A Walk On The Beach
We trod along the beach
beneath the stars - two lovers
hand in hand gazing at the sky
and the lights along the far shore!
The city of Saint Francis on the Pacific
bestows its brilliance and blessing
on two souls enraptured by love
and molten passion.
We swear vows to each other
as though engraving words
on alabaster marble that outlasts
the ravages of time!
The inconstant moon looks down
with unabashed envy
at two mortal lovers
walking an earthly beach.
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Blue Collar Guy
Imagine a burly guy in denim jacket
capbill shadowing busted nose
hairy mitts gripping coffee mug
sitting at a table in the Union
on the campus in Hyde Park
gazing with wonder at a girl
seated opposite him
bright-eyed and fresh
in sweater and jeans
I thought then of my father
a man who had toiled
a lifetime in the mills
so that one day he might
visit one of his children
on a university campus
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Dublin & Chicago
a pseudonym is necessary
to establish an identity
based on origins
personality is irrelevant
in the scheme of things
that intrigue poets
perhaps a dramatic dialogue
is in order to elucidate
how things are
like browning and his duchess
call it plagiarism if you like
but that's how it is
in dublin and in chicago, too
wallace stevens and his poem
the emperor of ice cream
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Hydraulic jacks
Sounds like something obscene I thought
some erectile dysfunction device
or an aid for relieving gastric distress
I don't know what I thought then
but after crawling about on cold
concrete working the damn lever
and looking in vain for a spot
on the undercarriage that would
support the car's weight
I ejected a stream
of damns
and shits!
Who invented these damn things
devised to drive a guy bonkers?
Damn him and his ilk
to mechanic's busted knuckles
for eternity!
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Teamster on the Run
Think of a burly guy in leather jacket
baseball cap bill shadowing broken nose
hamhock mitts dangling at his side
Stereotype, you protest! Show me
a mug like this who frequents
the coffee shops in Hyde Park
near the University of Chicago campus
sitting at a table poring over Sartre
or whoever the latest avant garde
may happen to be whom professors favor!
If you do spot such a creature on campus,
he's either unloading a truck out back
or he's visiting his granddaughter!
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Sestina Ahoy!
When I was a high school student
sentenced to two years durance vile
at Saint Ignatius
the author I read most at the time
aside from the assigned reading
was an Anglo-Polish seaman
One tends to adopt the viewpoint
of a more seasoned voice
in a profession much admired
He was born Teodor Josef Konrad
Korzeniowski, son of a nobleman,
Joseph Conrad is noted
for his deep moral consciousness
and his narrative technique -
a writer and a merchant seaman
I thought to emulate him!
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Rising Today
Today I burn in the cold waters of grace
Tomorrow I drown in the hot flames of lust
Today I am what I am
Tomorrow I will be what I was
Reminders of mortality
waters of grace that burn me
flames of lust that drown me
let my epitaph read
TIME DEVOURS ALL
We burned in the blue waters of the Pacific
We drowned in the dark forests of Germany
We lie buried in the swollen mists of time
our resting places unmarked by granite-
we learned that there are no honors
without difficulties in this life
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Sound As A Bench
Poetry should be mysterious as silence
and as sound as a bench
and as hard as a floor
so I read in poems
by Denise Levertov
Poets are like worms
building from their innards
castles of metaphor
She advises poets to relearn
the alphabet
from anguish and ardor
through somnolent grotto
to the flank of Pegasus
and home to the present
I learn more from one line
about the twelfth letter
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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A Single Birthday Candle
Good Christ, he said to the mirror
you certainly look your age
hair retreating to the rear
bleary eyes
gray stubble
another night spent carousing
takes a toll all right
you could have spent the hours
instead
on the unfinished manuscript
lying bereft on the desk
'Tell us what you thought
when you embarked on this voyage,
leaving your native land
for the shores of Chicago?
No answer? - you faltered
for fear of failure? ....'
He turned from his reflection
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Seeds and Husks
Look, he said, at the gray squirrel
perched on top the wooden fence
that borders the garden out back.
Study it well before it takes offense
and departs without a by your leave,
scattering hull and seed in its track -
Like a poet with half-formed idea,
who discards reams of dry husks,
seeking the seed within each morsel;
who digests the meat of metaphor
and simile, set in rhythm and rhyme
in lines that defy inexorable time,
leaving images that remain behind
imprinted alive on a reader's mind.
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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