Steel Our Hearts!

de profundis

I read books all the livelong day,
and find myself burning in water
and drowning in flame

doing as well as I can but doing no good!

I'm in a fine frenzy in this day of the locust!
I wage war against those merry tyrants of
good intentions whose book of dreams
allow no elegy for the southern drawl!

I ain't no Job! I ain't the first dissident!
Hell, I'm not even a white European male
whose forebears predicted the impending
suicide of Western civilization!

Give me my druthers-
seaspray and whisky, Shakespeare's bawdy,

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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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One Summer Afternoon

A book written by Dalton Trumbo
was assigned as class reading
one summer session
much of it read aloud
by the teacher

sweltering classroom
windows open
summer sun
sharp crack
of bat

high school athletes
in full vigor
running bases
and catching
fly balls

Perhaps it was the teacher's reading
that drew us into the story and involved

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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Cabin on Loon Lake

INTERIOR kitchen of rustic cabin
in remote region of northern Michigan
wind howling snow swirling visible
through small window at left

Disheveled man sits at makeshift desk
sorting through stacks of paper
Angular woman leans against iron sink
smoking cigarette after cigarette

MAN> You use the checkbook?

Woman looks around room, smiling.
She gestures toward a cabinet against the wall.

WOMAN> There's some Wheaties in the cupboard.

Man looks startled as he rises to his feet

MAN> You know what I'm saying?

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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Crafting Poems

'Yeah, it's a craft that you learn on the job,
don't you think? Like a carpenter learns
the ins and the outs of his trade.
It's not just puking up your guts,
spewing feelings left and right
like some demented jamoke! '
Mick said, holding the magazine
open so that Celia could read
what he was pointing to.

'Oates says here that writing
is a craft, it's not an experience
like an emotion, ' Celia said.
'You know, Mick, some folks
think that you're the author
of these poems that Malone
has been writing using you and me
as characters in an ongoing epic
poem. They identify you the character
with the same name as the author

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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Marlowe Between the Lions

Imagine reading between the lions?
I mean the two standing stony vigil outside
the Art Institute of Chicago on Michigan Avenue.

A novel by Raymond Chandler and paintings by
Edward Hopper are celebrated within -
laconic detective and barren cityscapes
set the theme of big city angst and anomie

I checked through The Big Sleep -
*He sat behind a desk, a middle-aged plump
man with clear blue eyes
He puffed evenly and stared at me level-eyed,
a funny little hard guy
His neat well-kept face looked as if it had been shaved
within the hour
A small man in a big man's world
He looked ready for a fight*

Look closely at Hopper's oils-

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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Mick takes it seriously!

'Hell, i read in bed, on the train, or walking
down the hall, don't you? ' Mick said.

We were sitting in his kitchen.
Celia was on the barcalounger
in the den watching a soap on TV -
Days of Our Lives sounded like.

'Books of Tennyson and Keats not my cup
of tea exactly, nor do I fancy them circling
overhead either - bleeding dangerous, that!
Sure, I puzzle over rhyme and meter, simile
and metaphor - shit! I went to college, too!
Can't hardly get that stuff out of my head!
I've bayed at the moon when I drink enough -
the curse of the Irish, right? But no dancing,
please! not in this neighborhood!
Celia is my idea of beauty, though a bit long
in the tooth, like the old Lab sitting with her -
they both shine with the patina of age,

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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Dear Miss Yrotaval

Let me state my case, dearest Meghan.
Some have called me
most eligible bachelor on the campus,
this ivory tower of the intellect,
where grown-up children frolic
day and night in bookish bliss,
but I am not the most eligible.

Meghan dear, let me tell you
of a most notable ancestor,
whose love for his Beatrice
transcended all. True, he wed
another, but his heart and soul
belonged to the love of his youth
and the woman who inspired
his epic poem, a divine comedy!

Dearest Meghan, you are my
Beatrice, my soul mate,
my sole inspiration!

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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Dearest Meaghan

Let me state my case, dearest Meaghan.

I know some have called me
most eligible bachelor on campus-
this ivory tower of the intellect,
where grown-up children frolic
day and night in bookish bliss;
but I am not the most eligible.

Meghan dear, let me tell you
of a most notable ancestor,
whose love for his Beatrice
transcended all. True, he wed
another, but his heart and soul
belonged to the love of his youth-
Beatrice, the woman who inspired
his epic poem, a divine comedy.

Dearest Meghan, you are my
Beatrice, my soul mate,

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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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Anchor to Windward

Lakeboat mariners look forward to winter lay-up all summer long. The last voyage north from the steel mills in South Chicago begins before dawn with autumn winds and a cup of hot black coffee from the galley to ward off the chill. Guys congregate on the wind-swept decks, stomping feet and talking of this and that - wives and kids and days spent lounging before the new TV and drinking Budweiser.

'See you next spring, Mick? '

'Not on the Mighty Fitz, you won't! '

His shipmates laugh. They all know Mick's final paycheck is all but spent as soon as he signs off the boat. His wife and three kids live in a four room flat in Canaryville on Chicago's south side. Mick's not ready to swallow the anchor yet. He'll be back with the rest of us eager to sail another season on the Lakes. We keep an anchor to windward.

first day of November
raw winds astern-
lake is dark and deep

life ashore-
rent due
first of the month

morning till night
chores to do-
house in disarray

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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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38th Parallel

Once I lived in a village not far
from the thirty-eighth parallel
near Kaesong, in fact

The snow that February fell for days
blowing horizontally to the ground
hills and paddy fields filling with drifts

We lived, ten of us, in a hut
that smelled of kimchee and garlic
we huddled together on the warm floor

The sergeant in charge was from Chicago
a big-mouthed Irish guy from the South Side
he talked constantly about his gang back home

The North Koreans who ran the prison camp
grew to dislike the sergeant and our guys
we ate less and worked harder than the others

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poem by Michael Pruchnicki
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