The Dull Old Drunk (On Wabasha and Seventh Street)

The dull old drunk stood in the street

Abhorred he stood looking at me

A severed thumb hanging by a thread

He shit in his pants, a car almost hit him

His rainbow of life, now a candle half lit

A blank stare in his eyes, hes hanging on

I said!

Standing there, abhorred, looking at me

There in the streetthere in the street

(Back in 88)just looking at me, me, me

The dull old drunk, on Wabasha and Seventh

streets!

#1032 12/24/05; note: sobriety is a way of life, and I can only say for those who have tasted the bitterness of the drink, I will tell you now, get out of hells grip, before its too late; Im recovering, had I not started 22-years ago, Id never had made it to fifty-eight years old had I continued drinking (I would have died back before my 40th birthday); Merry Christmas to you; and Happy Birthday Lord. This was written one day before Christmas, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dlsiluk

The Meatpackers Boy

[A poetic Lament: in short prose]

Old man, they call me now, capped with a receding hairline, a few white hairs, here and there, a drought, rising inside my brain, knotted muscles everywhere; once unimaginable, now like vapor clouds in my eyes. I see my Mother in that old sofa chair, shes saying, I never expected to live so long, how strange it seems now; Im singing the same old song (I guess Im there).

My saga is hammering out, I live in a labyrinthine circle, with deep roots: my bones, knuckles, shoulders, chromosomes, breaking down; dreams not worth much anymore: they come during darkness and vanish by dawn. I even have a grimace on my face, like the cool breeze from the sea.

I see everywhere the new breed: with computers above their knees, a cup of coffee by their side, not much life in their eyes.

And I hear mother in the kitchen (now and then)) even though shed dead)), shes talking again about the stockyards, where she worked, way back when. I guess Ill sit and listenjust for a moment (shes laughen).

#1405 7/29/2006 [3:00 PM]; written at El Parquetito, Miraflores, and Lima, Peru: Dedicated to Elsie T. Siluk

Note: Being a Meat packers son, my mother liked to come home from work sit around the kitchen, tell me of all the gossip going on, down at the South St. Paul (Minnesota) stockyards (the slaughterhouse, it was known as). I worked their one summer, back in 1967, shed come and wake me up at my apartment on Seventh Street, bring me to work, she was proud I was working there. I would come in late and all that kind of bad behavior, and shed stick up for me with the bosses, have her boyfriend who worked there talk to them; thus I kept my job for the summer. But that was it.

See Dennis’ web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com