Sample Poems by David Higginbotham
I Tried to Call
While I was dialing
on the pay phone outside The Cree-Mee,
a young girl and her little brother
came high stepping across the parking lot,
barefoot, trying not to touch the asphalt.
Your phone rang once.
The boy held a quarter in his hand
like treasure. She hoisted him to the saddle
of a pink carousel pony
sitting in a mechanical rocker.
Your machine picked up.
His quarter clinked in the tin box
and the canned carnival music
drowned out all sound.
I held out the receiver,
hoping the little wrangler's laughter
might mix with the music,
knowing you would hear this later,
a distant static echo.
The girl eyed my outstretched arm, the phone,
and stepped between the boy and me.
The music stopped and she lifted him
from the saddle, carried him
across the pavement to the grass.
Or were you listening?
Practice to Prevent
Extinction
All morning long I was mountains and valleys,
a sleeping giant under the covers--
too dangerous to disturb, too curious to ignore.
Waking in bed with a tyrannosaurus rex,
a Jurassic miniature cast in plastic,
I know her son woke before me.
His mother in her camisole
picks up a brontosaur from her pillow,
flicks its toppled carcass from the bed.
Growling, she crawls on top.
I pull the sheet from between us,
roar, claw her sides.
Our chorus is interrupted
by a laugh from the safari-master,
come in his shining pith helmet
to watch the unsuspecting animals at play.
Marlin Perkins
Visits the Bronx Zoo
Perkins in the monkey house
recognizes his old co-star
from the hit show Zoo Parade.
Climbing over the guardrail,
he turns to hush the frightened children,
squats and drops down into the cell.
Perkins fans his lips
at Mr. Moke.
The old gray chimp
remembers their routine
and stands up on his hands.
Grim
The Reaper retires, moves to Pompano. He rides Space Mountain and The Haunted
Mansion, visits Sea World and one of the seven orcas dies. He is consoled by
a waitress from a highway diner, takes her as a lover. She moves in, suggests
he find a hobby, does the crossword puzzles in ink. Her perfume makes him nervous;
she smells like an electrical fire. He can't stop worrying about the wiring.
So he volunteers at the local living history museum, dresses as a conquistador,
until he discovers his knack for blacksmithing and dedicates himself to the
craft. All night hammering. The neighbors quietly complain. His girlfriend leaves.
No matter; he has a gift. He is working on a hand forged sickle blade, elegant
pattern welds, grey tear-drops in the surface of the hand--rubbed steel. A blade
too beautiful to use. Now no one has to die. At home alone, he checks the safety
of the sockets. His lawn boy is immortal.
The Funeral
Taking back roads south, I knew I would be late.
Windows down, had to run the heater
to keep from overheating--
Willie Dixon's "Keep To The Highway"
on a backwoods AM station;
should've been a sign.
I drove out of my way,
stopped in Lumber City for directions.
Bought gas station postcards of cotton pickers,
someone's idea of the perfect Georgia peach.
So when you see them, they're from me.
And it was a wilting afternoon.
August heat drying the tobacco
in the fields, blurring the horizon
into a shimmering eulogy of light.
Was it the postcards? Maybe
my sense of direction. I'll tell you:
I was glad to miss the sermon.
I walked up as they lowered the coffin,
took your mother's arm. Don't think she expected me.
Above the welling silence, her cardboard funeral fan
beat like a crippled angel's wing.
Down on Durant
the whores are in full bloom.
Half a block from Krispy-Kreme,
they lounge against my brownstone.
Their masked animal smells
mingle with the scent of doughnuts.
They pick impatiens from my window-box
to compliment violet eyelids,
the rose of a little girl's cheek,
or the leopard-print purse
on the transvestite
who, when I see her on the street,
always asks if I'm a cop.