“The Dream About the Eagle”
James
K. Zimmerman
he never intended to knock
at the door
just flew in through the
window
(more bomber than jet)
through
the screen, the sheen of
his white-
feathered head was blinding,
reminding
of black ice on
back-country roads
he showed little fear, just
alit on the table
a little ways off with the
rest of us there
staring hard, didn’t care
what we thought
caught completely off-guard when he neatly
removed the first of his
feathers, the tip
of his tail, didn’t fail to
yank hard at his chest
and his wings, singing
anthems aloud
at the top of his voice in
rhythm with pulls
at his pinions ‘til nothing
was left save
a pileate crest on the
crown of his seemingly
gleaming bald head
am I dead yet? (he asked)
as he spread
out his bones on the dining
room table
now known as the crypt, he
was prone
to be pronate but offered
to donate
his fearsome gold talons
and hooked
glossy beak to the weak and
the poor
to be sure, it was only a
joke with a wink
and a poke at the rest of
us watching to see
what he’d do or to fly with
the fleas
on what’s left of his back,
a sack
of potatoes by now for damn
sure
but the cure to confusion
was purely
his choice, his voice (still
quite strong
among feathers and claws
long removed
from their places,
amazement still drawn
on our ashen-white faces)
declared
in a tone on a par with the
groan
in a bar when the bartender
shouts out
last call: remember (he said, with his eyes
turning red from the blood
that surged
up in his featherless
throat) don’t gloat
over things that you think
you still have
or still own or still rule
like a fool
or a juggler, don’t
struggle to keep
what you reap for yourself
on a shelf
where no one can reach it
but you
then he threw the parts of
himself
in a heap on the floor, and
the door
flew off its old hinges
before we
could move or approve of
his stark
raving sanity gone
yes gone, leaving floating
white
feathers and bits of gold
paint
in the wake and the wind as
he went
out the door, up the
chimney and out
in the yard, breathing
hard, and we
knew what he meant as he
faded
from sight: maybe nothing
at all
or to all a good fright
“Old Man Has a Can of Beans
for Lunch”
James
K. Zimmerman
eatin' a can of them beans
th'other day
y'know the kind what got
just a little
fatback in 'em an' the
sauce got tomatuh
an' brown sugar an' all
makes pretty good eatin'
with a roll
or a bag of Fritos or
somethin' an' maybe
a Twinkie or a Ho-Ho for
dessert
long as my stomach ain't
actin' up
bubblin' around, makin' all
weird sounds
like thunder or that ol'
freight train
used to come by midnights,
wake me up
made me think 'bout that
ol' cannin' factory
down outside town, got a
job there one time
first real job, really,
with reg'lar hours
every week an' a week's
vacation every year
they didn't pay you for,
an' time off
for lunch, didn't pay you none
for that neither
but they let us open the
cans of beans
that didn't look right an'
eat 'em out back
near the loadin' dock, and
Ol' Charlie –
or maybe it was Mo – would
bring along
a fifth of Jack or JB or a
six-pack of Schlitz
or PBR or maybe even
Stroh's, I dunno
and it was pretty good that
way
Ol' Charlie used to nip a
little more
than the rest, an' me, I
was just a kid
maybe sixteen, seventeen,
so I only did
a little, maybe just once a
week or so
an' anyways Ol' Charlie
didn't have no
wife no more an' didn't
have a coupla
fingers on one hand no more
neither
story goes he got 'em
caught after lunch
one day in the sortin'
conveyor, missed
a coupla weeks' work that
way
coupla weeks' pay too
an' Mo, he had a big patch
on his face
looked like somebody else's
skin or
maybe treebark or a lizard
or somethin'
'cause he got too close one
afternoon
to the stare-lizer where
the cans got clean
gone coupla months after
that
jus' 'bout bought the farm,
he said
so me, I didn't drink too
much at lunch
those days, just ate my
beans, drank
a ten-cent Coke outta the machine
listened to Ol' Charlie an'
Mo tell stories
'bout the ol' times an' the
hard times
an' the war an' all, kept
at my job
worked my way up from the
loadin' dock
to dumpin' them beans in
the sortin' machine
an' even sometimes – 'cause
I guess the boss
he liked me – sometimes
loadin' the cans
on the trucks when they was
all done
an' ready to go to the IGA
or Kroger
or A&P or whatever
but after a while they came
in with them
new-fangled, fancy-ass
machines
with lotsa buttons to push,
an' you gotta
have high school or so an'
all kinda trainin'
just to run em', so we all
got laid off
just 'fore Christmas, think
it was
but the beans still taste
just the same's
they always done, just the
way they's
sposed to, the ones with a
little
tomatuh an' brown sugar an'
fatback
still make pretty good
eatin' with a roll
or a bag of Fritos or
somethin'
an' maybe a Twinkie or a
Ho-Ho
or a PBR for dessert, maybe
even
a Stroh's if it's a
Saturday
“Hero Worship”
James
K. Zimmerman
thirty-gallon garbage
bags, home on the broken
dog-shit sidewalk
black ones tied with rags
savings bank for nickel-
deposit bottles and cans
shopping cart of sweat-
stained shirts, torn pants
year-old magazines
laceless shoes
any
change
to spare, brother?
