Poetry: Selections from John Yamrus

the name
 
Angel Face
never seemed to fit Angel Face.
 
first,
there was that
scar that ran from under her chin,
 
to just
over her right eye.
 
then
there was that skin
that looked like a pot of boiling soup.
 
Angel
could whistle
by the time she was two
 
and
claimed
to remember the day she was born.
 
she
worked
the counter
late nights at Manny’s,
 
had
a collection of hairs
from a Persian cat that died three years ago
 
and loved
her god-damn little boy
with a force that made all the sense in the world.



the poems
 
that
need to
be written
are the ones that
 
bleed
before they
ever say a word.



Carl
 
had
strange
reading habits.
 
he read
thru the books
on his shelves alphabetically.
 
he
was right now
working on Pound, Proust and Poe.
 
he
loved
Proust, hated Poe
and had no opinion on Pound.
 
Carl
was also
an aspiring writer,
 
but
he knew he
didn’t have what it took.
 
besides,
he also had a cough
that was long and ragged and rough
 
and
could actually taste
the blood back deep in his throat.



the university poet
 
had
a beard
and wore a
tee shirt that read
“going nowhere fast”.
 
he
read
his poems
with intensity
 
and
leaned
against the bookshelf,
 
stroking
his beard and
pausing in all the wrong places.
 
his
students
loved him.
 
the
young girls
thought he was hot
 
and
he had an
apartment down the street
filled with an unfinished novel,
dirty dishes and dreams that would
 
never come true.



Paul
 
wore
shirts the color of
old wedding bouquets.
 
his father
was the school janitor
and he (Paul) would get up
while it was still dark and help his father
wax the lanes at the bowling alley
which was in the first floor
of the school building
that housed grades
1 thru 8.
 
it was
the 1950s and
nobody thought twice
about putting kids to work early
 
and Paul’s father was no exception.
 
in the
summer,
Paul would
go out to the farms
and pick strawberries
for 25 cents an hour and
then he’d come home late in the day
and play baseball with us in
the school parking lot
before the bowlers
came in their cars
and we had to
call it quits
for the
night.
 
Paul wore
steel cleats on
the heels of his shoes
that clicked when he walked.
 
it was the
coolest thing i ever heard.
 
Paul
had blonde hair.
 
his father was a drunk
 
and
his mother
is lost to the memory of time.



you can tell
 
a
lot
about
a person
by looking
at their hands.
 
let
someone
 
look
 
at
yours.



i asked her
 
her name
and she said
it’s Zipper Unrippable –
 
when she
saw me smile
she said: i know,
but baby, it works!
 
it used to be Ondine,
but nobody reads Miller anymore.
 
she said:
how about you?
what’s your name?
 
i told her.
she laughed and
said: that’ll never work.
 
i took a drink
and looked around.
 
she said:
so, what do you do?
 
i said:
i’m a writer.
 
she said:
even worse.
 
then she
paused a bit and said:
 
so,
what are you
doing at this reading?
 
i heard writers
hated things like this...don’t you?
 
i’m here
because i know the guy
 
and he needed a ride.
 
besides,
he said he’s sick.
he’s even wearing adult diapers,
but don’t get too close, it’s not working.
 
he’s a good guy, though, so i put up with it.
 
Ondine, huh?
you really should
go back to it. it fits you better.
 
and,
for the record,
Miller didn’t write it.
 
who did?
 
it
doesn’t matter.
it’s like that Dylan song...
 
the
one that says
the only thing they know
for sure about Henry Porter is
his name really isn’t Henry Porter.
 
and
then i said:
goodbye, Ondine...i gotta go.
gotta get ready for the long ride home.



Don
 
needed
a good woman
to kick his ass now and then.
 
he
said it
kept him in line.
 
being
neither good
nor a woman, but still
the best friend Don ever had,
 
Mike finished his drink,
punched Don in
the face
 
and walked on out the door.



he found her
 
far less
glamorous
 
and
far more extreme
than any woman he’d ever known.
 
he
was
attracted.
 
he
was
repelled.
 
and
he never
could figure out why.



sure,
 
they’d fight
a grizzly bear or
well-arm’d burglar
with their bare hands...
 
but,
there ain’t
one of them that
won’t slink out the door
sooner than face a final good-bye.
 
i don’t get it.
 
every
one of ‘em
is good for shit...
 
same as you...
 
so,
you can take
your doo-wah-diddy
and shove it up your ass.



he was in

a nursing home
memory unit.

the
last time
i was there he was in
wrinkled blue pajamas and a robe.

we sat
in the community room

and
the tv was on
and the place had that
smell of medicine, sweat and old age.

sitting there,
across from him,
trying to cheer him up,

i said:
my father-in-law
always used to say: don’t get old…

i guess
he liked that,
because he smiled,
looked down at the floor
and said (almost to himself):

i’m not old,
i’m just a young guy
something really bad happened to.



i worked

as a
bill collector once…

for 
a week.

that’s
as long
as it lasted.

maybe
not even that long.

maybe
just a couple of days.

I just
couldn’t take
the sad, transparent
excuses made by people
who had even less than me…

and i
had nothing.

I already
knew their excuses 

and
their lies.

I knew
that all they wanted
was for me to turn around

and get
off their porch
and leave them alone.

maybe
that’s why it
hardly even hurt
when i got pushed down a flight of stairs 

by
some guy
in a red shirt
who couldn’t take
getting pushed around anymore

and
finally decided

to
just
push back.





John Yamrus’s career spans more than 50 years as a working writer. He has published 35 books (29 volumes of poetry, 2 novels, 3 volumes of non-fiction and a children’s book). He has also had nearly 3,000 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. A book of his selected poems was just released in Albania, translated into that language by Fadil Bajraj, who is best known for his translations of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Pound and others. A number of Yamrus’s books and poems are taught in college and university courses. His most recent book is Selected Poems: The Directors (Concrete Mist Press)

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