Port Edwards, Wisconsin
PUBLICATIONS:
Happily Ever After (Wild Whoop Press, 2014) $8.00 + $2.00 postage
Ritual for Beginning Again $12 + $1.50 postage
Happily Ever After |
Ritual for Beginning Again |
Paws Folded poemtoon |
Pometoons:
Technically, these are folded broadsides, but I call them “pometoons.”
There is a comic art version
of the poem inside each pometoon. $3.00 each. S & H is $1.40 for one,
$1.70 for two or three.
“Caterwaul” |
“Persephone” |
“The Sunday School Story Every Boy Would Love to Hear” |
“Nonversation with an English Teacher” |
In Madagascar many Christians and practitioners of traditional ancestor worship
participate in death-dancing by pulling the remains of loved ones from the tomb,
dancing with the corpses, then carefully rewrapping them for re-interment.
—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
I wrap you in blue wool
like the sweater you wore
when I thought
you looked like sky,
tie seven knots to hold you
and dance with your bones
before the weather warms.
I tell you of Grandpa,
how he died in his sleep
and was found still warm
under the electric blanket
like the bread dough you covered
with a towel in your gas oven.
I say Maraleen moved
to New Mexico near Corinne
and her Navajo husband;
and Glenn fell off a roof,
smashed his ankle
just before Thanksgiving.
But maybe you know these things
and watch me play the record
I gave you and listen
to Tennessee Ernie Ford.
We waltz on your grave,
sway and turn, then return you
to rest with instant coffee
in a china cup and a sugar cookie
on a flowered plate from your kitchen
which still smells of pickled peaches,
strawberries and molasses.