Knight of the Mournful Countenance
I read cervantes' novel don quixote
in visitation grammar school
the good nuns knew I was not
the average neighborhood thug
so they left me to read dumas
and jack london or whomever
and to illustrate the hijinks
of eighth grade hooligans
in pencil and ink comic book style
the nuns may have guessed
my ulterior motive in ridiculing
the thugs who menaced me
every day after school
with a sound thrashing
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Sometimes in Rome
Cymbeline is set sometimes in Britain as well
I saw the play one Sunday set in Chicago
at the Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier
and came away astonished and heartened
by actors who gave life to printed words
An obscure play that I last heard of in school
brought this viewer to listening closely
and marveling at Cymbeline and Belarius,
the wise Pisanio and the lovely Imogen
reflecting on the final lines of Act V -
'Never was a war did cease,
Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace.'
Exeunt
.
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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The Season for Pastels
Looking out the window I can see
vistas unlimited that stretch beyond
mu neighbor's backyard. All winter
he and I have barely glimpsed one
another in the falling snow...
Andre my neighbor behind his machine,
goggles on and snow flying as he plows
through windrows of lake effect snow
tidying up driveways and sidewalks
so our postman can fulfill his oath
and deliver the stuff we glance at
and deposit in the garbage.
Then I think of angels that descend
with gasoline powered machines
to make his way clear!
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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16 mm Movies
One summer I taught with a guy fixated on flicks
I mean those 16mm films teachers used
to get away from textbooks
He said that was one way to motivate students
to pay attention to teachers doing their thing
at the green slate chalkboard
Show the movie in a darkened classroom
shades down to shut out summer sunlight
and they would learn
I guess they did learn and so did I; at summer's end
they were all caught up on naptime
and I was bored out of my mind!
Beware the pedagogue with a new trick
up his wrinkled sleeve!
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Cantankerous Celts
Wild and reckless they were indeed
in defense of their heartland
redcoats and the black and tans
ruffians and thugs in uniform
firing on crowds of civilians
in Dublin, September 1913
50,000 ATTEND FUNERAL OF WORKERS
KILLED BY TROOPS
Tribalism of cantankerous Celts
tends to run bloody in the streets
Today's Celts include Serbs, Scots
and Basques fighting for freedom
Headlines shout of strife and mayhem
in the Middle East
Yanks liberated Europe
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Sidewalk Haibun
The story goes that when the ragged man came into
Papa's bakery and asked for a crust of day-old bread,
my sister cursed him and ran him out into the cold.
'For Christ's sake, get out and stay out! Homeless
bum! ' Before gray morning light and the last snowflake,
I lost a sister to owl-eyed despair and a father to
a final sleep in his room over the bakery.
owl-eyed sister
thorn in my heart-
drifting
skintight jeans
see-through blouse-
in lieu of hairshirt
a wilted spring flower
rue anemone-
rue for you and me
dearest sister
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Irksome Passion
Does it irk one that poets
who think real poetry
consists almost solely
of exclamation points
and impassioned rhetoric?
Is there no room in prosody
for the quiet meditative poem
or the modern ironic comment?
Not according to some
on this board who imply
that overheated verbiage
and a certain sympathy
one feels for the downtrodden
are prerequisites for poetry
with a capital P.
Does Keats or Shakespeare
foam at the mouth and spill
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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The Lamps Are Out
Every now and then I open the book
by Agee and Evans about those tenants
in the summer of 1936 living not far
from the geographic center
of the North American cotton belt
**All over Alabama the lamps are out**
Two stores, four houses at a crossroads
called Madrid, seven miles to Cookstown,
which landlords and tenants call home
and where three hundred souls reside
Children in school there stay alive
by one form or another of cowardice
or brutality or deception taught
by sick women or sicker men
devoid of natural honesty and vigor
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Best Day
Who was it said a mortal's best day is the last day
until then one cannot assert otherwise
like the foot dipping into the river
is that it the preacher said
I be dogged if I know for sure
but you do raise some mind bogglers
the pair sat on the wharf
fishing poles in hand
bobbers bobbing in the murky water
the sky pewter-gray and sullen
like an old seagull
dingy and flaccid
in its excrement
the best day might well be your last day
depends on a scraggly chicken
in the yard beside a rusty barrow
wheel gone to who knows where
words are simple as dirt
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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The LT
LT (pronounced El Tee) was the name used by grunts in Vietnam for a second lieutenant and platoon leader. Sometimes it was used as a mark of approbation, a term of respect for a soldier and leader of men in combat. Too often, however, the term expressed disrespect and loathing for a cowardly soldier, an officer who was incompetent in the field and was afraid to fight. The LT in my story entitled 'Draftee' is one of the latter.
Twenty years old and a recent graduate of OCS, the LT has been assigned to a platoon whose sergeant is twenty years his senior.
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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