Eric Shaffer

MY FRIEND BEN*

he was very big for a midget
he would never hit below the belt
his mother abandoned him though
so she could get on with her life
so it was

he lived to be 42
a ripe old age
his name--Ben
and Ben was my friend
he liked to recite poems by Browning
to the girls
and his hero was Honest Abe
I think it was because of his hat
he never told
I never asked

Ben was magic
he had sunflowers in his garden every year
and he liked the giraffes at the zoo

Ben
a cascade cool
with eyes so blue
died of natural causes
like me and you
of course

joan deveney

* First published in homemade chap book by Joan, titled My Past Lives in My Present, 1986

 

PASSING STRANGERS.

The mom’s got this earthquaky,
weeble-wobble, bird-hit-by-a-car
walk & when she sits in
the passenger’s seat, it seems
she could stay there forever—
Forever holding her new puppy,
the only source of honest love
that she probably gets cause
her two sons are nuts.

One, who is cake frosted w/ tons
of learning disabilities, & dresses
like the biker abandoned
at the keg party once a
grizzly bear appears, is
only comforted by old toys;
& somewhere, in the blanket folds
of memories, are the warm
feelings those toys bring—

His brother, a toughie drag queen
who's doing all the driving errands
on his day off, is so brimming
w/ venom & sarcasm towards
the slow brother—
He tosses meanness between
partial puffs of thin cigarettes
like Truman Capote’s maid.

I help them cram
their toys into the small hatchback,
say thanks, then trot quickly
back into the store.

We’ve been open for 30 minutes,
so far today.

Jason Floyd Williams