Poetry by Matthew W. Schmeer
Vultures of Sleep
by
Matthew W. Schmeer
Driving My Mother To Her Grave
My mother talked about it constantly; she swore
We'd send her there before her time,
My sister with her screaming fits
And me with wayward hands that loved
Dime store candy and grocery aisle toys.
She kept her money in a pickle jar,
Sweaty cash from men stuck in airports
With too much time between flights
Spent abusing the coffee shop waitress.
I'd steal her quarters and sneak
To the 7-11 or Stop-N-Go and buy
Now&Laters and rolls of SweeTarts,
Lemon slushies or ice-slicked Cokes.
I'd buy my friends with rolls of dimes,
Picking out cap guns and parachuting soldiers
And re-enacting the Alamo in the park
As if it had been fought the year before.
I'd climb the trees and drop my troops,
Watching them float toward the swings
With their guns trained on Santa Anna,
My mother's voice calling out
From our apartment door,
Enraged for a day's tips lost
In the breeze held by a plastic parachute.
---*---
Four Snapshots Of My Father
1953
He is five.
The collie licks his hands
As he pushes the dog away.
He is laughing.
Or crying.
The birthday cake is half-eaten.
1969
The cigarette hangs coolly
From his stubbled lips.
He taunts the camera
With a tough-guy pose
From astride the shiny Honda.
His seaman's uniform is too loose.
1974
He holds his newborn daughter in one arm
And cradles a Pabst in the other.
1986
That's him behind the video camera in the background,
A cloud of cigarette smoke frozen in mid-December
And his mouth open as if in mid-sentence.
His left hand steadies the video camera
And threatens us with exposure.
---*---
Scarecrow
The swallows with thin black fingers
And beaks banded with gold furrow into the sky.
They think I have lain fallow far too long.
Tonight, they will evict me from this field.
A crow laughs when he tells me of a plan
Where a thousand swallows will drag me away.
I await the pinching of talons on my flesh,
The movement from ground to sky,
The long fall back to earth.
---*---
The Squirrels
At night I lay awake
And listen to them gather,
Drawing into themselves
Under the dimmed streetlights,
Their feet scuffing the pavement
With the heaviness of sleep,
Their clawed fists
Clenching empty bottles
And dragging piano wire.
---*---
What Frankie Bishop Said
Two days before Frankie Bishop's car
Cleared the curve into the bright green air
Of Guilford Canyon, he handed me
His saxophone case and said
" All men desire women's laughter,"
Before bounding on stage, a cigarette
Still dangling from his lips as the bassist
Began to play the opening lead.
Later, after the band was finished for the night
And the crowd had long since gone home,
I handed Frankie a bottle of Crown Royal
And a pack of Kamel Reds and lit a cigarette
Before I asked him if homosexuals
Desired women's laughter, too, seeing as how
They don't desire women the other way.
Frankie just leaned back and laughed
And said yes, them too, and went on to explain
How sex has nothing to do with it,
That the desire for women's laughter
Drives down deeper than sex, deeper than soul,
That it's women's laughter that keeps men, all men,
Going into the night and up through the day,
That women's laughter keeps the world together,
That it's the thankful sounds of women's voices
Trailing into giggles or wails that make life
Worth living, that making a woman happy
Is the greatest thing a man could do,
And he gave a wink right here when he said
" If you can make a woman happy
Without asking her to take off her clothes,
Then you are a better man than I."