HARRY GOES TO LUNCH
It's just a counter lunch, you know. A place
to belly-up at noon and grab a bite.
I come here often. Foods not bad. The soup
is always hot, and Mary makes some pies
that can't be beat. I know it's cheaper from
a sack, but then I'd sit at work. When times
are tight, I eat at work--------a sandwich and
an apple with some sour coffee bought
from the machine. But mostly I come here.
I sit here every noon two stools from 10
the end. The waitress (There she is. Her name
is Lisa.) always asks me how it goes
and pours my coffee on the spot. Yes, she's
the girl I've told you of, or woman I
should say. She's twenty-eight, you know. Oh no,
I've never told her how I feel, and please,
if you should come without me here, if so
please never say a word about the things
I've said. I may someday. Who knows? For now
it's just enough to come here everyday. 20
Well, here she is now with the menu. See,
I told you how she pours the coffee first.
She knows just what I like she does. Yes, you
could get the soup. It's good. Their rubens, too
are excellent, or anything you choose
is certain to be good...........It's just the way
she takes your order......smiles every time.....
so warm and nice. She never passes by
without a pleasant thing to say. Oh sure,
she's nice to other customers, but there----- 30
that's only business. She smiles just
to bring them back. As I just said, someday,
perhaps, I'll ask her out. Who knows? She might
say yes. And that would surely be a start.
My mother warned me once to never let
a woman run my life. I mostly guess
that she was right. That women only want
your money, but my Lisa's not that way.
Though I believed her once, my mother now's
been dead for twenty years and often in 40
the night I think it would be nice to have
someone to share with, watch T.V., or just
to talk. Besides, my mother married once
and it was good enough for her. But then
when Dad was living, Mother always was
so very hesitant to question what
he did. I guess I'd ask her if I could.
There's loneliness in life alone. But then
I'd have to ask Patz for a raise to make
ends meet. He'd look at me as if I'd lost 50
my mind. " A raise?!" he'd say, "I can't afford
a raise. You're lucky that you've got a job!"
He'd turn and walk away and leave me there
just leaning on my broom and feeling like
a fool. I guess it's just as well I live
alone. It's something I've grown used to all
these years. I'm such a fool! She'd want a house
and kids. I'd want them too! Some comfort in
my life.
It's time that we got back to work.
Was just a thought of mine to bring you by 60
to see the woman that I talk about.
I know she's fairly young for me, but all
I ask is sometime in my life to share
a home with someone. No. I've never talked
to her except to give my order, and
such nonsense that so often goes between
two people when they meet. She doesn't know.
I guess my fear is that she'd laugh if she
found out. Yes, I can see it now. Such talk
would just embarrass both of us. The red 70
would flush her throat and cheeks----the way I see
them in the summer kitchen heat, and me
I'd sit here fumbling with my cup; the things
I meant to say forgotten------gone! Sometimes
it's best to leave your dreams just where they are.
1/24/88
rev. 9/2/09
VERSE WISCONSIN ON-LINE EDITION: SPRING 2012
(The image of the man at the lunch counter is a loose self-portrait. When I worked at the shipyards in Sturgeon Bay, I would stop at this small restaurant on occasion for a cup of coffee and a mutual flirtation between a young waitress and myself. We were both in our twenties and single at that time.)
MARK: 4: 1-8
I can't accept the world the way it is.
I think about the garden patch we had
last year; of how the seeds we planted failed
to bloom. We thought the seed was bad. Too old
and sterile to survive. By mid-July
the stalks were dried and brown. The patch was filled
with weeds so thick you couldn't walk across.
Of course we were to blame for having let
them grow. Before the ground was bare. At least
when young, the weeds were soft and green and for
awhile we had a garden still. But with
their blossoms came the thorns, the sprawling stalks,
the ragged leaves. Our garden now was just
a splotch of weeds that sent their runners through
our lawn. When we grew tired of weeds, we bought
the tools to clear them out, a scythe to chop
the stalks, some twine to bind the bundles that
we carried out to set upon the curb
and neatly piled for the garbage men.
At seven-thirty Friday morning they
arrived and ground them in their truck to be
incinerated by the town. (A just
inferno for unruly plants that failed
to grow to our desire!) Still, I think
about the seeds we planted. Was the sun
too hot? The soil wrong? Or was it just
the kind of summer where they wouldn't grow?
So much of life is out of season. Seeds
that sprout in fertile ground are crushed beneath
the weight of weeds. They cannot overcome
the world. There is no time to slowly grow
and blossom when the roots are strong, the sun
at just the proper angle, and the soil
warm with summer rains. If I could choose
a planting time, the soil warm, the sun
just so? If I could choose a time of birth, -
4-16-87
BEETHOVEN'S BREAKFAST
As Frau Von Hammerstein marched down the hall,
her wide hips firmly plodded out her course.
She held the breakfast tray chest high, her elbows
out at just the proper angle, and
her chins held high to punctuate the air;
with each firm step the coffee setting danced
discordantly around the tray.
Upon
his taking up the room the Maestro had
declared that breakfast (coffee and some struedle
with a piece of vile fruit the doctors
forced on him) would be no earlier
and certainly no later than the stroke
of ten.
Frau Hammerstein pushed gently at
the unlatched door and, beaming, strode into
the room where a piano perched on apple
crates stood by the wall. The Maestro played.
His head lay on the sound board turned away
from her, and later, in her kinder moods
especially among his influential
friends, she spoke of how his passion and
his beauty filled the air. But in her crueler
moods, she told of how she set the tray
down on the stand beside his bed and touched
him on the shoulder so he'd see her there.
He reared as though he did not hear her say
"Dear maestro, here, I've brought your breakfast." No!
He jumped away--his startled eyes a wild
and glossy blue! He shrieked as if possessed!
When she again explained her duty there,
he threw the tray across the room. "OUT!
Get out! You lumbering bag of fat! You bring
this poison here!" and drove her from the room.
"A vile man." she'd later say, "Both mad
and deaf. No wonder that his music sounds
so strange. He cannot hear a note he plays."
10/10/05
revised: 1/29/10
revised: 9/17/10