noteworthy
In each issue, the editors choose a writer whom they would like to bring
to the readers' attention.In this issue, the St. Louis poet Gene Pfeiffer is highlighted.
Pfeiffer’s work, with its strong musical and narrative pulse, is masterly at co-opting the vocabulary of everyday events (the weather, apartment living, baseball, a tomato plant) to create lyrics that take the reader deep into and thereby beyond the daily surfaces.
Third Floor Walk-Up with a Futon
Third Floor Walk-Up with a Futon
five flights to reach Europe outside the kitchen window
all saints and bells under the green copper roof
and questions if the ringing and miracles are true
in their service to move time down the street
ahead of the small roar and clack of skateboards
downhill through the new world
39 stair-steps to view the Japanese screen in the front window
the swaying buttonwood holds starlings, a lonely mockingbird
and the squirrels – little rats that they are – gnawing holes in the art
the mountains live outside this frame
the monastery moved to a memory
climb the long ladder to get to this lookout
hard bed and stacks of books on the floor
poetics, physics and a geography with no myth
America rolls and rumbles below, only masonry
bears the load, built brick to brick and stacked stair-stepped
with spit and sand glittering in the streetlight
the regular buses drive by as numbers, we don’t see their names
gathering us along their routes, seeking the whistles of trains
a light rail whispering through its night, always the same destination
always the moving
move out of the way the falling brick
move back the closing doors
move on the political debate
move away the yellow tape of crime scenes
move by the past mistakes
move down and out the homeless building their fires
move around the board and start again
move in step the dancer’s choreography
move on top the knee on the thigh
move behind the stretching spine
move around the furniture, the junk
move into the inside pitch
move out the cardboard boxes
move in the arms are waiting
move me the arms are waiting
move
comes easy a river for the city
easy the birds one by one
where the clouds break the sun to its pieces
and my boy reads out loud to breathe more slowly
comes easy the colored sand
easy the breath of priests blowing
where the bricks soak up the sun’s heat
and the dust undoes itself in the wind
comes easy the walking hard
easy the brown boots she pulls on
where a memory a grasshopper a windshield
remind us the pavement is waiting
comes easy the swing and sweet spot
easy the ball to my mitt
where the grass leans softly
and my teammates sit on the hard pine
come easy the trying times
easy the quitting
where days without work pile up
and the giving is from one hand to the other
comes easy all these things I try
easy the lovely skin
coming back again and again
there is no hard table to be set
no hard table to be studied upon all night
Speaking with the Dead
Halloween 2010
I never
we never
bought into all this crap
our knees lifting the skirted table at the séance
greasy fingers rolling over the Ouija board
rebirths past lives and hauntings
though I may have seen a ghost in this machine
I never
we never
spoke enough while you were here
not about writing it all down anyway
about breathing in and out about accomplishment
but now I have things to tell you
and now I think you will listen
were you here would you listen and hear
that I had a business
some friends
boys that grew tall
made some money
went broke
made more money
left the woman
found the momma and the girl
lost hope one night
found it again
let the house fall into itself
the bricks still standing
I taught the boys to travel into the darkness
being who they want to be
of that I am most proud of that
I now stack lines like wood in the autumn air
and carry a strong bag
empty and ready
but I will not visit the ground that holds you
because I never
we never
tried to speak with the dead
that sweet talk of trick or treat
no it’s just me and the flicker in the pumpkin
the smell of wax burning on the porch
and the children telling me jokes
before I give them their candy
the teacher has sent her to the kitchen
chopping vegetables her only translation
thumb on the steel where it joins the wood handle
a slender arm still wondering what the knife will cut
carrots into pegs onions
diced but untouched at the root
turnips, potatoes and mushrooms
between the blade and board
my love in the kitchen
and in the love of the kitchen
once taken apart there is no going back
all the pieces must be dropped
into a pidgin stew that boils and babbles
becoming the Creole soup of one song
of old texts old movies and subtitles old wounds
