Nostalgia

in the bars
in those days
it was all a matter of who
threw the first punch

so you always
kept your distance

badmouthing a jerk
through some woman
you knew would make
it to the side near the jukebox

or wherever the jackass
stood

now
the easily obtainable
handgun has changed things:
as long as you’re armed
you say what you want
regardless of distance
since
as my drinking friends tell me
the average gunshot makes it
easily across the average bar &
usually
the first one misses & it’s
the return shot that

scores

in any event
I’m glad the average

jerk has remained
in bars while I’ve left him to
exchange shots with the kind who

write poetry

though there are some evenings
when I wish
all guns were gone & I’d find
myself in a nightspot
glaring at one
of my detractors
with no women willing
to speak for us

© Mark Wisniewski 07

How It Works

it was horrible enough
to have an entire bathroom redone
not just paying for it
but also needing to keep leaving
this room to make sure
the hired men were working
in accordance with
my wife’s specifications

anyhow that finally
ended but then the town wouldn’t
take our contractor bags of old
plasterboard & tiles & plywood

they always have
their reasons & my taxes & I’ve learned not to
argue with them

instead I thought
to drive the bags

one at a time to dumpsters
behind nearby restaurants & gas
stations only to pull up
to a sign informing me that if
caught I could be fined
$200

which struck me as fair
until I noticed

a video camera

so then it was off
to a “transfer station”
(you can no longer
find the word “dump”
in the yellow pages)
30 miles away with a dozen
very heavy & somewhat torn contractor

bags in the Hyundai leaving
slightly less than enough room for
me to steer normally

after of course
getting lost I
found
the place (owned by someone with
an Italian name)
& unlike everyone there--
largely truckers whose careers were
to haul & dump refuse--
I had no idea

how it worked

I drove around &
saw dumpsters & semis
& warehouses of various
heights
finally I asked
a guy sitting behind a tiny open
window in a small building
& he told me to

pull onto the scale

drive to “the warehouse”

get rid of my stuff

then have the car weighed
again at $90 a net
ton & a minimum charge
of $90

I drove off looking for the scale
only to find it
directly in front of

the tiny window

& now the guy didn’t
tell me my total weight
just rolled his eyes & waved me
ahead so he & the honking truck
behind me could
proceed with their business

then it was off to look
for the correct
warehouse

one side of one had
no wall & inside
was a very tall crane
& immense piles of
garbage

& alongside one wall
I only then
realized
was a line of semis
waiting to unload
dumpsters of great length

all of their engines
were running but this was no
place to talk global warming:
I drove to the back
of the line

soon the Hyundai sat
between 2 Mack trucks
& there were no women
& everyone but me had
black hair & 2
of them standing toward the front
noticed me
walked over
& told me I could pull ahead
to get my
disposal over with

I obeyed even though I’d begun
to enjoy the wait
the crane was moving
the garbage from pile
to pile & as I

unlocked my trunk
the 2 men opened my
doors & began yanking
out bags with no
regard for the integrity
of the upholstery & all
I could think to say was
thanks guys but
if you tear a seat my bathroom
will cost even
more including the price
of anger in my
wife’s heart

but the crane’s noise made
that discussion impossible &
soon we had
all the bags out &

my wife
still in mind

I was shooing
nails & plasterboard crumbs onto the grimy
floor of the warehouse with the freshly
open jaws of the crane swinging
directly overhead

& one of the 2 men was
laughing at me

the other talking & laughing with
someone on one of those
walkie-talkie cell phones
& between his laughs
he told me to
leave before I got
killed

which I
did

driving straight
to the scale concerned
my pal behind the tiny window
would tell me I’d dumped
more net tons than
I had so he could charge me
$360

he too was armed
with a walkie-talkie cell
I stopped on the scale
put the Hyundai in park
got out
approached the window
he was smirking
maybe at my corduroy jacket & he said
“pal
that was
nothing--just give me
twenty bucks”

which
I did

quickly

then I drove
off his scale
& headed home feeling

the roominess
of underachievement

© Mark Wisniewski 07

Dusk

in the midst of all
those Polish
Americans
I would lie
in a small room

wishing it weren’t
bedtime

it seemed unfair
that any child be forced
to sleep

let alone
in early May with
the screams of children
younger than I
playing games
in the nearby
outdoors

it seemed so
unfair I imagine
I cried but
don’t remember
crying as much
as kneeling
on that small

bed to look
out the window at the peak
of the neighbors’
roof maybe 8 feet
from my face

listening to those screams
that were never
distant enough

& sometimes louder
cheers

then hearing more closely
the melancholy robin
who’d sat alone
on that peak

seemingly waiting
for me to appear

before it
went ahead

& sang

© Mark Wisniewski 07

 

Mark Wisniewski's book of poems One of Us One Night, winner of the 2006 Evil Genius Series Contest, was published recently by Platonic 3Way Press. His novel Confessions Of a Polish Used Car Salesman is in its second printing, and he's won a Pushcart Prize, two Regents' Fellowships from the University of California, the 2006 Tobias Wolff Award, and a 2006 Isherwood Foundation Fellowship. His work has appeared in more than 250 magazines including Poetry, Poetry International, and Paris Atlantic

Email: markswisniewski@hotmail.com 

         

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