leaning against each
other like drunken brothers
at a funeral
Adapted from the poem, Even Numbers by Carl Sandburg as published in The People, Yes in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg by Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace and Company: New York, 1950).
1
A HOUSE like a man all lean and coughing,
a man with his two hands in the air at a cry,
“Hands up“
A house like a woman shrunken and stoop-shouldered,
shrunken and done with dishes and dances
These two houses I saw going uphill in Cincinnati
2
Two houses leaning against each other like drunken
brothers at a funeral,
Two houses facing each other like two blind wrestlers
hunting a hold on each other.
These four scrawny houses I saw on a dead level
cinder patch in Scranton, Pennsylvania
3
And by the light of a white moon m Waukesha, Wisconsin,
I saw a lattice work in lilac time white-mist lavender
a sweet moonlit lavender
Sorry but I just couldn’t resist.
Hey Little Brother!
Still in the drivers seat!
For those who know, they know,
For those who don’t know, that’s my little brother Pete watching me handle the reigns sitting in the drivers seat ( at the Dutch Village in Holland, Michigan).
I don’t have glasses yet and it looks like I still have my front teeth so this could have been the summer of 1968.
1969 was a rough year on my face.
I got glasses.
On my 9th birthday, I got hit in the face with a surf board that gashed my cheek open.
On Thanksgiving Day, running from my brother Timmy, I slipped and fell on the basement floor and chipped my left front tooth in half.
Still wear glasses.
Still have the scar.
One of grand daughters just lost her front teeth and asked her Mom if she could get a gold tooth like Pappa.
BTW, I should mention that this college basketball season, Michigan went undefeated on the road in the Big 10, something that hasn’t happened since 1976.
They tied the record of most regular season wins by a Big 10 team.
And in the process, the swept the home and away series with that team in East Lansing.
Home of the my little brother.
No Haiku For You 