TAKING THE BUS TO VISIT MY MOTHER

Gray evening rain on the bus windows
and everything seen through a gray filter:
gray people, 
traffic lights three shades of gray
blinking in the spray.
A woman walks her dog
through a graveyard,
the dog props its leg against a marker,
pissing on the stone.
I arrive at the Care Home,
the night pierced by
streetlights, headlights, porch lights,
the night falls all over us.


copyright 2014 David Elsey

ALBERT'S THURSDAY NIGHT

Albert's father is an empty wine bottle on the warped floor.

His brother and sister sleep,

he listens to their even breathing

down the hallway,
he drinks his father's wine.
Out of work and needing a shave
Albert waits for a single day
that will make sense by nightfall,
that will listen to his voice
muttering some kind of prayer.
His father drinks at the bar until closing,
then drinks at his buddy's place till dawn.
His father will arrive
when the sun spreads up the sides of houses,
he will be a pair of thick legs
wobbling down the hall,
a lump falling into a twin bed.
And then Albert will sleep
in a darkness blacker
than the nights he runs from.


Copyright 2014 David Elsey

WHY DO YOU WRITE?

Loss.
All the emptiness
like blank paper.
I fill blank paper
with all I have left.


copyright 2013 David Elsey

SHARING

We all share poverty:
winos sleeping on concrete,
children with weekend fathers.
But the sun strolls over the horizon
and steam lifts off the frost
floats high and mingles
with the blue flower of sky.
The sun is a pulsing heart
offering the earth life.
To wake to bright sunlight
and open a window to the weather
is a gift.
That gift remains
as the sun stays put,
while we on the ground
turn away again and again.


copyright 2013 David Elsey

WINTER EVENING

Hope flys like a sparrow
and darkens as the sky darkens
with the promise of death each night
migrating with the season.


Copyright 2013 David Elsey

THEY PISS IT AWAY

They piss it away,
some of our gifted artists.
Suicide slow or fast.
Just another corpse.


copyright 2012 David Elsey

THE ONLY ONES TO LOVE

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

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

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

A WOMAN

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.
She didn't whine,
there was only a courage
I pray someday to match.

Copyright 2010 David Elsey

ATTACKS

My friends are under attack.
Denise has cancer
and is fighting for her life.
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

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

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

Upstairs at Ringler's
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

A gifted poet
has written a beautiful poem
dedicated to me.
I am blessed by his talent,
he is blessed by his talent,
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

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 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

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

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 he went,
each day getting out there,
one more day
among the living.


Copyright 2008 David Elsey

VICTORIES

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

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