Dining in Central Illinois
* Café in a Barn * Mayfair Supper Club * The Pizza Tree * Pompeiani’s * Wiley Blind Inn
A Child’s Garden of
Hapless Parenting
* Hansel and Gretel Newly * Michael Showoff * Jump Rope Rhyme * Monophagous
Dysfunctional Family of Planets
* Mercury * Venus * Earth * The Moon * Mars * Ceres * Jupiter * Saturn * Uranus * Neptune * Pluto * Eris * The Cosmic Hoover
A Ballad
Café in a Barn
The barn was a regional dairy back in the Forties,
feeding a factory town, myriad families
whose children never knew the life on a farm,
the hours of cold before the sun came up,
the long toil with iron-heavy tools —
now displayed in stalls dressed-up as shops,
antiques from a golden age, Americana,
a flea market feeding buckshot memory.
The dining space is an elevated stage,
a dozen tables, wiped and set for four.
My uncle Zeke and I enjoy the view,
the shoppers nosing aisles — raccoons in a garage.
Zeke is glad I’ve come to meet the folks
who stayed and made their lives among our kin.
He reckons I must have a hundred questions.
Really just the one, I say. What happened?
He smiles across a sentry-box of napkins.
The waitress scribbles Country Chicken Soup
(from a bird that lived next door just days ago).
What do you recommend, I ask. She says
the Horseshoe is their most popular item,
a burger open-face with a collar of fries
and a cheese sauce on top. Zeke explains,
country people want a meal that’s filling.
It’s been so long, he says, so much forgotten.
We never talk about that day ourselves,
The shock and then the shame — I well remember.
Eunice and I were twelve. Dave, sixteen.
He swore aloud he’d turn our father out.
He set a suitcase there on the porch and waited.
Ardis kept a lookout, splitting curtains.
Eunice and I, we hid in the apple cellar.
They’re fighting, Ardis cried. We ran to see
where Davy had our father down, the dust
aglow in evening light. He whipped a fist
across that face. You give? he yelled. You give?
That straining neck, forked in his other hand,
he whipped that face and whipped. At last, they stood.
Through bloody teeth, our father grinned: So be it.
He carried that suitcase down to River Road.
Ladonna closed the beauty shop at seven.
Go wash up, she said, when she got home.
She went to Mama’s room. I heard her whirring,
until the door was shut — like a shaken dove.
At school next day, everybody knew.
A nurse came to our house, Salvation Army.
In time, Mama got her strength again,
and Davy was her favorite ever after.
I have questions after all, I say.
Why did Grandma need a nurse’s care?
What made Uncle Dave decide to fight?
Zeke replies, you know? I never asked.
Dave was man of the house, and life went on.
The things I’ve spoken of, I saw for myself.
Just look around this barn, and think of history.
Some of the facts survive. The rest is legend.
Mayfair Supper Club
The Mayfair serves a simple lettuce salad.
No tomatoes, croutons, beans, or seeds.
No olives, bacon bits, or fancy cheese.
A cut-glass cruet offers oil
pure as that anointed Jesus’ feet.
Vinegar, pepper, and salt, according to taste.
Everything at Mayfair’s plain and decent.
The stuffed-leather chairs are short and straight.
Blue and hard as sapphire, Ardis’ eyes
are alert for ill intentions. Mine are good,
her smile agrees. A teacher, now retired,
she’s still assigning grades and checking passes.
When she was a girl, the classrooms all had switches.
The way things are today, you have to wonder
if corporal punishment doesn’t have its place.
With some, you’ve got to beat the devil out.
Why do you want to know? Ardis asks.
Why bring a hurt to life to hurt again?
I’d like to know, I say, who Grandpa was.
I need to know who I am grandson of.
Ardis nods, it stands to reason. Family.
In a voice as soft as Mayfair rolls she asks:
What has Eunice said to you about us?
I say my mom has told me next to nothing.
Ardis draws a sip of lemonade.
She wants to know as well what Zeke confided.
Only what he saw himself, I say,
not why David chose to fight his father.
Your uncle David did what he did, she says,
because your grandpa beat his wife, your grandma.
She couldn’t show her face. Or face her children.
Your grandpa beat her senseless, then he raped her.
How are your potatoes, Ardis asks,
noting how I’ve fallen behind in dinner.
Thinly sliced and fried in creamery butter:
the crunch is what the Mayfair’s famous for.
Was he a drinking man? Not in our house.
Not one drop of liquor came in our house.
Others had their beer brought home in buckets.
Mama drew the line at tea and coffee.
