PENNIES ON THE GROUND
1969
I was just a boy of 5
As I pulled coins from my pocket
Three pennies fell to the ground
Pennies
One shiny
Two others
Scarred as if battered soldiers
No real value I thought
I was the type of kid
The type that thought
Leaving pennies on the ground made me better
I was rich enough…I could afford it
My father was a different man
A blue collar man
A safe, secure, frugal man
He heard the coins as they hit the pavement
And he paused
Standing guard as a giant statue
Against any car that might hit me
Waiting for me to bend
And pick up my lost treasure
In the parking lot of the hardware store
But I didn’t stop
Brushing by his legs I continued
One step by and I was lifted from my feet
A powerful hand
A hand I had once watch break a crescent wrench in
half
Turning a 9/16th bolt from beneath the
neighbor’s station wagon
Earning extra money on the side to “keep us
afloat”
This same hand now bunching material at my collar
1969
And things were different
In a movement as smooth
As a dancer
And maybe as well practiced
I was over my father’s knee
Two quick swats
publically delivered to my surprised bottom
Not issued for pain
But rather for a point
“Who do you think you are?”
Was the question
Indeed
Who did I think I was?
I was a kid who lived in a trailer
A kid who had never had a family vacation
A kid who shopped for school clothes and shoes
At K-Mart
A kid fed pot pies and TV dinners
Who did I think I was?
“All money has value son,
I worked for each of those coins
Each coin has value”
Like a good speech
The lesson
That followed the attention getter
1969
And I only remember the name
Not a face or a real memory
Uncle Steve
My father’s older brother
Dead just the year before
In a war I had heard my father speak of often
A war he hated
Such a waste
Such a waste
He would repeat
His brother now amongst the long list
Of sons and brothers and fathers
Lost
Wasted
1969
And I bent to pick up the coins
Pausing with each to really look at them
Before tucking them away
As I looked up my dad was nodding his head
A slight smile
Moist eyes
The both of us...
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TALENT
Talent
He had real talent
They all said it
“Man, you are so talented”
“I wish I had your talent”
“What I could do with all that talent”
“Hey, don’t waste that talent”
The last one a mantra from his parents
Don’t waste your talent
Don’t
waste your talent
DON’T
WASTE YOUR TALENT
Talent
His talent became a yoke
Of unmet expectations
A silent obligation to “Do something big”
It was such a burden
His talent...
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MY AFRICA
Here
golf greens, lawns and landscaping drink
their fill,
Spitting the excess to the glutteness gutters
Each flush of a toilet
and 3.5 gallons of fresh water disappears
minus what the dog has lapped up
water
God’s gift to the planet
In Africa
The sewers filthy from feces pollute the
water
Bacteria laden pools
Teasing
as mothers and their children
gather round with dry cracked lips
And 21st century humans die
of thirst
If they do drink
Desperate
Desperate to survive just one more day
Just one more
Parasites ravage
The bloated bellies of babies
But so what
So what
that 1 in every 3
African child dies of diarrhea
100 billion pounds of food wasted each
year in United States
more than 30% of Americans are obese
In Africa
A continent of land
yet no food is grown
Deprived of technology
support
And 21st century humans die
of hunger
So what
6 million Africans to be exact
Diseased they die
Wars, genocide, forgotten landmines
And they die
Children with no legs, arms but worse…
No future
The statistics say they’ll be dead
by forty
We try to turn the channel
When Sally Stuthers parades
Babies with flies flittering around encrusted
eyes
We don’t
want to see it.
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