Wednesday, December 9, 2009

about me, part 1





i was born by a river in a little shack, and just like the river i can't get back on track.
my parents were missionaries in china, or maybe in india or central africa
one day lenin and trotsky came to town.
they stayed at mrs b's rooming house.

mao tse-tung was already in town and he was staying at the savoy.
we knew trouble was brewing when hombres like that were in town.

when i finished sweeping up at the mission i went for a walk.
as i approached the river i heard laughter.
someone was laughing.

by the time i came around the bend the laughter had stopped.
on the river bank a fish was flopping.
i could never remember seeing such a fish before.
not even in my dreams.

behind me i heard a gurgling sound.
yeti was standing there.



yeti was my best friend.

rain began to fall.
i pointed to the fish still flopping on the ground.
veins began to throb in yeti's forehead.
he was as baffled by the fish as i was.
right then we heard the sound of oars coming through the water.

i turned and saw trotsky lenin and stalin in a rowboat.
no conversation seemed to be going on.

a i watched the water ripple out from the boat

lenin turned and waved to me
i waved back
trotsky merely nodded at me
truth be told i never liked trotsky much
lenin was much more friendly
eternity was in his gaze

stalin was my favorite
he always had a smile

almost always
conversation with him was easy
a koala bear could not be more friendly





5 comments:

Anders Enochsson said...

You are a master descriptive poems writer I think; you expresses them with such humor and attitude.

Anonymous said...

"stalin was my favorite
he always had a smile"

ha ha ha! splendid poem, timmy.

as a young cat, my parents and teachers always warned me never to hang out with the communist kids. for years, i lived under the illusion that these people made stews on their cats and dogs, or even worse. can you believe it? good for me, I didn’t obey the oldies; I made friends with the “enemies”, who were like us, except that they had better teeth and read books.

timmy said...

ande and mule, thanks to both.

your comments are interesting, mule. who were the "communists"? the teachers and students in a college town?

Jenny said...

I enjoyed this one very much! The three men mentioned here came across a bit as a 30s version of The Three Stooges to me.

Anonymous said...

hi again timmy,

sorry, for my late reply on your question. the communists were an hungarian immigrant family, who had in fact lived in my neighbourhood for two generations. lovely people.