Did this go on for years, beating Grandma?
Ardis hums. Oh, he would not have dared.
He never amounted to much, a day laborer.
Back then, the deacons kept our men in line.
What pushed him over the edge? Ardis frowns.
Mama didn’t want no more children —
any more children. Too many mouths.
And Mama meant her girls to have a future.
Ladonna was the first, in beauty school.
I became a teacher; Eunice, a nurse.
There’s a price to pay for things being “nice.”
The Mayfair carpet blushes paisley pink.
There’s times you have to beat the devil out,
Ardis muses. Times were hard back then.
Eunice used to love an onion sandwich.
Just bread and onion. Leaves a sour taste.
The Pizza Tree
As if the builder couldn’t cut it down,
a tree trunk pegs the dining room and rises
through the ceiling — draped from wall to wall
in a web of plastic leaves and Christmas lights.
All the forest creatures love a tree:
squirrels, birds, opossums, snakes, and frogs,
not to mention borers, worms, and ants.
A tree supplies such cover for so many.
Waitresses go to and from their tables
around the indoor tree, like a traffic circle.
My cousin Cassie Rae (Ladonna’s daughter)
orders a medium Works and a pitcher of beer.
We can share, she grins. It’s quite a story.
A jukebox plays the oldies over our talk.
Then her eyes go wide. So no one told you?
Our grandpa took another wife and family!
After Uncle David threw him out,
Grandpa kept his job on the WPA.
When a fellow workman died, the comely widow
welcomed Grandpa’s help and kind attention.
She had mouths to feed. Within the month,
she and Grandpa married. There he was —
with a brand-new wife and five other children,
a mirror-family living up the street.
That was hard for Grandma. Bible in hand,
she would have seemed a saint standing alone,
but Grandpa lacked the grit to get out of town,
which made it look like she was in the wrong.
Harder still for the twins, Zeke and Eunice:
they were in a sixth-grade class with Chloris,
who took their same last name when Grandpa married.
They all pretended not to know each other.
What were Baptist elders telling Grandma?
What cruel tricks did twelve-year-olds get up to?
Cousin Cassie slacks her jaw in wonder
at the purely social pain they had to go through.
Can people live with a stick so up their butts?
Things are different now — though not completely,
she admits, her gaze on Christmas lights.
Families have their branches, lives get tangled.
She works at the Beacon-Times, where records show
Grandpa later moved to Williamson County.
His ma and sister there would help his wife
as she gave birth to five further children:
Sherri, Gary, Larry, Carrie, Barry.
If anyone ever had the knack for life,
and bore its burdens lightly, Cassie says,
it must have been that woman, Step-Grandma.
But don’t quote me on that, she says, uneasy.
Once, on a weekend after graduation,
Cassie drove to Marion to have a look.
She found the street, the hardscrabble house,
and pulled to the shoulder, foot on the brake — considering.
She pictured herself at the door. Who would answer?
How would lives be changed when word got out?
She drove away, her tires spitting gravel.
Pompeiani’s
From the sidewalk, down the narrow iron stairs,
turn left, the door swings in. Go single-file
to a podium, where a hostess leads her lambs
through already seated clamor. Here’s your table.
The room is walls; a mural shows an alley
with a cart unhitched and urns of oil or wine.
A scrawl of street Latin marks a door.
A child’s face peeks out from shuttered windows.
It’s like Pompeii, says Ardis, smothered in lava.
The owner’s husband teaches Ancient History.
He’s a college professor, she’s Italian,
so the menu here’s authentic, not too spicy.
Your mother married well, Ardis adds.
What was my mother like as a girl, I ask.
Ardis rolls her eyes. Oh, she was a handful.
She and your Uncle Zeke, like night and day.
Eunice liked to prance around in bloomers
(gym shorts then were “bloomers”). Seventh grade,
she won the Fifty Yard Dash. And then she bragged.
“I beat Chloris. Chloris has a boyfriend.
Everyone saw them kissing under the stands.”
Mama didn’t want that kind of talk.
Eunice had to give up track and bloomers.
In spite, she started singing loud in church.
Too loud. On purpose. Eunice, she was willful.
A simple fact she wouldn’t understand
is when you’re poor you have to swallow your pride.
But you can still hold on to self-respect.
Your clothes may not be new, but they are clean.
And ironed. The carpet has a patch that’s bare,
but it’s been hung and beaten hard for dust.
You don’t attract the wrong kind of attention.
A busgirl takes our plates. Ardis thanks her.
The owner hires teenage girls in trouble.
