view from a bard

THE ONLY ONES TO LOVE

2012-01-19T13:53:00.000-08:00

The people who give a fuck
are the only ones to love.
They've been in the minority
all their lives.
When they need it:
lend them money,
let them sleep on your couch,
listen to their problems.
We've got to stick together,
the buddy system,
all we have is each other.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

NEVER THE SAME

2011-12-13T13:23:00.000-08:00

After his wife died
his laugh was not as bright,
his thoughts not as sharp.
He had his family and friends.
Hell, he even loved his job.
He took long walks
through the streets of Portland,
seemed to be searching for her,
like someday he would find her.
He never went with another woman.
He lived 21 more years, till 77,
and when he died I hope he found her.

copyright 2011 David Elsey

MY SENIOR YEAR

2011-08-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

The vicious, blameless, universe
killed two high school girls
in my class in 1971.
Betty Wong was smart and sweet,
taken by leukemia.
Susan Thompson, promising poet,
by suicide.
Tonight, forty years later, I think of them.
They would never go on
to the new possibilities women would have.
No college, career, marriage, family.
All that was left
were some good people
crying in the night.

copyright 2011 David Elsey

THIS BOOMER APOLOGIZES TO THE GRADUATING COLLEGE CLASS OF 2011

2011-08-18T14:44:00.000-07:00

We give you a nation
where you have little chance
of doing as well as your parents.
My generation started strong.
When we were in college
some of us died
for the cause of justice.
We made great gains once.
Now, we have let rich bastards
steal us sightless,
without a fight.
And, if your generation decides to fight
there are laws
to put you in jail without a trial,
and torture you.
We let that happen too.
We leave this colossal mess in your hands.
And all of us,
even the atheists,
pray you can do better.

Copyright 2011 David Elsey

THEY PISS IT AWAY

2011-05-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

They piss it away,
some of our gifted artists.
Suicide slow or fast.
Much more a miracle
if there is no God
and the random universe
blessed them.
Just another corpse.

Copyright 2011 David Elsey

A WOMAN

2010-12-18T10:14:00.000-08:00

She told me she was 89
and had cancer.
She told me she had been a nurse
in World War Two,
near the front.
And I thought
when all the chips were in the pot
she made a difference.
She told me she came back
and taught school for 44 years.
What a joke she must have thought:
I save the world
and come home and teach English.
There was whining from her,
only a courage
I pray someday to match.

Copyright 2010 David Elsey

ATTACKS

2010-12-06T10:30:00.000-08:00

My friends are under attack.
Denise has cancer
and is fighting for her life.
Joseph is lonely and bi-polar.
Maggie is on oxygen
twenty-four hours a day.
Gus filed for bankruptcy
and split with his woman of sixteen years
in the same week.
And I have troubles
which I will not go into.

Copyright 2010 David Elsey

TO JOHN CALLAHAN--AMERICAN CARTOONIST AND MUSICIAN

2010-07-31T10:11:00.000-07:00

The day after I heard you were dead
I walked down NW 23rd
knowing it would never be the same.
Never again would I see
that patch of red hair down the street,
knowing when I got to you
I could chat with a brilliant, gracious, gutsy man.
Now I must look for the next fresh face
that can bring back that magic,
never quite the same,
but magic nonetheless,
a face much like yours
when I met you 26 years ago.

Copyright 2010 David Elsey

TO MY FATHER

2010-07-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

Father, where are you?
I needed you to be a kiss on the cheek,
an image to grow into,
a guide clearing the way into life,
and to name the birds darting through our yard.
You gave me an emptiness I carry like a scar,
an emptiness where you should reside.
You spared me your weakness
and the pain you would have given.
I am free from your image and demands,
and that freedom is dust
lifted by the wind
and scattered.
I was something you did not want or need,
an event, a mistake, early in your life.
And you went on like nothing happened
and there were no witnesses.

Copyright 1997 David Elsey

UPSTAIRS AT RINGLER'S ANNEX

2009-06-13T14:16:00.000-07:00

Upstairs at Ringler's Annex
the world was not a nightmare.
Every other Saturday
we library employees
would meet for drinks.
Good booze, good talk, good jokes.
A sense of shared suffering
was overcome again and again.
Of course I knew it would end.
But I wanted it to go on forever.
It was what I needed as the days raced by.
Now, as the days draw down,
I search elsewhere for what we were.

Copyright 2009 David Elsey

FOR DYLAN

2008-12-04T08:46:00.000-08:00

A gifted poet
has written a beautiful poem
dedicated to me.
I am blessed by his talent
as he is blessed by his talent,
given to him by God
or the random universe,
a miracle really.
All because I sent him
a short note wishing wellness,
it is amazing
what a few words can do.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

WITNESS

2008-08-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

I've seen victims of cruelty,
human or circumstance,
innocents attacked,
some killed,
some crippled,
and some just go numb.
You've seen them too,
so many you can't keep count.
Don't quit, I haven't.
Don't be depressed,
too many are suffering already.
Take care of yourself
and those you can,
as the days grow dark,
as the days grow dark.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

GRANDMA

2008-06-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

Grandma you saved my life
when I was a boy
and living with insane uncle Johnny
made me miserable.
Those years when my neurotic mind
ate away at me,
your love was there,
your physical presence was there.
Your father was white
and your mother Creek indian,
and you a beautiful blend of both.
And the whites made you go
to their boarding school for indians,
where they tried to turn you white,
just 20 years after the Indian Wars.
From you I learned
a few words of Creek,
heard you speak
in the lovely tongue.
You raised 9 kids
and helped raise their children,
wife, mother, Grandma,
rarely leaving your home.
You cared for your insane son Johnny,
lived with him
and that pain each day
until his suicide at 47.
I bless the universe
that you lived to 103,
dying in your daughter's home,
with one of your grandchildren
laying in your deathbed with you.
From 1899 to 2002
you lit our world.
When all the tough guys died,
the football stars,
the veterans of foreign wars,
you continued,
never losing your heart,
until it stopped beating.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

