It doesn’t surprise me

 

February 6, 2011  (I was 66) 

 

It doesn’t surprise me

     you were the one to become a soldier

and there are a dozen more

     my mind would place in uniform

You never expressed the wish nor willingness

     but I would have guessed you sensed aroma

in the stench of heroism and duty

     Now you’ve lived long enough to taste the rust

from the rotten iron of irony

 

I understand the choices were few

     for all of us in the cold

We took hold of the life lies in front of us

     pulled and were pulled in return

Some got the short string

     others tangled in the knots

A few untied a packaged gift

     they assumed they deserved from birth

with that bow around their little finger

Robert Zimmerman and Me

 

November 19, 2017   (I was 73)

 

         Robert Zimmerman and Me

I was in a brick school building seven miles

from the brick school building he was in 

and that was further away than Hollywood

He was closer to NYC than anywhere near me

From our common geographic start

we grew up a few years and a country apart 

Somehow he knew he had something to sell

while I thought maybe I could learn how to spell

 

My grandfather owned Joe’s Tavern

 

September 14, 2019  (I was 74)

 

My grandfather owned Joe’s Tavern

a three-two beer joint with a few old regulars

He was Croatian but some Serbs were among them

A couple thousand miles from home

can turn enemies into drinking buddies

My Uncle Pete owned the Vene Qua

just up the alley and across Hwy. 169 from Joe’s

The Qua had a hard liquor license

since it was home to the Legion Club

Anyway after Sunday Mass my cousin Peter

would have to clean up the place

It was an Iron Range mining town

One time I must have been 11 and Peter 13

I was with him sweeping up

(I refused to empty and rinse the spittoons)

After restocking the coolers

we would sample a recipe

from Uncle Pete’s Bartender’s Guide

Peter decided we’d try a martini

gin vermouth ice and an olive easy

It was so bad we tossed it and ate the olives

burnt our lips and couldn’t figure out

why they were so popular in the movies

I planned for summer nights in a tent

 

August 23,2010  (I was 65)

 

I planned for summer nights in a tent

set up in the back yard

from where we could control the dark

and rule the infinite stars

until we died in a sleep from a fatigue

we thought we’d defeat until we could not

Stupid guilt for nonexistent crimes

stripped and robbed me of the times

left only rich when they could have been opulent

I do not know why we didn’t enact these schemes

that might have fulfilled our dearest dreams

now split into aged wonderings

how we could have lost such sacred plunderings

The have fun gang had fun on the way to having fun

 

from this week in August 2014  (I was 69)

 

The have fun gang had fun on the way to having fun

Getting there was half the fun 

The HFG did good if embarrassed into it

did mischief if it could get away with it

never sought to harm or set off the alarm

Steal your crab apples but not break your windows

They had fun at other’s expense

because they had no money to spend

I've been back maybe six times in 50 years

 

from this week in July, 2017 (I was 72)

 

I've been back maybe six times in 50 years

Family buildings changed hands

The one owned by my grandparents torn down

replaced with an empty lot

No relatives live there

None there likely to remember me

Totally forgotten history leaves no mystery

Petty distinctions that separated the citizens

accompanied them into extinction

Not even the prominent ghosts leave the cemetery

Five hundrded feet of snow has melted through their souls

The place I refer to as my hometown

is a mere skeleton of the one I occupied

from the school to his house

 

July 7, 1976  (I was 31)

        

    from the school to his house

My wife and I

On the Fourth of July

walked the lawns of Hibbing High

 

And read its plaques

commemorating wars for the ball of wax

then walked up 7^th Ave. past Blessed Sac.

 

We hit 25^th I think we were smilin’

about the store clerk who corrected me

and showed me their one album by Dy-lan.

Playing Guns ca. 1953

 

May 13, 1976  (I was 31)

 

   Playing Guns ca. 1953

Pretend this area is the swamp

you can’t go through here

or you’ll sink in quicksand and die

You hafta go around this part past those trees

or over those rocks the mountains over there

No using binoculars they are illegal weapons

When you shoot someone you gotta say their name

not just bam bam bam but bam bam bam and their name

otherwise they’re not dead

and you gotta shoot loud unless you say before

you got a silencer on your gun

And then you can only use it for close kills

and when you’re dead shut up

No telling where anyone is

or pointing at ‘em with your gun either

Taking prisoners is dumb

there’s never anything to do with them

So shoot to kill  Okay you guys hide first

Miners climb out of the mouth of the earth

 

May 9, 1969  (I was 24)

 

Miners climb out of the mouth of the earth.