She helps them stay in school, get on their feet.
The chef and kitchen help, all are women.
It clears the air, I’m sure you know what I mean.
These girls don’t need the wrong kind of attention,
from men bothering them, like cocks in the yard —
men with all their sex and authority issues.
Was Chloris one of Grandpa’s step-children?
How’d you know about them? Ardis squints.
The Census gives their names, I reply.
Ardis glares a glittering accusation:
what else are you holding back, son of Eunice?
Then she laughs: the shoe’s on the other foot.
Okay, she says, what else do you want to know?
How did David come to fight his father?
That morning Mama kept her bed. Ladonna
packed us off to school — but held back David.
When we came home, he didn’t look sixteen.
He told us he was going to face Goliath.
A strip of a boy — in Orchestra, not football —
he heard his mama’s prayer for vindication.
In another year, the army had our Davy,
flying bombers after Pearl Harbor.
Wiley Blind Inn
The river is fat and placid, soaking wetlands.
Sunlight skims the water, coming to rest
in a brilliant V that spreads in swimming sparks.
Peaceful, Zeke observes, a devoted hunter.
He points to the base of the hill. There’s the blind.
He adds, with a wince, we ought to clean that up —
a pile of abandoned cars, pushed from the ridge.
Windshields, shattered, catch the sun like gems.
At forty-five, a man has met his boundaries,
has stepped aside at a stronger man’s insistence,
has loved and been refused with mere disdain,
has toiled in spite of pain because he had to.
The whips and scorns of time, says Uncle Zeke,
teach a man the art of holding on
and leave him less afraid, more calculating.
He’s never meaner … than he is at forty-five.
Then how, I ask, did Uncle David win
when he took on his father — a high school kid
against a construction worker? By a certain age,
Zeke explains, for a number of practical reasons,
fathers leave off punishing sons with a whoopin’.
The need to make it hurt is a risk to both.
But David came to the fight with a cold advantage.
He knew about my father’s crippled knee.
At Wiley Blind, batter-fried chicken
tops the menu. The pork tenderloin sandwich,
also batter-fried, is a close second.
The crisp is what we like, says Uncle Zeke,
with seasoning understated — salt and pepper.
It’s a little bland, I say. And yet there’s something,
a note like pancakes, with corn flakes rollered in?
A finger bars his lips: ultra-secret.
Another thing that’s best not spoken of,
Zeke confides, I talked with Chloris once —
the eldest child in Papa’s other family.
What’s he like at home, I asked, in your house?
Nice, she said, at least her ma was happy.
Her real pa got scary toward the end,
before the cancer took him. Zeke admits:
When Ardis heard about this, she threw a fit.
The old man would have flared at first with anger
when David got the drop of him and shoved —
fighting like a schoolboy, vagrant blows
without the weight-behind that bruises deeply.
But then he may have felt a dawning pride
in a son with courage — which all the world respects.
And then he may have seen a way to freedom,
taking blows till David’s strength wore thin.
My mother and father, Zeke reflects, are gone.
They never had much, unless you count resentment.
Their break was hard. Their lives were better after
they tore apart the family they had made.
Ashtrays are there none in Wiley Blind.
A regular stubs her cig in mashed potatoes.
She’s dressed for Sunday afternoon, alone.
I look at Zeke. He says, we hold our peace.
A Child’s Garden of Hapless Parenting
Hansel and Gretel Newly
I. By the Sea
At Sandy Peedro’s tidal pools, their father
led the search — for creatures by the sea!
Gretel asked, “Is this An Enemy?”
“Anemone,” said Father, “like the flower.
But never mind, it’s too late now to bother.”
Gretel wondered what made Father sour.
She and Hansel, each a pail in hand,
clambered over crags where urchins hid,
where crabs caroused and limpets slimy slid,
where warty-fingered starfish tensed their grip
and weary mussels took their ease in sand.
Baloney shells had portholes like a ship!
Gretel found an undulating wig
with pink and greenish frills around a maw.
She dropped a peanut in. The gulp she saw
reappeared in dreams for nights to come.
Aghast, she thought: It’s better to be big.
She wondered if the maw would bite her thumb.
If dared her brother just might risk a finger.
She looked to left and right, but he was gone.
A seagull skimmed a wave and journeyed on.
Father too had vanished in the spray,
so Gretel saw she shouldn’t longer linger.
Hansel’s peanut shells showed the way.
“Oh, there you are,” said Father with a cheer.
He and Hansel lunched at Shaky Shack.
“We wondered were you ever coming back,”
Father laughed. “You wandered off so far.”
