Tuesday, February 4, 2020

TOM BLESSING


3 poems


birdy sits in the café
watching the snow
as it ripples down 5th street
knowing soon he
will have to go out
into winter wearing his
light fall jacket
out with nowhere to go
he is scared
since iraq
he is always scared
he can hear john prine
someone is playing sam stone
fitting
he stands unsteadily
slips his jacket on
one bar left
maybe he could nurse
a couple of beers
for a couple of hours
of warmth
he opens the door
and walks out 
into a moving curtain
of cold
‘honor to those who served’
he thinks as he wraps
his arms around his chest
bows his head and slowly
begins his nightly journey
to rico’s club
club for the forgotten
club for ghosts to gather
later he’d join the pigeons
in the old bank building



*

birdy sat in the back pew
listening to the preacher
rant about how god hated
a litany of sinners
birdy knew he was a couple of them
but birdy didn’t hate
he hurt
a hurt jesus would know
but the preacher knew
nothing about his hurt
about anybody’s hurt
he closed his sermon
with a reminder to vote
on Tuesday the way 
jesus would vote
birdy knew jesus wouldn’t 
vote the way the preacher would
jesus would not abandon
the poor and weak
funny how one man’s sinners
were another man’s saits
birdy got up and left
before the collection plate
got to his pew

*

when the old bank burned
birdy decides he might as well
burn with it
it would hurt
but only for moments
life hurt forever



*****************copyright Tom Blessing


Tom lives in writes in a small town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  As he writes this snow is falling and he is in his classroom at an alternative high school.   It is his 51st year of teaching and he still enjoys the students.  

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