Bananas

We all need to eat the bananas
That are sitting on the counter
In the kitchen in the white bowl
With a delicate filigree of blue
Pinstripes, two of them, on the
Rim where the tips of two of them,
The bananas I mean, are jutting
Over

And starting to turn from pure yellow
To brown and yellow with a cluster
Of spots on each flat of the fruit
That tomorrow will be connected
With a fine filigree of brown lines
Linking them, and, after that,
Well everyone knows what happens,
All the fingers will be pure brown
With the hidden, soft pulp under
The skin jutting out and swollen.

Isn’t it strange how the one who
Buys the bananas eats just one
After she comes home from the
Market with a load of other things
That do not so quickly turn brown,
Even in the refrigerator, though
Putting bananas there won’t make
Any difference, and how she adroitly
Avoids the bowl, the blue one with
Pinstripes right on the counter where
Anyone can see it as he enters the
Kitchen, even for breakfast when
The lights aren’t on yet. But she

Remembers the bananas when he
Comes in, and after a few days
Begins to ask why he isn’t eating
Them, doesn’t he notice they are
Turning brown and soon will be
Too soft to eat although he says
They are best when the brown
Spots are all one, and he will eat
Them tomorrow at breakfast on
Cereal, if it isn’t too dark to see
Them, and he doesn’t maybe
Forget


By David King

Copyright 2006 by David King.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.

Lazy Days

Lazy days on the boardwalk;
plodding along; distended belly bouncing
as my body sways to the beat of music
drifting from open shops.

Finding a shaded spot,
I settle between permanent vendors,
melding into the backdrop,
oblivious to all who stroll by.

Elderly men and women stroll
along the wooden walkway,
a salty ocean breeze
lifting their shirts and skirts.

Triumphant yells pierce the air as a man grasps his kill
from the jaws of the claw machine;
both exhausted at the hunt and capture,
victorious he waives the flopping animal.

My unborn child lurches at the scent of pizza and fries,
so I purchase sustenance as
dogs walk their owners and
wheel chairs squeak.

Sighing contentedly, I prop my feet,
ankles resting on a vacant bench;
a pathway beneath me
for scavenging birds of the day.



A memory poem by Jennifer L. Stinson.

Copyright 2006 by Jennifer L. Stinson.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.

   

childhood

Prison bars of childhood
against false promises
in the morning sun,
against the moon
who never warns
about the lies
the sunset tells.


By Pete Freas

Copyright 2006 by Pete Freas, The Mindworm.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.
See The Mindworm's website for more of Pete's poetry.

Bus Meeting

It could have been one day
When the salt spray blew across
The road from the boardwalk, smelling
Of creosote and taffy, or the
Wind just carried a swell from
The rolling of the sharp Atlantic,

But, waiting after her job at the Albion Hotel,
She notched her coat tighter and held
The lilac scarf more firmly about her face,
As he, stumbling at the curb in the half done
Twilight, lurched at her.

So they met in apologies and found
The loneliness in their faces like the
Emptiness of the great hotels across
The way, in the gray solitude of long
Winter nights, sparkling with indifferent
Stars that wheel in false patterns.

Perhaps they went to the boardwalk the
Next night and bought stringy sweet taffy
From the only open shop or just watched
The strings of lights blaze on the joints
Of the creosote ties bending light
Far out to ocean where the waves
Unsteadily, yet predictably, wander.

The next night, he took her salt fishing,
She wearing her best mauve
Dress, he smoking an old pipe,
And casting into the clear water out from
The boiling of the surf with sure eye
And steady arm, for a time content
With nothing. Then she talked him into
Going to the Asbury Pharmacy
For coffee and a sandwich,
And they gazed in each others' eyes,
Full of their oneness,

But they both remembered how the
Bus, warm with sticky diesel fumes,
Felt that first night while they stood
Holding the straps hand on hand
For the longest time, and how
Her fingers, pressing the hard flesh,
Left a faint dimple on his.



By David King

Copyright 2006 by David King.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.

   

Grandpa's Wars

There was no Verdun with rows on
Rows of bodies, neat as sacks in a
Coal bunker, or Battle of Jutland
With ships blazing into
The sea, entrails half exploded
And half drowned,

But only the heat of a greasy
Boiler in the pipe thin hull of a
Sub chaser hissing through the solidity
Of the near Atlantic.

There he tended
The shells, fifty caliber and
Five inch, handing them
To the gun captain in staccato bursts
As the barrels pitched or fell silent. Between
Shots, he cleared the deck by rolling the
Empty casings over the side or pitching
Them into a can by the bulkhead to save
The brass, when full lowering them bucket
By bucket into the nothingness of the
Magazine or etching the ship's name and
Dates on the side of the shells after cutting
And brazing them into ashtrays.

They patrolled from Sandy
Hook to Portland in lazy circles,
Listening to the staccato bursts of the
Marconi set and rushing from longitude
To longitude looking for invisible
Things under the surface. Once they
Saw a conning tower with a Maltese
Cross and fired until a wound of
Oil rolled on the sea. He lowered the
Shell bucket until it filled with debris
And splashed the contents on the
Deck.

The surgeon picked through
The few brass casings, still hot from
Firing, pronouncing this kidney
And that lung, finally holding upright a stingy
Pink rope he concluded was fresh entrails.

In age, after the stroke, Grandpa showed
Me the ashtray he made of those shells,
Brazing the smaller ones along the cupped
Bottom of the five inch rifle, so they
Made a convenient rest to hold pipe
Stems in, but by that time, he had forgotten
The story, so we had to help him by
Filling in the details he didn't remember,
Since the date and ship's name etched
On the brass were so thin that they
Could only be known by feeling.


By David King

Copyright 2006 by David King.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.