The hour to drop them off was drawing near.
Gretel had her burger in the car.
II. Mom Is Mad
The drive was always silent back to Mom.
Hansel, riding shotgun, watched for trains.
Gretel thought how cars in other lanes
might be taking kids to happy places:
no one asking whose side are you on;
watching Lassie, children in good graces.
“What did your father say about me?”
“Nothing, Mom, like always,” Hansel said.
Then Gretel asked him, after time for bed,
“If Father tried to leave me, would you go?”
Hansel’s forehead wrinkled, like the sea.
Shoulders small, he shrugged. “I don’t know.”
The Father days were twice a month. The fun
that he came up with! Sledding, swimming, boating…
In front of Mom, the kids refrained from gloating.
But bumper cars — come on! — the go-kart loop,
the fishy boardwalk’s kewpie dolls and guns!
“Let’s sail to Catalina in my sloop.”
No wonder Gretel thought her father dashing.
He stood upon the bowsprit bold and free
while Hansel tried the tiller, “Aye, a-lee!”
Gretel ducked to dodge the sweeping boom.
The slippery deck careened, the gunwale splashing.
They all wore Eau Pacific spray perfume.
At last they reached enchanted Avalon,
its candy shoppe, the jugglers in the park,
the swan-like seaplanes breasting waves till dark.
The ballroom, lit like Cinderella’s crown,
glazed the sleeping bay till break of dawn.
Withal there was a Safeway in the town.
Did Mom know they were staying overnight?
Hansel had no answer, pancake-eyed.
Then Father said, “Let’s take a horseback ride.”
In line their horses ambled toward the woods,
where Gretel thought the Big Bad Wolf just might
be waiting for a Little Red Riding-Hood.
III. Lost in the Woods
By noon the sun was nowhere to be seen.
The canopy of trees cast ample shade.
Astride their doughty mounts, the children played
like they were a knight and lady on a quest.
King Father led them through the forest green
until ’twas time to stop and take a rest.
Unpacking lunches, spread upon a blanket,
Father said, “The horses need some water.
Wait here, I’ll be right back. My son and daughter,
it’s sad, the situation that we’re in.
I chose a poison chalice, freely drank it,
and now … I just can’t let your mother win.”
The siblings puzzled o’er the tale he told.
The “chalice” sounded knightly, but “your mother”?
Hansel peeled his sandwich: peanut butter.
Gretel saw dessert was Hostess Twinkies;
her favorite, but — a curdling fear took hold:
“I feel, it, by the pricking of my pinkies,
something wicked’s happening to us here.”
The kids at first tried being extra good,
sitting still and quiet as they could.
The jack-in-the-box of Panic madly sprang,
the nightmare face of Danger lunging near.
With helpless cries of woe the forest rang.
Fading sunlight touched the ground in dapples.
Suppose we build a fire. Without a match?
Or we could build a fort. Of twigs and thatch?
Gretel gasped — with hope! She had a plan.
“Where horses go, you always find road apples.
We’ll follow Father’s trail as best we can.”
The apple plan went sour amid the gloam,
so dim they couldn’t even see their shoes.
Shadows turned their path to curlicues.
Between two trees, was that a distant light?
A lighted window surely meant a home.
They staggered through the brambles of the night.
IV. A Cheerful Cottage
A forest cottage! Such a cozy dwelling —
one bath, two bedrooms, garden plot, and shed.
It looked ideal to Gretel, so she said:
“You go ring the bell. Since you’re the boy.”
Hansel paused. What was it he was smelling?
“Chocolate cookies!” Hansel leaped for joy.
“Good evening, ma’am,” said Hansel, oozing charm.
“My sis and I are lost. We’re hoping you
will take us in. Who else could we turn to?”
The woman at the door was bent and gray.
Tenderly she reached for Hansel’s arm.
“Tell me, dear,” she said, “how much you weigh.”
Hansel duh’d. “No problem,” she replied.
“We’ll bulk you up in no time, by my kettle!”
Her parrot eye then swiveled down to Gretel.
“We’ll find good use for sister by and by.
Come in, my lambs.” The door swung open wide.
“I’m Mrs. Parr, and supper’s kidney pie.”
Mrs. Parr made Gretel do the dishes
while Hansel nibbled cookies from a plate.
He left a few to share — alas, too late.
“Bedtime!” chirped the cuckoo in the clock.
Their room seemed bare and cold but not suspicious.
“Goodnight,” said Mrs. Parr and turned the lock.