They practice earth dentistry, extracting iron teeth.

It’s a messy job at best, and their boots

are blood-stained.  If they keep at it and don’t

get swallowed, they eventually gain recognition.

They have a slick monthly journal, The Hanna Miner.

After twenty years a 1” x 1 1/2” black and white

photograph.  After thirty years a 2” x 3” (wallet size). 

After forty years a 5” x 7” colored

(I suppose you could frame it).

It is however, discouraging to see

how they let their own teeth go,

pictured there next to the superintendent

with his monthly million-dollar smile.

When only a boy in northern Minn

 

February 7, 1972  (I was 27)

 

When only a boy in northern Minn

I first climbed through the barbed wire

edged up to an iron ore pit for a look

Later at the Grand Canyon I thought

Yeah but a man didn’t dig it

Down deep my pit had groaning trucks

red lakes prehistoric cranes spiral roads

and the myth books in school had pictures

Zeus looking down on the Greeks

Later it was Dante’s hole

or like a shot out of 2001

Anyway from the beginning it impressed me

and I grew to climbing around in it

Depths of it were un-worked and abandoned

You could walk miles on the bottom

stupidly swim or skate its lakes

There were also hell holes

deep drill test wells wide as a kid

It made you feel the world was hollow

to lay at the lip of one and drop rocks down

They clonged donged echo prolonged

down until you could hear them no more

diminished sound of a small gong

x? When I was fourteen I saw Time Machine

x? Underground creatures came out of hell holes …both deleted in post

When mine cops came you’d have to run

dodging the unmarked holes a sweet terror

compared now to the acrid pitfalls of surface life

I remember looking out at the night

 

from this week of 2021 (I was 76)

 

I remember looking out at the night

in the snow

Or was it looking out at the snow

in the night

Whichever it was it certainly was

black and white

 

I remember how icy cold it was

on the breath and clean

A pitch dark purity it was

solidified at zero

A stone in the center of the chest

pulling on planet Pluto

 

I remember how of a piece it was

me in the middle of

the here and there of when and was

inhaling the dark of space

to puff out a luminous cloud

a certain swirl of grace

getaway

 

December 10, 2006  (I was 62)

 

                  getaway

Around the corner up the alley behind the bandstand

skid to a stop in the dirt nobody hurt

Off the bikes hearts laugh divide the loot

raspberries and rhubarb crab apples and carrots

And what if we get caught  We did not

What if we get caught  We did not

 

South of town drive the cars

drink the beer smoke cigars

take out the guns shoot some rats

break some glass and make a wish

to be the ones who might get out

if we were lucky enough not to get caught

 

The cold was a trap the woods a trap

the mines were empty holes

you could fall into a life so small

if you didn’t look out you had it all

but you don’t look back when you don’t get caught

around the corner up the alley and we did not

I was in a snowstorm in Duluth

 

November 2, 1973  (I was 28)

 

I was in a snowstorm in Duluth

may sound like the lead line of a joke

to some but to me it was beautiful

It was night

and every white star sped to the ground

or hit and clung to the brownstone church

as we in our wet shoes

skidded down the steep streets

where no car could go

all the way down

past the heavy trees and god’s church

all the way down to Superior Street

and we threw snow at each other

some time ago

north boy

 

October 22, 1966  (I was 21)

 

         north boy

Remote was the lake

and forest of pine.

A dull boy in the dust

from an open pit mine

knew Bohunks and Finns

and Dago Red wine.

It was little of books

that he knew but he’d take

three-two beer with his friends

beneath the trees to the lake

where they’d drink and discuss

the great lives that they’d make.

Education’s slow breath

engendered reserve

a dislike for his life

of un-sophisticate verve.

And he has yet to discern

the use it served.

