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Drinker's Poetry
Schoneman / Slattery
by LaVonne Schoneman
My grandfather used to tell a story
about an event when he was a young man.
His first job was moving graves – preparatory
to making new sites and a new plan
in nearby Mossyrock - above dam-high
water which would soon flood our valley home.
He disinterred each one, identify-
ing and cataloging every lone one,
then came to his own great-granddad someone
buried in his Civil War uniform.
Unable to resist removing one
button, he wrapped it carefully in his torn
worn clean handkerchief, thus saving for pos-
terity, this family memento.
Imagine his chagrin, that evening
upon opening it he found oh no!
one tiny handful of gritty-gray dust!
by LaVonne Schoneman
The hero of our story
served two hitches
in helicopter rescue
in Vietnam
where he earned the Silver Star
When he returned
his commanding officer bragged
"He's the most decorated noncom on the base!"
After a life-long career
(he joined up at eighteen)
he's retired.
It's a long road from
then to now,
filled with
napalam
and agent orange
death and destruction
Disillusionment
thunders in his ears
over
the intervening years
Poor (or no) medical benefits
mean
traveling over the border
to Mexico
in order to obtain dental care.
Now
he ponders
which would he rather have:
the Silver Star?
or
a set of dentures?
What serves our veterans most
ribbons and medals
or
dental and medical
plans?
His life
is a study in contrasts
DENTURES
or the
SILVER STAR.
How should he
choose?
He sits in a bar
(running his tongue over his empty gums)
and wonders
through a booze-dulled
daze of pain
how much
a pawn shop
would give
for his Silver Star.
__________________________________________________
by Robert Slattery
The Horizon.
shimmering,
shimmering, shimmering
and beyond,
out of sight,
the factories ,
sitting idle-
quiet-
silent.
They came from beyond the
horizon, beyond the shimmering;
numberless men out of the
vast land. Brickmakers,
bricklayers, builders, laborers,
and factory men.
They created the factories
and filled them with lights,
sounds, and the residue of
a million toils.
Only the buildings remain-
forlorn-
empty-
desolate-
-- crumbling stacks
-- rotten beams
-- cracked foundations
Once busy rooms
-- long silent.
The men who toiled
-- long dead.
The families
-- long gone.
Only the buildings remain;
standing in testament to
an agotime of pride and
importance - but now idle.
And the everwind
pushes and flows
gently
gently
gently
through the empty rooms
out the broken windows
pushing and flowing
gently
gently
towards the shimmering horizon.
December-1997
Note:
The above poem was inspired by
(what I thought was) a rather vivid
image in the last paragraph
of Chapter 12 of Desolation
Angels by Jack Kerouac
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