A. D. Winans

 

A. D. Winans is a native San Francisco poet, writer and photographer. He is the author of over 45 books and chapbooks of poetry and prose. His work has appeared internationally since the sixties and has been translated into eight languages. A song poem of his was set to music and performed at New York's Tully Hall. He has won numerous awards, the most recent being a PEN Josephine Miles award for excellence in literature. Presa Press published a book of his Selected Poems, The Other Side of Broadway. Three chapbooks are scheduled for publication this fall. All poems below are from a book of poems, No Room for Buddha, to be published by Polymer Grove in October. 

A. D. Winans' Website:  www.adwinans.mysite.com

 

REMEMBERING MY GRANDMOTHER

 

Oh how I hated that Third Street hotel

My grandmother old and wrinkled

Sitting in the lobby with withered men and women

Reclining on worn couches

Staring off into space with eyes

Like death warrants

The smell of death

The smell of funeral parlors

Filling the lobby

My grandmother pale and sickly

Her voice shaking like an earthquake tremor

Rising slowly to hug me

Wearing her years like rosary beads

 

Oh how I hated those visits

Watching those old people shuffle

In and out of the hotel

On their way to a Sunday walk

Or a meal at a Tenderloin cafeteria

Looking like wasted corpses

On a 24-hour pass from the morgue

Living behind drawn shades

In a single light-bulb room

Sealed like tombs

Walking in endless circles

Like a mad conductor

At an abandoned railway station

Oh how I hated those visits with death

Seeing my own mortality

In my grandmother’s eyes

 

The old hotels are gone now

Torn down in the name of progress

But they will always live on

In the back of my mind

My grandmother walking the

Corridors of my skull

Reaching out to me

With bone cold hands

These transitory images

That will not leave me alone

Replaying themselves over

And over again

Like a bad horror movie

 

Cursed with insomnia

I struggle in the morning

To get out of bed

Waking two three times a night

Trudging down three flights of stairs

To retrieve the morning newspaper

In and out of doctor offices

Taking pills like candy

Seeing my grandmother

In the dark gloom of that

Third Street hotel

Death crouched low

Like a sprinter waiting the

Starter’s gun

 

 

 

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MEMORIES TWO

 

It came into our life unexpected

Like an unwanted child

Rudely shoved into the living room

Through the narrow doors

By two white shirt brutes

Heaving and grunting like hogs

Arriving one morning charged

On my father’s meager pay

 

Once in the house

It took over our lives

And none of us would ever

Again be the same

 

Many a night

I snuck quietly from bed
making my way silently down

The narrow hallway

To peek into the living room

Where mother and the beast

Were engaged in battle

Like knights of old jousting

For honor

Mother slouched over the piano stool

Her eyes dream-like, hair disheveled

Magical music notes coming

From the foot petals

At the bottom of the piano

Perhaps bringing her back to kinder days

Before the weight of marriage

Weighed her down like a landslide

Her fingers pretending to tickle the

Ivory keys with tender caresses of love

Looking like a Chinese sewing lady

In a garment shop

As if each note were a perfect stitch

In time

 

 

 

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DINING OUT WHEN I WAS YOUNG

 

I didn’t like it when my father took

Me with him for lunch

At Compton’s Cafeteria on Market Street

In downtown San Francisco

It wasn’t the food, which was
OK, but the old folks that I feared

The cook was fat and bald

And there were no waitresses

The bus boy was old

And not a boy at all

And the people who came there to eat

Were retired folks on low income

With death warrants for eyes

Dabbing at their turkey chins

With crumpled paper napkins

Looking like pallbearers

Back from a funeral

 

 

 

---

 

POEM FOR MY FATHER

 

On weekends my father worked

For Luke Morley

At the corner grocery store

Not for money but for conversation

He never had with my mother

Staying there until late at night

Stacking shelves with canned goods

Returning home with his reward

A pack or two of Pall Mall cigarettes

Sitting alone in the living room

Staring out the window

Blowing smoke rings in the air

The ashes falling in the ashtray

Like bits and pieces of his life

 

 

 

---

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

 

I look at your picture
hanging on the wall

Think back to the conversations

We never had

The way you sat there

And stared out the window the

Year before your death

No amount of drinking

Can erase these memories

As I toss down one drink

After another

Past soft liver tissue

Trying to avoid the vacant

Look in your eyes

Pieces of my brain stapled

To the lampshade