If you were seven in 1952 in northern Minnesota

 

October 21, 2010  (I was 65)

 

If you were seven in 1952 in northern Minnesota

and you heard a plane overhead you looked up

It would be a small plane Piper Cub red

maybe silver but nothing big and of course summer 

If you were at the ball field

you lay on your back in the grass to watch it

It happened every other day or so

You made the connection with the plane

knew someone was alone flying up there

depending on the sound of that motor

to get them back to that little strip in Hibbing

If the engine coughed more than once

you listened hard and looked harder

Your uncle said you had to stall it and restart

just to get your pilot’s license

It seemed dangerous to me 

I wanted to learn to fly

I just didn’t want to have to use a plane

So many remember what it was to work

 

October 2, 2008  (I was 63)

 

So many remember what it was to work

Their bodies still wear the pain

of ditches dug and barrels lifted

chickens dressed and flour sifted

 

Cold curses from the open pit

frozen iron chunked out

of the empty holes  Musta been 1955

they struck to keep low-grade hope alive

 

Iron-poor pellets pulled from the ore

taconite taken by the magnets of Tokyo

after years of tin toys amused us

sent back to Minnesota as a Toyota

Grandma’s Minnesota garden was done by mid September

 

September 7, 2007 (I was 62)

 

Grandma’s  Minnesota garden was done by mid September

July August were tending picking cleaning canning steamy months

long twilight evenings of joyful work filled basement shelves with jars

beans tomatoes corn on the cob pickled cucumbers raspberry jam

banana peppers green peppers red peppers and chow chow

Leaf lettuce carrots green onions and radishes were summer gone

Dry corn stalks still stood purchase for cold complaining crows

maybe a few potatoes yet to be dug  Lilacs a patch of bare switches

dormant gladiola bulbs buried against the sinking frost

From the porch Grandma surveys the devastation

I don’t think I be able to do a garden no more

She said that for at least twenty years 

The first frozen crystals ripple the surface dirt

grey as lake water before it all whitens for the longest of seasons

All winter the bright vegetables come up from the basement

empty jars stored on the bottom shelf along with the mud boots

to be worn when she tills away the final snow in May

Playing Guns

 

from this week in September, 2018  (I was 73)

 

         Playing Guns

If the barbed wire didn’t give

The fence post did

Stomping between the barbs

the wire sagged

or pulled the u-nails out

leaving a gaping eye to step through

onto iron mining company property

Even so I caught my pants

and tore a three-inch rip above the knee

along with the skin on my left thigh

not real deep but enough blood

to pretend it was a bullet wound

that just grazed not severe enough

to keep me out of combat but scarred

enough to remember the ersatz battle

sixty-five years later

iron mind

 

September 2, 2006  (I was 61)

 

         iron mind

The empty cars come round the bend

The engine passed here long ago

and the train moves so slow

we convey raw ore as she goes

It pounds the metal and rocks the cradle

sends up a halo of bloody dust

Off it goes to where heaven knows

its tailwind blows our hair to rust

Iron from the ore is the final score

and the miner tallies next to zero

His kid keeps hid the jobs his daddy did

thinks his football coach is a hero

Miner to refiner and iron to steel

heat from the furnace a part of the deal

names are lost before the product is sold

Steel usage is cold  Don’t tell me

how or from whom it came to be

just give me its logical functionality

 

first published in Around The Corner, 2008

I thought I was a town kid

 

August 24, 1998  (I was 53)

 

While I grew up I thought I was a town kid

not a farm kid or lake kid

not a highway kid

A town kid, though the town

was less than two thousand

and the closest city was eighty miles

and that was Duluth

A town kid didn’t have to know cows

didn’t have to catch fish everyday

didn’t have to hope a friend would hitch-hike by

 

Town kids knew sports

and hung out at the fields the rink

the bowling alley the Itasca theater

Everybody went to school in town

and everybody learned something about iron mining

The open pits are in town at the edge of town

along the highway ranging between towns and lakes

The pits  You do not imagine them vast enough

nor deep enough  The tires on the Euclid dump trucks

are taller than you  Looking from the edge of the pit

those big trucks look small traversing in and out

 

Sometimes it takes fifteen years to shift gears

even when you’re running without a load

I never had to churn the Guernsey nor convert a pig

into pork  I fry the fish if you bring it cleaned and scaled

The trucks were too big for me to fight

Hitch-hiking with a friend can be an adventure

You thumb alone out of love and off to school in Duluth

where there were town kids farm kids lake kids highway kids

and city kids  Some from Helsinki didn’t know anything

about iron mining but quite a bit about geography