For breakfast, Hansel ate a stack of waffles.
Gretel had to milk the cow and churn.
“By this, my girl,” said Mrs Parr, “you learn
why every man and boy deserves our rage.
They make us toil and slave. Our lives are awful!
We’re women! We’ll put Hansel in a cage.”
So Mrs. Parr assigned the boy a chore:
mucking out a yucky turkey pen.
The door slapped shut behind him. Even then,
he didn’t see his fate was sealed. He keened:
“Police will come and social workers, more!”
At feeding time, he gobbled hot poutine.
V. The Backyard Oven
Daily Gretel brought the meals to Hansel,
who clung to hope that help might yet arrive.
Father could come back, and they’d survive.
Or somehow they could make a great escape…
Gretel coughed as if from swollen tonsils.
“Mrs. Parr is watching. Here’s your crepes.”
Gretel did the cooking now. She learned
to tend the outdoor oven, glowing red.
She kept in mind what Mrs. Parr had said:
“Take care your platter’s squarely on the rack.
Mind the time, or else your dinner’s burned.
Once it’s burned, it’s never coming back!”
Inside the glowing oven Gretel saw
no firewood nor charcoal ever thrown.
The bricks o’er-arched a live volcano cone —
an all-devouring gopher-hole to Hell.
Recalling Sandy Peedro’s gulping maw,
Gretel slammed the door. She felt unwell.
VI. The Woodsman
One day, a wandering woodsman happened by.
He noticed Hansel, struck up conversation.
Was he a bad boy in incarceration?
“I’m Hansel,” Hansel said, “and soon for dinner.
We’re prisoners of a witch, my sister and I.
The stouter I become, our hopes get thinner.”
“Wait here,” the woodsman said. “I’ll look around.”
Beside the outdoor oven stood a girl.
Not the witch, he thought, nor yet a pearl.
“Methinks you must be Hansel’s little sister.”
Gretel’s disappointment was profound.
She wished the handsome prince had softly kissed her.
“Don’t you know me, Father?” pleaded Gretel.
The woodsman was perplexed at her mistake.
“Fine,” she said, “come see. I baked a cake.”
And this was how the woodsman fell — upon
the oven’s yawn — a girlish grudge to settle.
Gretel pushed and whoops! The man was gone.
VII. Gretel Saves the Day
Gretel ran to find the wicked witch.
“A man was here, intruding on our coven.
He questioned me. I lured him to the oven.
And now the man is learning how to cook.
Aren’t you proud? It went without a hitch.
Really you should come and have a look.”
The mean old witch refused to even listen.
“That’s well and good, but can’t you see I’m busy?
You’re always at me, every day a tizzy.
I’m NOT your mother,” muttered Mrs. Parr.
The last four words made Gretel’s eyeballs glisten.
She realized at last: Oh, yes, you are.
Gretel sobbed until she got her way.
The witch just couldn’t take it anymore.
She sighed as Gretel pulled the oven door.
Then whoops! The witch and woodsman hotly married,
together ever after, as they say.
Lava conquers all. The hatchet’s buried.
Gretel brought her brother’s dinner timely.
As woman of the house, the girl excelled.
The cottage’s traditions were upheld.
When Gretel thought of younger, painful years,
she smiled to see how Fate had worked sublimely
to make her joys the equal of her tears.
Michael Showoff
Mike the nonstop agitator
riding down the escalator
cried, “No hands, just look at me!”
Then zwerp. There was no Mike to see.
Where Michael Showoff stood before
the sinking stair sank through the floor
and dragged him ’round and ’round forevermore.
His mother to the store complained.
A sympathetic clerk explained
the steely steps have stubby teeth
to bite your shoes and pull beneath
where ankle-grabbing terrors lurk
with fangs a-gleam in inky murk,
with clinking fangs — their gnawful work!
Other children, well behaved,
hold fast the rail and so are saved.
The child who’s caught in Goblin’s vault
can’t say it’s someone else’s fault.
The boy himself must take the blame.
And though he brought her tears and shame,
his mother missed her Mikey all the same.
Jump Rope Rhyme
Poor Dougie Ditchum, lost in the store.
What if he never saw Mommy anymore?
She wasn’t in Dresses. Wasn’t in Shoes.
He waited by the door which Ladies Only use.
She wasn’t in the racks with prices in red.
“Everything MUST Go!” a red sign said.
Pretty saleslady, hair in a bun,
asked Dougie Ditchum if he lost someone.
She smelled very nice. Hugged him tight.
“There, there, everything’ll be all right.”
