A feeling of some comfort
And contentment through and through;
A feeling of well-being
Though defining’s hard to do.
Kind of like a promise lost
When days turn into night
But just as it is getting dark
She reaches for the light.

The time is drawing near,
The dog must go outside;
To take a little walk,
Relieving his inside.

But now the snow is falling
And the wind is rather brisk,
I’d like to wait ‘til summer
But I can’t take the risk.

He’s small, his bladder likewise,
So he can’t wait that long
But still procrastinating
The waiting I prolong.

He’s dancing by the doorway,
He whines to beckon me –
‘Just a few more minutes
And we’ll go find a tree.’

He cocks his head to listen,
To understand my plea;
‘Let’s get your coat and mittens
Or sorry you will be.’

We do for others often
Some things we’d rather not;
But when you care for others,
This is what you’ve got.

Time to stuff a turkey’s corpse
With sage and stale bread;
He won’t mind a bit at all
‘Cause after all he’s dead.

All his feathers plucked and pulled,
He’s naked on the stove;
His neck and giblets found inside,
A hidden treasure trove.

Through the body’s cavity
You reach ‘til deep within
And fumble ‘round his empty chest
Where once his lungs had been.

Pulling out the bag of guts
To cook or to discard;
A message from the now deceased –
The turkey’s calling card.

Cremated in the oven’s wrath,
The hours pass you by;
‘Til all the body fluids drain
While all your guests standby.

Retrieve the largest knife you own
And slice it through his skin;
Then divvy up the bird’s bequest
And feed him to your kin.

When I was growing up a boy
The races all were known
By color that their skin evoked,
The shading and the tone.

The natives of America
Were known for their red skin,
The Asians from the Orient,
Their shade a yellow spin.

Hispanics every shade of brown,
And Africans were black,
And marauding Europeans were
White for pigment lacked.

None of course the color called,
‘Twas just a useful tool –
Pointed out the origins
Not meant as being cruel.

Offensive I found at the time
A simple child’s toy –
Crayola Crayons multi-pack
That brought so many joy.

For inside each and every box
A color wrapped and bound;
Labeled with the signature,
A crayon flesh was found.

As a child, I found this strange
As everybody’s skin
Was flesh of equal quantity
Though many not my twin.

The crayon mimicked white man’s skin,
Not yellow, red or black –
As if the only flesh there was
Was that upon my back.

I doubt that crayon bears that name
Today as once it did,
But it disturbed me at the time
When I was just a kid.

Identifying people now
By color isn’t right,
But somehow through the changing times
I’m referenced yet as white.

So heretofore I call on you
To tag me with the hash –
No longer reference me as white
But simply Euro-trash.

See the little arrow?
The little tiny dot?
The sea of black and blue
The little bitty spot?

The foreground is a spaceship,
And Saturn’s golden rings;
The dot the earth and home to
The mightiest of kings.

The conqueror and conquered,
The wealthy and the pawn,
And every petty grievance
That mankind ever spawned.

Novelty eggs
On the ceiling above
An old-fashioned stove
Where cooking was love
Where bacon from hogs
Kept out in a pen
Would deep fry the eggs
From one of their hens
That Virgil would tend
Along with the crops
And baling hay
No resting, no stops,
Having toiled all day
Doing steel mill work
With his twinkling eyes
And an all-knowing smirk,
While Mabel kept home
Making butter and bread
And fresh chicken fried
That kept us all fed
On a farm playing host
To cattle and pigs
And guineas and horses
And old oil rigs
Where a Piper Cup fell
One day from the sky
And explored what was left
With the wonders and whys
The stuff that comprises
The man that I am
Their souls full of grace
And gentle as lambs.

In the vacuum of departure,
Your presence becomes thought;
Distilled into the memory,
The presence you had brought.

In a town of too few people,
Fewer can be felt;
And loss intensely written
On those to whom it’s dealt.

Upon the vapor trailing,
Behind the parting jet,
The sediment of spirit
And you, I’ll not forget.