Tag: G.Louis Heath

Murder by Bat

A horseshoe bat murdered my son, straight-out

Whacked him in his grave, no doubt about it.

That damn bat gave a virus to the raccoon dog

That sniffed out a ferret badger that inflicted

The viral stigma on the palm civet my son bought

In Paul’s Pet Store downtown. It went deep into

Gary, Jr.’s lungs, tripped up his immune system.

I have got to hand it to the scientific articles I read

In my obsessive-compulsive mourning. I learned

A pandemic is not simply academic. The bat to

Civet chain launched a weapon of mutation on bat

Wings that a cuddly pet civet brought into our home.

Roman Wild Ass

I’m here to tell you there’s an ancient

Roman siege machine, the Wild Ass,

Kin to the trebuchet and ballista. I

Found it referenced in a scholarly

Footnote, simply “the Wild Ass,”

Off the black and white, right in my

Eye, bango. I Googled Wild Ass (Do

Not try this at home): technical Latin

Term, onager. Eight soldiers operated

To hurl rocks at fortress walls. Smaller

Than the catapult, easier to build than

Two-armed ballista. I learned and saw

Much in my pursuit of the Wild Ass. It’s

Indeed shocking what serious scholarly

Inquiry can unveil. I mean really unveil.

   G. Louis Heath, Ph.D., Berkeley, 1969, is Emeritus Professor, Ashford University, Clinton, Iowa. He enjoys reading his poems at open mics. He has published poems in a wide array of journals. His books include Leaves Of Maple and Long Dark River Casino.

The World Turned Upside Down

The sky and the earth traded places today.

Earth creatures whose feet gravitated to the

ground now breeze over shape-shifting

cotton patches. House morphs into horse

and horse gallops into mountains. These are

the New World. This upside-down reality

imposes Brobdingnagian challenges on little

cloud walkers. Scale and 3-D depth go awry.

Eyes must adjust. Little bodies are learning to

walk again on wispy feet shy of the blue sky.

All In The Family

His brother had been soft as pulpy leaves in autumn,

not soft and strong as parachute silk like Mom. In his

brother was enough of the quicksilver indulgence of

his Dad to spoil him and enough gentleness of Mom

to soften him, but not enough of either to stay his wrought

hand from a gun. Dad refused to plant any shrubs around

houses they occupied. His itch to move on could strike any

time. Mom would never have a home where she could get

to know other Moms and their kids, follow them through

the grades into adult life. Yet, his aimlessness somehow  

made her what she wanted to be. As she grayed, the more she

flowered in herself. The older and wealthier he got, the more

the man of parts fell apart.  His bluster and con waned as her

true strength waxed. His friends fled him as her circle grew.

He sank lower, as she rose. Her death did not veil his days with

mourning. He resented her leaving. Quick as a new house, he fell

into the trap of a young siren he adorned in his wife’s best clothes.

A month after he died, his last son heard about it with vast relief.

Chthonic Senescence

Glaucoma clouded my vision during palliative

care. I made a bad decision, staring at my liver

spots, my solipsistic stigmata of old age. I was

deluded, of weak faith. My mind, beset by dying

neurons, made me think myself a would-be saint,

a regular, good old boy Saint Francis, preaching

to the birds and staying the fangs of Gubbio’s wolf.

My body, my poor body, finds its way in shadows 

with no view to see the peaks from this valley. My

electric wheelchair climbs the access runway as 

I work the joy stick above the angry lake of fire.

Sunday Wash

My wash churned in suds cycle as she pushed a

laundry cart in. Sunday, 6 a.m. and society was

not around with its cleaner, 11 a.m. liturgical cycle.

I had seen her around, recently moved in on the

second floor. First sighting at this wash hole though.

Twig-thin, somber, her eyes hollow and stark for one

so young. She had a presence I felt strongly. We talked

as she stuffed a machine with her feminine stuff that

seemed to cycle more smoothly on her quarters than my

masculine stuff did on my quarters. (The ear can hear

sounds based on gender stereotypes, I had read.) Annoyed

I was there at 6, she was used to her choice of machines.

Her voice and the way she moved (also her under-things)

did not belong to a woman up for church I said. (We

sociologists like to interview.) She smiled thinly. She

needed to wash before her 8 a.m. Alcoholics Anonymous

meeting, a weekly washday where candor and tears cycle

guilt and redemption. I said, not in a superior way, I did not

drink. She wished she did not love drink so much, but now

she could hold down a job at the box factory. I could not

feel her pain. I am not privy to addiction. I do not even

imbibe that demon drink coffee. This I said. I knew the wash

was over then. But it wasn’t. She looked at me in a way that

connected our eyes in sync to the sturdy rhythms of the wash.

This has been going on for some time now as we try to cleanse

our souls in a baptism paid for by quarters from the local bank.

In these spinning pools lurk secret depths on Sunday mornings.

     Bio: G. Louis Heath, Ph.D., Berkeley, 1969, is Emeritus Professor, Ashford University. Clinton, Iowa. He enjoys reading his poems at open mics. He often hikes along the Mississippi River, stopping to work on a poem he pulls from his back pocket, weather permitting. His books include Leaves Of Maple, Long Dark River Casino, andRedbird Prof: Poems Of A Normal U, 1969-1981. He has published poems in a wide array of journals. He can be contacted at gheathorov@gmail.com