and little girls loved for who they were
making up languages to go with their stories
and when the bald nuns come to sit in the tents
waiting for meat blood and bone
listening for words rising from the stock
a wind blows over the cold mountain
still alive on the dried vine
clinging to the end of heavy ropes
anchors and stems
tired of following the sun
we lean into the coming fall
late August and little time
to pull taste from the soil
justice from the air
little time to mold the skin and flesh
around the jelly and seeds
green to orange to red
little time for the slicing and wiping
what bleeds from my hands to my mouth
little time
little child
little flower
end of October
the hedge bleeds at its ends where the sweet gum offers no shade
enough red for the bird to disappear in the dense tangle
only a black face an overdue bill and the chirping show through
I whistle back through the open woodland that is my yard
wonder about all this preparing for the winter to come
won’t I be gone and the Cardinal still here
talking stats over the hot stove
preparing the bread and water shedding the blood of sacraments
caring for the hierarchies of weather baseball and other religions
the leaves will fall all the way to dust
the snow will cover the graves of the seeds
the flesh of ash and maple will be turned on the wheel
symmetry about an axis of rotation
stretched and smoothed into a place for birds to sit
and those who get the story wrong
those who won’t believe in the trinity of runs hits and errors
those with their heads down digging in the cold earth
will be burned in the shavings
still you gotta believe
wearing innocent’s red hat makes you the player
believe that red makes red
believe in ninety feet
and a bird singing its advice and counsel
too cold now
even the birds have stopped bathing
I watch the fire beyond the tree
and contrails giving away the horizon
I take a seat
on this side of the low light
not yet ready to walk
not ready to climb through the branches
of a tree rooted in this disappearing world
not ready for the constant contrast
the final light’s hard angle of approach
not ready for the fractal twigs
holding up the burned orange the dark coming
and the stars that spark through blankets of snow and wool
not yet ready to sleep soundly (and warm)
under the blue
When It Thunders in the Princess World
for Rachel
before the girls are old enough
to put on the pink dresses
and twirl about the pretty boys
batting their eyes keeping them on the ball
at the ball
before the rainbow can connect
this land’s disappointment to another land
before water clears itself of what it holds
and raises up from the make believe that holds it
back to the white of clouds
before we eat our picnic dinner
a patch of ground is burned
a tree splits and falls
windows rattle with something they can’t keep out
and hair raises on the back of our necks
it is all over so soon
we watch the tail lights of the storms
re-gathering on the other side of the river
we finally eat hotdogs and beans
covering the stories painted on paper plates
one world burning on top of another and another
we chew them up and swallow
and know what it’s like to be caught outside
when it thunders in the princess world
for the tornado dreamers
is not your tornado
mine is quiet and never gets to my waiting
I have seen her with my eyes closed
hiding behind buildings before imploding them
my tornado never lets me close enough to watch
two-by-fours pierce the concrete walls
my tornado loves the chase lures me down her alley
where the sirens sing their song
and blow it through the cellar walls
my tornado always moves from left to right
always appears in daylight always
gives the children time to reach the basement
my tornado was born in cold dry air
high pressure from her mother pushing
low pressure of a father pulling
dew points higher and higher
my tornado is a funnel of formidable words
but forever silent no roar no freight train no fright
when she touches down she’s the neutral wind that kills
she‘s the fulcrum to cloud and earth
balancing a squall line of guilt and wonder
my tornado sends thunder and lightning to wake me
hail to dent the car I use to chase her
and I have chased her for years
never seeing what swirls inside
never sorry for destroying old paths to create new ones
never feeling the cleansing rain
everything always back in place at breakfast
my tornado is not your tornado
she follows me and I chase her
your tornado may cause you fear
my tornado
is cause for dreaming more
my tornado
is not your tornado
is not your tornado
Gene Pfeiffer is an old ballplayer and communications consultant who lives in University City, Missouri.
