BELOW THE FLOOR

I live in the basement
beneath the footsteps.
The furnace whistles to me on cold days.
The washing machine hums to me at night.

 My ex-wife lives one floor above,
10,000 miles away.
My daughters with wings
sail between heaven and earth.
Getting honey from the clouds
and iron from the brown soil.

My possessions are ideas.
My lovers names all rhyme.
My conquests are fictionalized.

 The shadow side of  home sweet home,
where a giant prowls naked
beneath the floor and ideas
grow during intercourse.

BIRCH STREET

Sitting on the porch outside my walk up with Elaine
watching the Friday night action on Birch   Street.
Southside’s so humid the air weeps.

Me and Elaine are  weeping too.
Silent tears of solidarity.
She’s so full of prozac she can’t sleep and
I’m so drunk I can’t think straight.
Her depression and my beer free our tears
from the jail we carry in our hearts. 

Neighbors and strangers pass by in the water vapor.
Walking in twos and fours. Driving by in souped up
cars and wrecks. Skinny, greased up gang bangers
with pants so big they sweep the street and girl friends\
in dresses so tight they burn my eyes.

I can smell Miguel’s Taco Stand. Hear the cool
Mexican music he plays. Sometimes I wish Elaine
were Mexican. Hot, sweet and the ruler of my passion,
but she’s from North Dakota, a silent state where
you drink to feel and dance and cry.

Sailing, drifting down Birch   street. Misty boats,
street shufflers and senioritas. Off to their somewhere.
I contemplate how empty my can of beer is and
how long can I live with a woman who cries all day.

Mondays are better. I sober up and lay lines for the
Gas Company. Good clean work. Work that gives me
time to think about moving to that little town in central
Mexico I visited twenty years ago before Birch Street,
Elaine and three kids nailed my ass to this porch.

I LOVE

Your grilled cheese sandwiches under
the full March moon, as Jupiter draws
near and we witness its unblinking eye
hovering above the horizon at early dusk.

The way your lip is slightly twisted upward
at one corner making your mouth look like
an irregular right triangle.

Your explanation for washing your bed
sheets three times a week, “dust mites.”

Your mantric complaint about how hard it is
to dress well at 20 below zero in the midst of
a blizzard. Yet refusing to compromise for
the sake of warmth instead sludging, steadfast,
like an Armani foot soldier through road salt,
snow drifts and sleet. Saying, “some things
will not be compromised!”

Your method of slowly moving, methodically
passing through the house...dusting, resetting
souvenirs, just so. You, the feng shui master
of  knickknacks and fashion magazines, creating
a perfect order in the universe of our life.

WHEN PENIS WALKED THE EARTH

(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel December 2,  2003)

I never thought of it as evolving. At least not like this.
Never thought about when it first raised it’s proud little head.

But a 425-million year old fossil found in Herefordshire,  England
changed all that. The oldest record of an animal that was unarguably
male made me stop and take stock. A tiny crustacean, only
two-tenths of an inch long -  with an unmistakable penis.

They christened it Colymbosathon Ecplecticos which means
“swimmer with a large penis.”

Scientists say it had copulatory organs one-third the length of
its body. Wow. Makes a guy sit back and think about all the
evolutionary outcomes. The cars we’d drive or the clothes we’d
wear. 

Monkeys became men.
Fish learned to fly.
Penises roamed prehistoric earth.
I guess some things never change.

LOS HUESOS

(the bones)

I sit with the dead tonight. I have
brought my father’s tobacco and
my grandfather’s beer. Between
their tombstones, I light a sparkler
and (with eyes open) imagine them
standing and dancing before me.
So I get up and dance with them,
turning, spinning, and falling to the
ground. As I catch my breath, I look
up to see their smiles shine down
like porcelain stars. They point at me
“There’s our boy, he’s come to
drink and smoke with us. He loves
the lost ones with a heart as big as
heaven and inhales our graves as if
they were fields of red roses.”

The beer widens my eyes, makes
the deep night opaque. Revealing
a tribe of dead lovers who protect
us from devils and demons, insuring
our first communions and last rites,
ready to welcome us back home
with cold soft hands.

The graveyard is full. The living
and their dearly departed sit in tight
family circles telling old stories that
recall ancestors whose names have
now been given to babies.

We pass funeral cards, rosaries, and
wedding rings among us - tiny monuments
to people whose portraits hang along the
stairs leading to the cellar where we make
our candles, crush hot peppers, and shed
our tears. 

We slice lemon cake, eat chicken breasts,
and drink tequila in the Cemeterio de Santa
Rosa. The ghosts are all brown, except mine.
Pale faces who’ve passed over - German,
pot bellied, serious white people, who,
in life, had things to accomplish. 

We sing and dance to all the dead gone.
Mock death and remember a cast of bit
players who slip into our dreams with
whispers just before dawn.

As I pour my tequila into the earth I see
their spirit mouths open and skeletons
rise to dance three feet above the ground.
White vapor swirling like clouds. Sweet
misty blankets that embrace the tombs
of my family.

______________________________________________________

Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews have appeared in over one hundred and sixty print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing, and most recently read his poetry on National Public Radio’s Theme and Variations, a program that is broadcast over seventy NPR affiliates.  He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory. Ries is also the author of five books of poetry — the most recent entitled, The Last Time which was released by The Moon Press in Tucson, Arizona. He is the poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org), Pass Port Journal (www.passportjournal.org) and ESC! (www.escmagazine.com). He is on the board of the Woodland Pattern Bookstore (www.woodlandpattern.org) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Most recently he has been appointed to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literati.net/Ries/

Last update : 11-04-2007 20:17

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