like a piece of ice on a hot stove
the poem must ride on its own melting
-Robert Frost in The Figure a Poem Makes
…………
……….
Remember the five and dime stores? The shelves and bins were full of stuff I dreamed of when I was a kid ~ birds and turtles, rubber snakes and gaudy girdles, comic books and counter culture. Oh, to be at Woolworth’s grubalicious lunch counter where you could sit up on a stool and eat. A cheese sandwich cost 30¢, served with two slices of dill pickle and a small handful of potato chips. For a real treat, I’d cough up another dime and get super-deluxe baked ham, assured by the menu’s YOU WILL LIKE IT ! A Coke was a dime and came with a squirt of lime syrup, if you wanted it. Add a SUPER JUMBO banana split for 39¢ and you had a Red-Letter Lunch for around a dollar. Plus the customary 10¢ tip, of course.
……………
………
Details worthy to be recorded. This is how poets think when they sit down with pen in hand. They are the carriers of details, keepers of memories. They say yes to life, all of life ~ the hamsters, the multicolored thongs, liver and onions ~ the real truth of who we are.
Poet Mark Irwin was born in Faribault, Minnesota, home of Minnesota’s largest outdoor swimming pool and the birthplace of The Tilt-A-Whirl. The local Woolworth’s drew shoppers from miles away to Irwin’s small town. His poem, Woolworth’s, takes us to a corner of his past…and ours. One line can illuminate an entire poem or bring up forgotten incidents. (One just clicked into place for me ~ Sweet Cousin Anthony of the slicked-back hair, ducktail and dangling cigarette,was arrested for loitering in front of Woolworth’s. The family was aghast.)
Woolworth’s becomes the axis mundi, the place that links the past with the present. Popcorn, milkballs and parakeets ~ just because a poem is light does not mean it is lightweight.
………
#2
WOOLWORTH’S
by Mark Irwin
……..
Everything stands wondrously multicolored
and at attention in the always Christmas air.
What scent lingers unrecognizably
between that popcorn, grilled cheese sandwiches,
………
malted milkballs, and parakeets? Maybe you came here
in winter to buy your daughter a hamster
and were detained by the bin
…………..
of Multicolored Thongs, four pair
for a dollar. Maybe you came here to buy
some envelopes, the light blue par avion ones
………….
with airplanes, but caught yourself, lost,
daydreaming, saying it’s too late over the glassy
diorama of cakes and pies. Maybe you came here
………
to buy a lampshade, the fake crimped
kind, and suddenly you remember
your grandmother, dead
……….
twenty years, floating through the old
house like a curtain. Maybe you’re retired,
on Social Security, and came here for the Roast
………..
Turkey Dinner or the Liver and Onions,
or just to stare into a black circle
of coffee and to get warm. Or maybe
…………
the big church down the street is closed
now during the day, and you’re homeless and poor,
or you’re rich, or it doesn’t matter what you are
……….
with a little loose change jangling in your pocket,
begging to be spent, because you wandered in
and somewhere between the bin of animal crackers
……….
and the little zoo in the back of the store
you lost something, and because you came here
not to forget, but to remember to live.
…………….
You can read more of Mark Irwin’s
award-winning poetry here~ http://www.markirwinauthor.com
……….
Toni 4/4/11
Like this:
2 bloggers like this post.
