10.03.11
Poetry: Peter Marti
Leaving Work Early
With realization that I can finally take a few days off
from chef’s job, I stand in front of chaotic desk--
cookbooks, haphazard scraps of importance
dirty cups, backpacks piled on mounds of white cook
shirts, stained aprons and water bottles--
have clear sense of a future End there for me:
no-one asking me “what’s next, boss?”
vision of self gone ghostly rising overhead
looking down upon someone else
going through these sad catchall drawers of Time—
wrenches and pliers, manuals for broken appliances
and directions to someplace once significant
but now a mystery of indifference--
it won’t be me cleaning them out using hot soapy water
clean towels to wipe away the sticky dust of days
and everyone’s careless gloop.
At home, packing to leave town for a few days
relief turns sour with news:
Scott Wannberg, great poet
dead in Oregon, same age as me…
1974 San Francisco State we were in Daniel Langton’s
Poetry classes together. I was painfully shy, confused
and broken hearted over first romantic love loss--
the perfect storm to become a Poet…
The classes were quick and caustic and you had to take
risks and Scott was fearless and barked a laugh I still hear.
He spoke like a poet: free associating, quoting the Beats
and Romantics, auditioning his latest lines.
Back then you went to your professor’s house for dinner
and Dan’s wife would be cooking—a coffee-table art book
propped open for inspiration—as cheap California red
wine flowed, everybody shouted opinions and passed the joint.
I had no friends growing up who read outside school
so being around wordslingers intimidated me.
Cal M., blond Faulkner-crazed Southern boy took me
home to Daly City on the back of his motorcycle to meet
his wife and start the Literary Magazine we hoped to reflect
our times and talent or help us get published ourselves.
Scott was in that first issue and kept on writing,
acted some in Hollywood, original to the end--
mind big as the sky…
Sitting now under the same blue
—tired eyed, unable to focus even these words--
so just watch the scuttling clouds racing above
knowing this rest ends
work ends, another to take our place
to write an exaltation
balanced by desire and regret.
from chef’s job, I stand in front of chaotic desk--
cookbooks, haphazard scraps of importance
dirty cups, backpacks piled on mounds of white cook
shirts, stained aprons and water bottles--
have clear sense of a future End there for me:
no-one asking me “what’s next, boss?”
vision of self gone ghostly rising overhead
looking down upon someone else
going through these sad catchall drawers of Time—
wrenches and pliers, manuals for broken appliances
and directions to someplace once significant
but now a mystery of indifference--
it won’t be me cleaning them out using hot soapy water
clean towels to wipe away the sticky dust of days
and everyone’s careless gloop.
At home, packing to leave town for a few days
relief turns sour with news:
Scott Wannberg, great poet
dead in Oregon, same age as me…
1974 San Francisco State we were in Daniel Langton’s
Poetry classes together. I was painfully shy, confused
and broken hearted over first romantic love loss--
the perfect storm to become a Poet…
The classes were quick and caustic and you had to take
risks and Scott was fearless and barked a laugh I still hear.
He spoke like a poet: free associating, quoting the Beats
and Romantics, auditioning his latest lines.
Back then you went to your professor’s house for dinner
and Dan’s wife would be cooking—a coffee-table art book
propped open for inspiration—as cheap California red
wine flowed, everybody shouted opinions and passed the joint.
I had no friends growing up who read outside school
so being around wordslingers intimidated me.
Cal M., blond Faulkner-crazed Southern boy took me
home to Daly City on the back of his motorcycle to meet
his wife and start the Literary Magazine we hoped to reflect
our times and talent or help us get published ourselves.
Scott was in that first issue and kept on writing,
acted some in Hollywood, original to the end--
mind big as the sky…
Sitting now under the same blue
—tired eyed, unable to focus even these words--
so just watch the scuttling clouds racing above
knowing this rest ends
work ends, another to take our place
to write an exaltation
balanced by desire and regret.
About the Author:
Born in a caul, Peter Marti swears it’s not his fault. If there’s a chink in his armor it’s memory, if there’s a party in his head it’s for charity (tickets still available) and if you’ve made it this far go to [email protected]
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