Mommy coming back? Dougie wasn’t sure.
Pretty lady might take him home with her.
Legs sticking out from a too-tall chair,
Dougie heard the all-call loudspeaker blare:
“Attention, valued shoppers. We have a small boy,
a pair of sunglasses, and a map of Illinois,
many little things that you might mislay,
key ring, smartphone, can of pepper spray,
word search puzzles (finished almost),
Honeymooners’ Guide to the Orange County Coast,
loose bag of pills, a pint of Bitter End,
buncha love letters from your boo’s best friend.
Get your life back. It’s not too late.
Come around the Lost and Found. We’re open till eight.
Five in the morning, sittin’ on the dock,
tykes on pallets all stacked in a block.
Sack lunch, check! Status, verified!
Load ’em in the boxcar, “Krots” on the side.
S-T-O-R-K says hi!
K-R-O-T-S, goodbye.
Monophagous
Little Maggie MacAncheese
a TV tray upon her knees,
could feel a tickling in her feet.
She shucked her shoes and saw her suite
of toes arrayed upon the floor —
a tad more curly than before.
And what she found alarming too,
between her toes a yellow goo.
A most disgusting ooze to find,
she promptly put it out of mind
until ’twas time for bath and bed —
then Maggie found it on her head!
Blonde as butter, tightly permed,
her hair was slipsy and be-wormed.
Said Maggie Mac, “Must not forget
that I’m supposed to be brunette.”
Uneasy were her dreams that night
but morning brought a worser fright.
when out of bed she could not roll.
She lay inside a giant bowl,
above which loomed a giant face.
All noodles now, a hopeless case,
poor Maggie met her fate (too soon!)
as downward scooped a giant spoon.
Maggie’s spirit flew away
recalling how just yesterday
her mother pleaded, “Maggie, please,
you can’t just live on mac and cheese.
You’ll turn yourself to macaroni.”
Maggie scoffed — what mombaloney!
Dearest Mother, far below,
her final words: “I told you so.”
Dysfunctional Family of Planets
Mercury
No one else has flown so near the Sun
and lived to tell the tale — although you’ve not
had much to say. (“It’s hot! It’s cold! It’s hot!”)
Whatever wings you had were burnt and blown
away in solar storms, your wits undone
by comets screaming sunward — so alone.
You’re like the Moon, or maybe a little brother
who ran from home and made a dangerous friend,
with a place to stay and a way of life that tends
to a death spiral. Mostly out of sight,
you’re shrunken, wan, and wait upon another
needle prick in the twilit swathe of night.
Of all the planets, yours the shortest tether:
a fireball and pebble brought together.
Venus
The smelly yellow twin of blissful Earth,
our Auntie Venus overwhelms a room
with the heavy, eggy waft of her perfume.
Her walk is slow. That sexy ass-ward turn
is the trawl of an aging flapper bent on mirth.
Her still-volcanic body, built to burn.
What happened to her? The brightest girl in school
from spelling bees to boys abruptly flipped.
In way too much mascara, crimson lipped,
she ran with Cupid. Such a lethal pair!
Their rivals — punctured, panting— played the fool.
Then moonless, middle aged, she glimpsed despair.
The evening star, the lovers’ star of dawn,
her nothing if not Beauty carries on.
Earth
Queen of the Prom in a flowing azure gown,
with perfect air, so warm, so full of life…
Not even a god could dream of such a wife!
Yet there’s a dangerous edge to her as well.
The weight of adulation gets her down
and turns her pleasant looks to living hell
Ask the dinosaurs. Or the trilobites,
cute as a bug in Ordovician time.
And what became of the four-legged fish, who climbed
ashore in search of greens? All casualties
in the Five Great Extinctions science cites,
in Mother Earth’s occasional killing sprees.
Pale blue dot, and something more:
a pretty face, a furious molten core.
The Moon
With wide gray eyes, your mouth agape,
you seem to try but cannot look away.
As soon as the Sun goes down, the mice will play.
Then lovers tell you even to your face
of foolish, nasty dreams; they can’t escape,
so they confide in you and plead for grace.
But you are still a child, a virgin goddess.
When Mother sat you down to have the talk —
his what? in where? — you scowled and took a walk.
You’ve made yourself more distant ever since:
athletic as Diana, lithe and modest.
Other girls get giggles when you wince.
Unblinking Moon, ever more withdrawn,
the day will come, we’ll look, and you’ll be gone.
Mars
We had such hopes for the boy. Though slight of build
and somewhat wet, he showed a fearsome flair
for smashing toys and abusing silverware.
