Seven Poems

by Craig Kirchner

Prayer

You got a bad diagnosis, maybe ’C’,

might need surgery, maybe chemo,

and your college roommate passed.

We’ll talk next week, you’ll know more.

I decide to say a prayer,

for all my old friends who are ailing,

who have had a recent loss,

it’s becoming a significant list.

It will be an ‘ask’ to a higher calling,

their God of forgiveness, the all-knowing

and powerful, that will bring out the

better in me and beneficence in Him.

It is acknowledged He is celestial,

beyond clouds and constellations’

I will be as loud as I need to be,

or as subtle and nuanced as is prescribed.

The success of His leaning in and listening,

considering the request of a blasphemer,

will be your recovery and continued health,

no short-term dramatic losses.

I’m thinking we’ll talk mid-week,

if things work out, and you can tee it up,

I’m going in for the big one,

a comped tee time, the weekend at Sawgrass.

Eulogy in Pigtown

*Originally published at Your Impossible Voice.

Sober Thursday mornings in his flat

we discussed Kafka, Sartre and you.

Champagne always on ice

in case you visited.

He knew you wouldn’t,

but it was all right.

In between sets you read poems,

and so, he searched to put one word

in front of the other, moving left to right

with that club foot,

seeking the one image, a sentence -

by closing time, a complete thought -

that would win your applause.

Afternoons he limped the neighborhood,

hoping to catch a glimpse,

to finally know where you went home to.

Toward the end he carried a ladder 

having heard it was second floor.

His docent and only friend

I have come to realize,

that he happily paid every day

in dollars and gin damage,                                           

to stay crazy, to write verse, to see you.

Ajax Liquors

*Originally published at Dear Booze

It hadn’t rained in California,

there were fires, rationing water,

and some clown at the end of the bar,

shouts, Lets drink to the drought.

Thinking back on it,

I was trying too hard to be

the youngest-ever liquor store owner,

to drink with the big boys,

that had been drinking for a living,

for a lifetime.

Months prior to selling,

I couldn’t get the key in the door

for the shakes,

a Budweiser and a Bloody Mary later,

I put the cash in the till,

and opened for business.

There was always a five-year plan,

TV repair would close,

knock down the partition,

triple the space,

new beer box, triple the business.

Four and a half years later

a guy walks in with an offer

I can’t refuse.

It was never part of the original plan

that going to settlement

would save my life, save me

from drinking myself to the drought. 

You know it’s a must

*Originally published at Impspired

Billy McC. ate glass,

rolled out of moving cars and short trees,

wanted to be a stuntman,

had a plate in his head.

We’re sitting in a strange bar in

East Baltimore, talking about

the old days, like last summer,

listening to Norman Greenbaum.

‘Goin up to the spirit in the sky’

The native morning drunks take a

dislike to something about us,

whiskey and beer mixed so early with

testosterone, and we’re not locals.

It gets to the mother bashing stage,

and I start to fantasize pain in

geometric shapes, two guys

in the morning mist pacing with pistols.

‘When I die, and they lay me to rest’

Bill in his best Clint Eastwood way

grabs a bar stool, takes a bite,

out of its black leather backing,

the perfect touch to calm the situation.

I felt bad for the stool, light a cigarette,

the big palm thing in the corner

goes back to growing,

the bartender takes his first of the day.

‘Gotta have a friend in Jesus’

Leaving, stumbling, Bill points out,

completely out of context,

that the rain falls on the living and the dead,

and I wonder if he was listening to the lyrics.

Driving off the lot he mentions the time I

talked him down with the knife in his hand.

I tell him we’re even, and nonchalantly,

inquire how he digests this stuff he eats for affect.

‘Go to the place that’s the best.’

Apostate

*Originally published at Whimperbang

Foreheads lope into corners,

square to meet the room.

Idle language loses meaning,

glued taut with foam from the mouth.

A cluster of friends move away.

Attempts to outflank thought,

succumb to streams of scurrilous now,

solicit new seductive states,

foreseeing fall, like Eve in the garden,

not jubilant but calm, sedate.

Slightest lobule movements,

minute shifts of cosmic weight

tip the tiny abstract scales,

send souls soaring from icy crags,

falling to demented fates.

Carnal heat and contemplation,

defining decadent descents,

causes smiles from righteous critics,

abandons all but anti-logic,

burns in serpentine retreat.

Yin, Yang

*Originally published at Coffee & Conversation

Infinite layers of time,

lost then found,

of noumenon pure, sustained.

Sinners sanctified,

all acts become just,

heartfelt indifference reigns.

One man is mankind,

drinks from all waters,

seasoned by every stream -

all pleasure complex,

senses, all thoughts,

heightened, buoyed by pain.

Each life colors, hues,

pigments, affects,

engenders the next.

In endless ensemble

all words are spoken,

voids determine, abstract.

In line

*Originally published at Floyd County Moonshine

There’s a full resume,

at least a full page of legal pad,

of things tried, managed,

owned, bought, and sold.

Had fuckups and some success.

Through it all, everyday

was like waiting in line at the checkout,

and the old lady at the register

has a full cart,

a life’s story and coupons.

Excesses, not Hunter Thompson,

but got arrested twice and have scars.

Drove too fast, never slept like normal,

now there’s Ambien,

and everyone is speeding by.

In attempting to collect virtues,

patience moves to the top of the Billboard,

replacing ambition as the greatest hit.

If as they say, time is money,

the alarm doesn’t need to go off.

The synopsis hasn’t changed,

experience, references, tweaks,

embellishments, same wonderful rap sheet,

intelligence: there’s still pride in

the garden, but not much dirt.

BIO: Craig Kirchner is retired and living in Jacksonville, because that’s where his granddaughters are. He loves the aesthetics of writing, has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels and has been nominated three times for Pushcart. He was recently published in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, The Wise Owl, The Wilderness House and dozens of others. He houses 500 books in his office and about 400 poems on a laptop, these words help keep him straight. I’m at Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/craigkiirchner.bsky.social