John McKernan — who grew up in the middle of Omaha Nebraska in the middle of the USA — is now a retired comma herder
after teaching 41 years at Marshall University. He lives — mostly — in West Virginia where he is the editor of ABZ Press. His most recent book is a selected poems, Resurrection of the Dust. He has published poems in many magazines, from The Atlantic Monthly to Zuzu’s Petals.
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Once a Month I
Drive my Studebaker or my Packard downtown
To the Kresge Five & Dime
Walk slow past the typewriters
And mimeograph machines
To the school supplies aisle
Pick up a pencil
And listen
To the noun Death locked in the lead
For the verb Die hidden in the eraser
Then glide over
To the light bulbs in their paper homes
Where I ask
That beautiful green eyed woman
To show me how one of them works
Hidden Objects
The pest control guy says Watch out for
termites and ants
The granite slab says Just try and wake up
The insurance man says It is best to keep mud
and snakes off the windows & roof
The rock-n-roll song says Just keep screaming
My grandfather never said a word to the sugar
maples he keeps feeding
The auto mechanic says There’s not a car made
that two years of rust can’t melt
The TV announcer says Next up a documentary
on Chipmunk Masturbation
The blue roses in the twilight say I have a monopoly
on silence
I actually have to tell myself in the morning Wake up
I always answer back politely with a quiet Why?
The girl at the bus stop whispers I’m dizzy from
all the dancing
I Liked to Hear My Father Walk
In the middle of the night
Down the hall Down the stairs
Without so much as a firefly
Or a streetlight from outside
To guide him in pure darkness
Even then he was preparing
To become pure spirit
The shadow that slides through glass
The word Night inside an ink pen
I hated the silence when his shadow grew
As large as that house on Cass Street
Solid as granite
Under a blizzard
Of Omaha December ice