February 9-15, 2015: Mike Jurkovic and Trish Hopkinson

Weak Reeds

Sometimes it all seems so
prolonged. Protracted. Extended
beyond its natural life.
Sometimes the situations are so forced”
you resent the abuse. The push ‘n pull.
The shove ‘n shank.
Sometimes all you hear is the clock
and the fridge making ice. Maybe a dying nightlight
exposes a clue. Maybe, if you just surrendered your checkbook,
it would all go away.

Kerouac’s Scroll

1951, Manhattan loft window gave way to Spring on
my birthday, as Jack taped end-to-end the tale lengthened—
my fate. I unrolled when commanded, ‘round the carriage,
return lever slid me back past ribbon spool, and uncovered
pale—the place where keys smacked face, one hundred hits
a minute. For twenty days, Jack howled. Out on my surface
engravings made shapes—lines and slants, curves and
turns, sometimes spots, sometimes smudges—my suit of ink,
mental tattoos of traveling, hitchhiking, fast cars, and friends,
all on the road. One hundred twenty feet of me fed
round and round ‘til all was out. Then Jack pushed pencil
on me, pulled eraser across me, carried and cared for me,
(except the episode with the first ending, above which
Jack scrawled lovingly, “Ate by Patchkee, a dog.”)
Then given to a stranger, unrolled, read and reread, before
I saw Jack again. Jack and his gone, another stranger took
me in, took me to Rome and to Ireland, to the U.S. and England.
I was born by taping end-to-end. I’ve finished, on the road.

Stemless

Sightline on Angelou poetry,
I reach where wine presumably awaits.
Fingers stretch and grasp air,
realizing the stemmed glasses remain
in the cupboard; and I oddly
selected stemless—
sitting fat, its ass on the table,
rather than perched atop a slender stand.
I curiously move my glance to glare
at its unyielding shape and snatch
it up manlike, taking a long slow pull,
like Bukowski on a young slut’s slit—
he’d be proud of this poem.