And The Snow Fell
I remember big soft wet flakes
falling on the tracks all the way
streets filling with that wet snow
the trolley I was riding plowing
through fields of city snow
like a big red bulldozer
I remember clear as day
sitting with Ma at the table
in the kitchen looking out
at the snow falling
Ma and I sat there
streets and rooftops
disappearing in the falling snow
that covered all
and the snow fell along the Rhine
in Germany
and in the dark woods of the Ardennes
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Welcome home!
As soon as I walked in, Kilmartin called out,
'Welcome home, brave Ulysses, from the strife! '
Now I was glad to be back in the neighborhood,
you can count on that, and the red-faced Kilmartin
with his exuberant Irish greeting, set my heart at ease.
All the lads who had dodged the draft and avoided combat
were sitting on stools at the mahogany bar in Kilmartin's
Kennel Club, waiting patiently for a live one to buy drinks.
Three years in the Far East had changed me, and fighting
in paddy fields had awakened me to what the world had
in store for a dumb mick from the south side of Chicago!
Sink or swim, lad, I thought as I scanned the crowd.
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Going Home On The Northern Pacific
The way home for me was eastbound
on the Northern Pacific from California
riding coach (pillow furnished for a fee)
and reading paperback books -
everything from Robinson Jeffers
'...stones have stood for a thousand years,
and pained thoughts found the honey
of peace in old poems.'
to Denise Levertov's Illustrious Ancestors
'...poems direct as what the birds said,
hard as a floor, sound as a bench,
mysterious as the silence when the tailor
would pause with his needle in the air.'
even the obscure Ray Durem
'...I cannot find those mild and gracious words
to clothe the carnage.'
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Vote for Obama!
'Vote Obama! The past is history! Vote Obama! '
Mick applauded as he reached for the drink.
We waited for Mick's acerbic comment on
the heroic figure of our time.
'No, I'm serious. Read some of the opinions
expressed by other poets on this site about
poetry! Gush and emote, let it all hang out!
If you disagree, they ask if Chicago is still in
America? I suppose that means that in our
republic of drivel and pychobabble,
anything and everything goes, right?
That killer in DeKalb on St Valentine's Day
might have been a gentler, milder man
if only he had scribbled his drivel on
reams of paper, like you and me, right? '
Right you are, you Irish dinosauer!
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Going Home On The Train
The way home for me was eastbound
on the Northern Pacific from California
riding coach (pillow furnished for a fee)
and reading paperback books -
everything from Robinson Jeffers-
'...stones have stood for a thousand years,
and pained thoughts found the honey
of peace in old poems.'
to Denise Levertov's ILLUSTRATED ANCESTORS
'...poems direct as what the birds said,
hard as a floor, sound as a bench,
mysterious as the silence when the tailor
would pause with the needle in the air.'
including the obscure Ray Durem -
'...I cannot find those mild and gracious words
to clothe the carnage.'
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Photo of Schoolboys
Once I saw a photograph
taken by a 71 year old
Japanese tourist
in pre-WW 2 London
Black and white print
of schoolboys with satchels
and shining morning faces
walking briskly down the street
to the brick building -
King Edward IV grammar school
sometime in 1939
The retired entrepreneur from
Yokohama was touring London
when he happened on the scene
and set up his camera
I imagine the chalky teacher
in the classroom and the boys
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Digging for Nuggets
You got to work and sweat, kid!
The old prospector looked up at me
as he squatted on the river bank.
He held a battered pan and washed
grains of sand and gravel in river water.
It was a cold day in the middle of July
with clouds overhead and a stiff breeze
blowing from the north. I was tired
and weary of squatting and sifting dirt.
It was years later when it dawned on me
that prospecting was very like writing
You sit in front of the monitor
and sift through ragged thoughts
trying to glean a nugget of metaphor
from the stream of consciousness.
Then suddenly light breaks through
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Last Night I Dreamt
Last night I dreamt
that I went to the movies-
Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies
on the silver screen in the darkness
of the old Stratford Theater on 63rd-
I sat enthralled as I sailed on wings
of imagination in the grimy movie palace-
I sailed above a second-hand life
of battered furniture in a dingy flat
third floor front on Halsted Street
I sat in the cockpit of a spitfire fighter
riddled by German ack-ack fire
as I guided my crippled bird
through red and black skies-
a tough Chicago kid riding the bird
all shot to hell
with a smile and a quip
on my lips
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Chicken Feed on the Fortymile
I spent one summer on the Fortymile
not far from Chicken in Alaska
dredging with outboard motor
rigged to a device that sucked up
sand and dirt from river bottom
a coffee can of that summer
work sits on a shelf in the garage
to separate particles of gold
from black sand and soil
requires centrifugal force
which would yield chicken feed
small return for huge expense
poets and prospectors alike
scratch in the soil for simile
and metaphor but often
recover bits and pieces
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Johnny Came Marching Home
A book written by Dalton Trumbo
was assigned as class reading
one summer session-
much of it read aloud
by the teacher.
A sweltering classroom
windows open
to summer sun
and sharp
crack of bat-
high school athletes
in full vigor,
running bases
and catching
pop flies!
Perhaps it was the teacher's
voice that involved us
as we identified with
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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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