Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and poetry reviews have appeared in over two hundred print and electronic publications. He has received four Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing. He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory and five books of poetry. Most recently he was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association “Jade Ring” Award for humorous poetry. He is the poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org) and a former member of the board at the Woodland Pattern Book Center. Charles is Co-Chairman of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. He will have two books of poetry published in early 2010: Girl Friend & Other Mysteries of Love that will be published by Alternating Current Press, Leah Angstman, Editor. And I’d Rather Be Mexican that will be published by Cervena Barva Press, Gloria Mindock, Editor. He is a founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest fresh water surfing club on the Great Lakes (http://www.visitsheboygan.com/dairyland/).
Charles P. Ries Website: http://www.literati.net/Ries
BELOW THE FLOOR
I live in the basement
beneath the footsteps.
The furnace whistles to me on cold days.
The washing machine hums to me at night.
My ex-wife lives one floor above,
10,000 miles away.
My daughters with wings
sail between heaven and earth.
Getting honey from the clouds
and iron from the brown soil.
My possessions are ideas.
My lovers names all rhyme.
My conquests are fictionalized.
The shadow side of home sweet home,
where a giant prowls naked
beneath the floor and ideas
grow during intercourse.
BIG WOO
Academic hack turned carpenter,
blistering nails instead of prose.
Loved the barber shop and menthols,
Ape man - angel hearted.
Bell rang, third grade poured onto hot asphalt.
Master of the play ground,
recess never ending.
Woo’s wonderland - king of kick ball.
Junkie monkey man
Herion, methadone, ho hum.
River rat playing at the sugar shack.
Dead eyes turned toward heaven.
Go quietly into the night Big Bad Woo.
I LOVE
Your grilled cheese sandwiches under
the full March moon, as Jupiter draws
near and we witness its unblinking eye
hovering above the horizon at early dusk.
The way your lip is slightly twisted upward
at one corner making your mouth look like
an irregular right triangle.
Your explanation for washing your bed
sheets three times a week, “dust mites.”
Your mantric complaint about how hard it is
to dress well at 20 below zero in the midst of
a blizzard. Yet refusing to compromise for
the sake of warmth instead sludging, steadfast,
like an Armani foot soldier through road salt,
snow drifts and sleet. Saying, “some things
will not be compromised!”
Your method of slowly moving, methodically
passing through the house...dusting, resetting
souvenirs, just so. You, the feng shui master
of knickknacks and fashion magazines, creating
a perfect order in the universe of our life.
KILLING SEASON
I did what I had to do. I had no choice. I was the son of the man
who raised them. From kittens in May to an early death in November.
Our mink dressed the fashion elite. We cared for our animals like
they were our furred children.
We gave them a good short life and a quick painless death. We’d drop
them like quarters into a wooden box containing cyanide powder and
wait a few minutes until they expired, slowly, silently, into eternal sleep.
We didn’t always kill them that way. We used to break their necks.
But it took a big man many hours to break 10,000 necks each pelting
season. So we changed with the times and went with cyanide.
This allowed me, at fourteen, to become the chief executioner.
I wasn’t thoughtless. It never became like breathing or picking corn.
I’d run wheel barrows full in to my father who peeled their skin off and
readied them for New York furriers who’d select the best for full length coats.
My prolific ability at killing 40,000 mink over four seasons left me hanging
when I filed for Conscientious Objector status with my draft board. They
asked me, “If you had no qualms about killing thousands of mink, how come
you have a moral problem with killing the enemies of your country? I mean,
killing is killing, ain’t it son? Aren’t you just a natural born killer?”
The purity of their logic confused me. I had always been an absolutist, like
those Jain monks who see God in an ant. Who, when inadvertently stepping
on a beetle see a sentient being crushed to death.
If I could kill mink, why not men?
MARLBORO MAN ON MICHIGAN AVE
Sitting on the sidewalk outside
Sak’s Fifth Avenue, he didn’t
look too crazy. Long gray beard,
clean white tee shirt and blue jeans.
But his eyes were crazy. Focused
at the end of his quickly dwindling
butt chug a’lugging it like a Pabst
Blue Ribbon.
Maybe he was the guy who sold
the shoes, not wanting to waste
time with a Big Mac on his lunch
break. Sucking up cigs for an
early afternoon buzz that would carry
him to closing time.
A smoking pro, he cradled his
three inch joy stick with his
ten finger tips as I watched him
down that Marlboro in 30 seconds
waiting for the light to turn green.
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