Three Poems
by Craig Kirchner
Old Friend
Close, not always in proximity,
priorities or ideology,
more like thumb and forefinger,
always coming together,
no matter the spread.
Couldn’t be best man,
wasn’t Greek,
but made the second toast,
on request.
Forty years later,
second wedding,
Would you make a toast?
Sure, wish I could remember the first -
pulls the cocktail napkin of scribble,
out of his wallet.
*Originally published at Rundelania.
Morning Gallery
The one none-moving part,
viewing the damp open legs of rush hour
as one would Matisse in a museum,
first one, then another, hundreds, thousands.
Bumper to bumper,
packed moving parts of sidewalk,
cicadas thinking it’s been,
seventeen years since yesterday,
vibrating rib plates amplify the mating call,
drowning out all other noise of the street.
Clerks, secretaries from late night rendezvous,
last calls, spoiled beds,
stretching the infrastructure to bulging,
walking, honking, some running,
all in an orgasmic search
of black caffeine.
Each moment, the art of the movement,
until the next, and then
the sculpt exhales, the throng recedes,
thighs of byway relax.
There is a calming effect,
it is now time to move,
to meander to the next collection,
check the program for next exhibitions.
Dusk
Skylines bogie down quickly,
clouds rush by like Cossacks.
There is a funeral, there is jazz.
Bourbon Street swells appropriately,
for a local musician has died.
The porches above the streets
are full of revelry and beads.
The procession flows like Owsley’s acid
from gutter to neon gutter.
The dancing mimed, surreal,
the colors absinthe, purple pinwheel.
The evening air is thick,
with the smell of piss and roses.
No mourner really, tourist,
though I did like his music.
Dark molasses caressing
the obedient ivory keys.
Ecstasy teased memories stored in
the marrow, orgasmic rebirths
that kept bars full for the evening.
Most funerals are earlier in the day.
He apparently loved dusk,
a jazz time of day,
and friends partying as skylines fade.
I wonder when the wake will end,
and the next begin, at the wine-aged sax,
the skyline, his dusk, the passion
rising primal from the streets,
the sexual heat from his entourage
as skylines bogie down quickly.
BIO: Craig has written poetry all his life, is now retired, and thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves storytelling and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. The parallel, horizontal, blue lines on white legal, staring left to right, knowing that the ink, when it meets the resistance of the page will feel extroverted, set free, at liberty to jump, the two skinny, vertical red lines to get past the margin.
He was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. After a writing hiatus he was recently published in Poetry Quarterly, Decadent Review, New World Writing, Skinny, Neologism, Wild Violet, Last Stanza, Unbroken, W-Poesis, The Globe Review, Your Impossible Voice, Fairfield Scribes, Spillwords, Ginosko, Last Leaves, Literary Heist, Blotter, Quail Bell, Ariel Chart, Bombfire, Cape Magazine, Unlikely Stories, The Light Ekphrastic, Edge of Humanity, Gas Blog, Ink in Thirds, Journal of Expressive Writing, Lit Shark, Loud Coffee Press, Rundelania, Teach-Write, Variety Pack, Witcraft, Young Ravens and has work forthcoming in Yellow Mama, Carolina Muse, Chiron Review, Scars, Flora Fiction, Vine Leaf Press, Punk Monk, and Versification.