–for my father, Jim
my father was an opaque poet
of blue collar verse
he’d sling odd terms
from the corners of his mouth
holding a lip-gripped cigarette
entwined in curlicues of smoke
that ringed his cocked head
his eyes squinting from its sting
his playful gags filled my ear-cups
and I, with fresh curiosity, drank them in
to quench a thirst for the secret stuff of words
“Up Laundry Hill,”
he’d say to my question
“Hey, dad,where you goin’?”
as if the place he was headed beyond the door
was a high meadow in which my grandmother
with a bar of brown soap
scrubbed shirts beside a slow river
and hung them to dry on lines strung tree to tree
as an August sun drenched them with a bounty
of white light and a day’s-worth of heat
Like the old Harry was his expression
for the speed of a world that moved
like the old Harry as I, in new Keds
ran not like the wind but like the old Harry,
a quick little shit on white rubber soles
consuming the universe of our yard
in nanoseconds
Whoever Old Harry was my dad knew him well—
knew he could outrun light when it came down to it
despite the equation upon which Einstein,
regarding questions of velocity, stood
—there’s more to earth than science:
the music of syllables
the humor in their arrangements
the unexpected flash of odd conjunctions
the comfort of the syntax of tradition
the sudden crack of their smart whip
which sometimes sends us like the old Harry
up Laundry Hill…………………..
by Jim Culleny
5/3/11
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Blink 