buy you something to eat?
(won’t help you feed
your habit)
I
could use a hero
oh -- can’t do that
but here:
(hand in pocket
singles snug
between fives, tens
and twenties)
here’s a buck
thank
you, brother
bless you
walking on, venti
latte, house and car
two-hundred-dollar
shoes
quicker step
a
hero
“A Fable For Our Time: The Fox in the
Henhouse Revisited”
with a nod to JT
James K. Zimmerman
There's this fox, see, and
he's really, really good at breaking into the henhouse. He can get in any time
he wants and take whichever hens and chicks he chooses, with impunity and no
repercussions. And certainly without any regard for the effect of his skill on
the chicken population as a whole.
So he goes to the chicken
farmer and says, "Y'know, you've got a real problem with security around
your henhouse. I can go in any time I want and take whichever hens and chicks I
want, and you can't do anything about it."
And the farmer says,
"Yeah, you're right, it's a real problem! It's making it so I'm not so sure
I can even keep the farm going. I'm feeling like a loser. But what can I do?"
"Well, here's my
plan," says the fox. "Since I'm the best one in the world at breaking
into your henhouse, I'm the only one who knows how to fix the problem. So what
you should do is hire me to tell you how to keep your hens and chicks safe. I
can make your farm great again. Whaddya say?"
And the farmer says,
"Y'know, that's a really totally awesome idea! Why didn't I think of that
in the first place! You're on!"
So the fox designs a
really, really beautiful system for protecting the hens and chicks, much easier
to understand than the one the farmer had originally, and the farmer is totally
happy. "Life really is great again," he says.
But after a while, he
notices that his poultry population is continuing to decline, the ones that are
left seem really anxious and off their feed, and the fox and his family are
getting sleeker and happier all the time.
Eventually, the situation
gets so bad that the farmer decides to give up his farm, declare bankruptcy,
and sell off the few remaining hens and chicks. And even his last rooster – to
the fox and his beautiful family.
“Celebration”
James
K. Zimmerman
it is moot to maintain
hands
up don’t shoot will change
the world when a little
girl with errant aim can
claim the life of her
instructor
at a vacation-destination
firing range with one stray
shot from an uzi
accidentally I’m sure --
no one to blame, no
cure, the same all over:
guns don’t kill people
bullets do
and who’s to know how
many of us would die in
any case, of shark attacks
lightning strikes, black
widow bites, or apples
fed to us by green-faced
vampy witches if there were
no guns around to jam
those evil bullets into
and too there are the
rituals
we share to keep our fair
humanity intact:
we openly carry high-
powered pride and stand
our self-determined ground
we hunt our ducks and deer
with rapid rounds to keep
them from escaping
we die and rise to play
again
safe within our online web
rebooted from the ashes
and to celebrate when peace
breaks out we fire our bullets
in the air so sure when they
return to earth they will
not
find their resting place directly
on uplifted heads of blissful
cheering children
All
work Copyright©2016 by James K. Zimmerman – All Rights Reserved