AMONG THE LIVING

2008-06-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

The longer you live
the more death you see:
humans slaughtered in far away lands,
or on your home soil,
murdered in the name of freedom,
in the name of safety,
in the name of revenge,
or famous stars burning out,
and family and friends falling away.
Like my friend Cliff,
who died last night,
a kind, smart, guy.
A guy who knew how to have a good time,
who could laugh at his plight
as cancer cut away at him.
Each day, even at the end,
he would walk
to the coffeehouse,
and laugh, talk,
and sip good coffee,
to be among the living,
not sitting at home,
waiting to die.
That's how I want to go Cliff,
with guts and humor,
each day getting out there,
one more day
among the living.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

VICTORIES

2008-06-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

Those temporary victories
before they close the lid.
Your team wins,
the election goes your way,
you have a damn good day
for no good reason.
All of us knowing
we're all gonna lose,
the way it makes
the moment sweet.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

TO MY MOTHER

2008-05-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

Mother, was that you?
And was I only 5 years old
when it happened?
Were you the woman
who abandoned me
at the Multnomah County Courthouse?
"I want to put this boy up for adoption."
And was it me who begged you
not to leave me?
Was that my rage swelling up
from my gut
and knotting in my tiny fists?
And is that quiver in my pen now
from fingering an old wound?
Is that dreamlike ache and rush of fear now
a bridge stretching back 25 years?
How was I to know you were crazy?
How was I to know
you were not responsible?
Did you know I hated you?
And when you finally got me back
I considered you a stranger?
And was that me 25 years later
that the Multnomah County Court
appointed your legal guardian?
And did you know
that I felt a tinge of revenge
for only a second?
Did you know that my rage
and knifed feelings were absent?
Did you know that as the deputy
guided you by the elbow
out of the courtroom
and to the psychiatric hospital
that all I felt was love
and sadness
like nothing I have known?

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

ONE MORE MORNING

2008-05-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

I woke too early
and clearly
I wasn't getting back to sleep.
So I walked to work too early.
Then I was at work too early,
and sat in the lunchroom alone,
reading the paper.
Soon this room would fill
with my colleagues,
most of them bored, frustrated,
just wanting to go home.
And I thought
I've been at it 19 years,
with 10 more to go.
I sat there wondering
if I could go the distance.
And like a battered boxer,
I rose, went down
to the workroom,
to check the schedule
and see where I started the day.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

ALWAYS FOR US

2008-05-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

Great men and women
never do it for themselves,
it is always for us.
Like Emily Dickinson
writing poems
in the quiet privacy
of her Amherst house,
unkown her whole life
never knowing
the difference she would make.
They do it so we can get up
each fucking morning,
or dust the living room
some Sunday afternoon
in the middle of November.
They do it because
if they didn't
they would die,
and so would we.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

IF I WAS EMILY DICKINSON'S BOYFRIEND

2008-05-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

I would call on you
at your parent's house in Amherst.
We would talk
of wanting God
but not quite believing,
of fear and despair,
joy and beauty.
And I would
revel at your soul
on display.
And if you died
before me
I would always have
your poems,
and any day
your soul would walk again.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

AS I GET OLDER

2008-05-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

As I get older
time speeds by,
a week like a day,
a day like an hour,
and so on.
I remember those eternal summers
as a kid,
those eternal school years,
the eternity
the month before Christmas.
I remember one summer day
as a boy,
when nothing happened
except me drinking a Coca Cola
behind Lou's Market
with death a million miles away.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

SOMETHING TO TELL YOU

2008-04-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

At 3:23 a.m.,
laying in bed,
unable to sleep,
I heard it again,
some street person's
shopping cart full of cans
rattling down the street.
And I thought
one day it could be me out there,
scrambling for cans,
eating at missions,
sleeping in doorways.
When you hear that sound
listen.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

THE WRITERS WHO SAVED ME

2008-04-29T09:34:00.000-07:00

Once it was Emily Dickinson,
once it was Raymond Chandler,
and many times Bukowski.
They drug me up
from the rock-bottom world.
This is not hyperbole,
just the god-damned fucking truth.

Copyright 2008 David Elsey

DREAMS

2007-12-11T09:50:00.000-08:00

A brimming cup,
a plate heaping with good food,
a wide window facing the morning sun.
A cool breeze
easing through the screen
to kiss you.
A good woman who loves you
to be small breaths in the night.
A car pointing to the sea
where a fine hotel
has promised you a room.
A wallet sprung with bills.

You wake to a single room,
with one narrow window
staring into darkness.
A vacant wallet,
a vacant heart,
and no car to escape in.
A door loose on its hinges
that opens into a world
you have yet to wake from.

Copyright 2007 David Elsey

WE GIVE DEATH THE FINGER

2007-04-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

We give death the finger
with each good meal,
each good beer,
each good song.
Knowing the game is fixed,
knowing there's no way out,
we give death the finger.
When we laugh,
we laugh in its face.
It's all we can do,
it's what we must do
everyday.
We give death the finger
with each good coffee,
each good movie,
each good story,
we're doing it now.

Copyright 2002 David Elsey

AMELIA EARHART 1897----1937

2007-04-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

It was never enough to be normal.
She was most alive off the earth,
flying over a man's world.
The first woman to fly solo
across the Atlantic.
The first human to fly solo
from Hawaii to the US mainland.
But it wasn't enough.
And when she died trying
to fly around the world,
died doing what she loved,
died not being normal,
she gave us everything
we need to keep on living.

Copyright 2007 David Elsey