Poems out of Donkeyland (Minnesota poems)

Eight Neighborhood Poems: from Donkeyland
[Poems out of (Donkeyland) Minnesota]
Part Three


“When I was growing up, in St. Paul, Minnesota, we lived in a neighborhood, the police called Donkeyland, and the following poems are of some of those memories (1950s & ‘60s). I can just see my mother in the house making supper, fried potatoes, and pork steak, and my brother and I off in the neighborhood some place. At 10:00 PM, she’d call “’O, Chick…Michael!”’ she had nicked named me Chick, it would take a long time for me to grow out of it, but eleven years in the Army, one in Vietnam, would do it.” Dennis


I.

The Mockers:
Winter and summer

Winter, the gray mocker of death:Summer, the rose that never wept,Come both with me, whisper—
To the soft silver harvestOf your seasons; come touchMy face with snow and sunFor you are the unanswerable ones.

#1512 10/17/2006


II.

Between two Houses

Between two housesThe wired fence stoodAnd the trees and chimneysAnd the heat and the lightAnd the hot, hot summer
Was there.
My prayers were saidAnd the neighbors were at restAnd the night allowed us to sleepAnd the presence of mother’s voice
Was overall….

#1513



III.


Across the Street

Night, from an attic
bedroom windowis a gray, dark thing?Street lamps reflecting
railroad cars,zigzag across the street;my brother’s quivering
under his covers, Says:
“Go back to sleep!”

#1514


IV.


Empty Lot

In the middle of summerIn the empty lotNext to grandpa’s house(where I lived with my brother and mom)We’d play softball (reckless days of my youth);Eager was everyone thereafterWith their wilds wishes and all.

#1515



V.

Cemetery Whispers
(Oakland Cemetery, St. Paul, Minnesota)

Over the cemetery fence we went
as if the dead were calling us;the graves whispered—yet, voiceless((perhaps just in my minds)( but—deaf I wasn’t)):as a result, the shadows flickeredin the light of the moon, made the earth groanunder my wobbly feet….As I put my lips to the bottles of brewsplattering it here and there,thus, the sea of dead continued to whisper.

Note: we really were not bad kids back then, not compared to what kids do nowadays; we were bored out of our minds, needed a placed to get drunk, and the cemetery for a few years looked like the place to do it (especially when you are 15, 16 and 17-years old).

#1516



VI.


Left (1968)

Most everyone loved Chick on the city block
(in the neighborhood that is);so we all loved a wild, infatuated boy,who played a guitar and wrote poetry:nobody is sure where he went, and why…:a few folks perhaps, but no one is saying.A singer: dancer, karate man, soldier, poet, lover—
he broke a lot of hearts, and he felt the pain likewise!I wonder if anyone remembers him at the bar.
Or knows where he’s gone to—I doubt it.

#1516


VII.

Donkeyland—Sunset

I remember the last day in the neighborhood;
it was in the year 1968. After that day, I’d never return
to stay—(I’d follow the sunset; travel the world).
The last day had a gleam of light to it, and in my body
a hesitation; the air was cool I remember, it was April.
I didn’t realize back then, I’d remember so well now,
and keep so many images, photos in my mind (I remember
I was getting ready for San Francisco, leaving
the Midwest behind). I also remember her long (my neighborhood): hearts that escape you, corners that hate you; life there for many, have gone from roses to
ashes; harsh and trampled are her streets: “Donkeyland,’ they called her, who never weeps.


Note: Our neighborhood was called Donkeyland by the St. Paul Police; nicknamed by a police officer called Howe ( not sure of the correct spelling) who used to comb Cayuga Street, and the rest of the neighborhood back in the late 50s and 60s.

#1517


VIII.


Mrs. Stanley

She sits on her porch and knitsbending at the window-sillwith old, old waxed fingers;smiling away ((my old neighbor)
( Mrs. Stanley)).

Now forenoon has comeShe switches to another window(still on that little porch)looking down now, down the street(I’m but fifteen).
“Doesn’t she have anything else to do?’I say aloud (no one hears me)…;I look at her again, her facethrough those old pale drapesshe seems homelessin that big house
(since her husband died).

#1518 Mr. Stanly died about 30-years before she did. She died at 96-years old; he died between 65 to 67. He had an old Rambler in his garage, I remember when he bought it, in 1961, he didn’t drive it much.



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