He swaggered when he knew that he’d been bad,
triumphing over helpless things he killed.
He knew himself, poor chicken-hearted lad.
For months he’d sulk, resurging then to manic,
At Troy he marched with troops so he could feel
the heft of battered armor, bloodied steel.
Disastrous dawn, in the city’s final throes,
he hid behind his consorts Fear and Panic.
A god cannot be slain. Mars froze.
To NASA we bequeathed his red remains,
to learn if life was ever in his veins.
Ceres
Why am I here, picking through debris
in the belt between the solid worlds and him?
Beyond the inner planets, fragments swim
as if some would-be sibling left a mess.
The lees of that miscarriage tug at me.
I tend the child who never coalesced.
Busy, busy Jupiter, Lord of Skies,
his mere presence squeezes empty space.
His satellites surveil me, scan my face.
He rules by fire, but politics is water —
explaining why that day he closed his eyes
to Darkness sneaking up behind my daughter.
Omniscient Jupiter. Sees himself as good,
yet knows I’d cut his heart out if I could.
Jupiter
Fuzzy ball.
Original wooly bully,
your knitted bands are raveled sleeves of care.
And your color’s off, like bottled herb and root.
That Great Red Canker looks acute.
With loose ends unwinding everywhere,
you’re not yourself, not fully.
Not at all.
It’s not like there was ever time enough
to take my glory in, as others may.
Father tried to eat me — that was tough
parenting. Mother sent me far away.
I overthrew the older generation,
and not a moment since for relaxation.
Not with all
the girls you were screwing?
Those days in heavenly hay were itchy good.
Too bad about poor Io being harassed.
Europa more than most knew where she stood.
Callisto, bathing plump, herself embarrassed.
In many a field I sowed Olympian seed —
though childlessly with smooth-cheeked Ganymede.
Your lawful wife, what was it like for her?
Juno understands, but has her pride.
When gossip stings, her vengeance is severe.
She and I make sure we don’t collide.
Our deal is “free but not to interfere.”
In theory I’m the one should hold the rod.
It’s hard to be yourself when you’re a god.
Poor you, with lightning bolts in either hand.
How do you cope when days don’t go as planned?
Strategically I’m always getting bigger,
securing space and coaxing farther things.
A swarm of loyal moons extends my vigor.
A while ago I meant to grow some rings.
They never measured up to you know whose.
When Fates decree, one doesn’t get to choose.
Do you foresee how doomsday will occur?
Apocalyptic moments have been mine.
Of late I ate an anarchist for dinner:
bomb-bombs à la Shoemaker-Levy 9.
Once, I sent the Flood to punish sinners;
then sorely missed their smoky sacrifices.
When Fates decree our doom, their word suffices.
Decayed by your own doing,
you will fall.
Saturn
Stardom paints a halo,
gives your life a glow,
if living right is not its own reward.
To bask in being known,
by people in the know,
you need a play that fascinates the horde.
This thing you’re famous for —
a look, a phrase, a feat,
an incandescent moment from your prime —
you’re stuck with now forever.
Endlessly repeat
the camera-face you flash for sightless Time.
Who’s your favorite planet,
aside from Mother Earth?
(Of course she’s popular, she’s populated.)
Behold my golden rings —
such hula-hooping girth!
My eye-appeal cannot be overstated
compared to balls banal,
in smudgy-crayon hues.
Go ahead, admit it. I’m spellbinding!
I pose in migraine-stillness
for telescopic views;
my rings are clenched, the rocks and ices grinding.
Okay. I ate the kids.
Does that make me so bad?
In self-defense, you’d have done it too.
The Fates foretold my fall,
the way they did with Dad:
“The father of your vanquisher is you.”
It’s so unfair. My reign
was called the Golden Age.
You wonder what’s the point of procreation
if giving it your all
will only set the stage
for whelps who seek their own glorification.
The NASA paparazzi
caught me by surprise.
Two Voyagers came scooting up behind;
the first clicked off a closeup
that widened earthly eyes.
The other got the shots that blew your mind:
my eight resplendent rings,
arrayed on velvet night,
where Sol is but a half-a-quarter Moon.
They surge and scrape to form
a wreath of gathered light
where winding lines of destiny were strewn.
Uranus
“PULL MY FINGER,” Grandpa cackles.
I comply. He cuts a methane blast.
I pull a face and ask, as if aghast,
where THAT came from. And he replies, “Uranus.”
It never fails to raise parental hackles.
An uproar’s all it takes to entertain us.
