Old Blood
By: John L. Gronbeck-Tedesco
(for Michael Newell)
1.
In the parking lot of a Seven-Eleven,
an old man dances lightly on the hood of his
pick-up; sounds like overalls on a taut clothesline
billowing softly in a generous breeze. He
listens to his feet on metal.
2.
And, he sees the
August moon color of old blood—
pain and beauty—luster over
late season corn
red summer wheat
dark stemmed radish,
and splinters of open prairie:
shadows from gray, long-limbed Osage,
buffalo grass pocked by yellow
white sassafras,
purple love grass,
blue-green grama,
near a water way, unnamed now:
silted, thick, the scent metallic,
the feel in the palm granular,
dry, sandy-grained,
yellow-veined deep—
sulfur tailings.
The scene is serrated, headlights,
white-maned blear on asphalt gone gray.
He cannot see the owl barking in dismay for
prey dug in deep to escape the blare.
3.
He remembers
a time when Venus rose upon
the East unperturbed by parking
lot lumens. Stars
seemed larger then;
forgets the name
of one who kissed him, when he breathed
love into her open gray eyes—
their bodies scented with lilacs.
He dances to grieve for the wild
heart, his in days of used-to-be
when he was entirely alive,
when he moved naked as the summer
moon on the keen, perse flint, at the
bottom of the Neosho flume,
ankles warmed by blood from his feet.
4.
He smiles at children who smile back
before parents pull them away;
persists against the nerveless
clichés of adolescents come to
abuse him while Jesus nods
assent bouncing on their dashboards.
5.
He dances between
now and soon to come
dreams and memories,
dank clay and lustrous
spirit, heaven and
ruined earth.
He likes feeling small,
unfinished, defiant;
knows time matters. Life
is uncoiling too
willingly from bones
rubbed raw by yesterdays
gone wrong.
He is only a
bit of dust awake
and impatient
with reluctant
bones heated into
motion by iron
still smoldering steam
beneath calloused feet,
on the hood of his car
under an August moon
the color of old blood.
John L. Gronbeck-Tedesco writes poetry, short stories, translations and plays. His work has appeared in the Connecticut River Review, the Muddy River Review, Scintilla, Better than Starbucks, Outsider Poetry, the Kansas City Fringe, the University of Kansas and Busi-ness Casual Productions (NYC).