“YOUR-a-nuss!” Titania slaps the table,
insisting Sunday dinner be polite.
Oberon says there’s no need to fight,
yet here we go — like cuckoos on the hour,
a caterwauling tragi-comic fable
of what becomes of gods who fall from power.
They tell me I’m too young to understand
why parents have to have the upper hand.
Neptune
He’s god of the sea, god of the unseen,
of the deep space, where light loses its way,
where shadows squirt from words too dark to say,
a god who answers prayers we know not of.
His horses killed a grandson … caught between
a father’s wrath and Phaedra’s violent love.
Impassive blue, with jaunty cirrus streaks
like gashes venting hurricane winds below,
he isn’t one whose undercurrents show.
The grim advance of counter-spinning storms
to a king’s brother’s layered motive speaks,
to the dire work ambivalence performs.
The Sun is planet-like in Neptune’s sky,
an evening star to portside, cruising by.
Pluto
Pluto was a little lamb,
sweet as jam, many fans,
the baby of the planet family
children learned at school.
He made the children laugh and play:
small and gray, found astray.
Can we keep him? Hip-hooray!
His snow was white as fleece.
Why did teachers kick him out?
Up the spout, cruel rout!
His planetary cred in doubt,
they tagged him T-N-O.
TNOs are not like us,
back of bus. Not a plus,
just too heterogenous,
so haters changed the rule.
Pluto’s still a little lamb,
told to scram, on the lam.
“Who can say now what I am?”
Dear Pluto, go in peace.
Note: TNO = Trans-Neptunian Object. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union changed its definition of “planet” to exclude Pluto — on the ground that it looked more like the many tiny TNOs than like the eight other planets.
Eris
The gyre ends here, like a loose wire
throwing sparks that don’t know where to fly:
with the push of the solar wind whispering by?
Or the pull of the local star? Its glow is faint.
This far away, the Sun’s a pallid fire.
A god to some, but never a kindly saint.
A rounded solid planet, restless Eris
glides in tilted space, a Vast Alone,
whose farther shore must host the Great Unknown.
But mere impatience tempts the goddess of Strife
— daughter of Night and Chaos — to venture careless
on a comet run at the hub of warmth and life.
Untethered Eris spirals through the cold:
a fitful mind the center cannot hold.
Note: Eris is a minor planet beyond Pluto, discovered in 2005. It is roughly the size of Pluto, with a diameter about three-fourths that of our Moon. Eris’ elongated orbit ranges from 38 to 97 AU, which is to say from a Pluto-like distance to very near the heliopause. One Astronomical Unit (AU) equals the Sun-Earth distance, 93 million miles.
The Cosmic Hoover
Gravity sucks. The cosmic hoover gathers
motes like us to a massive central bag —
the Sun. Your ruffling hair, a staggering step,
and then you’re flying superhero-style,
arms and hands in front, faster and faster.
Planets heave in view, then whoosh behind,
no looking back. There’s Neptune blue and frothy,
Uranus (lost his keys) in Long Term Parking,
Saturn feeling blech but looking great,
and Jupiter juggling more than he can handle.
He thinks he’s big but hasn’t guessed what’s coming.
Ahead you see a motel row of worlds —
the rusted Mars, a balmy sea-shored Earth,
and hot-tub Venus, neon-blinking Vacancy.
Zero chance of stopping overnight.
The kernel Sun has popped. Ahoy, it’s filling
half your windshield. (When did you get a windshield?)
Now there’s nothing else to see but Sun,
and you’ve been flash-sautéed to crumply crisp
in five arrays of solar radiation,
with not a drop of fat to grease the pan.
Your mass is gas. Your gravity’s gone. Farewell.
Your ashes blow away on solar wind.
You float on back to where you are right now,
in the dark at the very edge of the Solar System,
the farthest you can go and feel the Sun.
A Ballad
The Corbie Sisters
The pants, you think, or ruffled skirt,
which would our sister say?
Dear Madeline was one who always
dressed for a special day.
The pants for weekdays, well and good,
but not her going away.
The skirt in black or ocean blue?
We’ve shoes to match for each.
Black’s for mourners left behind
when souls fly out of reach.
She won’t need shoes to walk in clouds
above this stormy beach.
Don’t bury me in a bra, I pray,
the freest of us three.
If you go first, I’ll not forget.
We’re tied as family —
like braids we were until that day
you took my James from me.
O sister dear, those times are mist.
Can’t you let them go?
Past as those times surely are
they’re what we have to show
for choices made along the way,
for years of yes and no.
Karl Stull - Creative 