There’s
a new
practice in my neighborhood. When there’s sewer work, causing
sidewalks to be
replaced, people often stamp poems into the drying cement.
I don’t know
if there’s a city-sanctioned method of doing this, but
it’s done neatly,
with clear block-lettered words impressed in the
new sidewalk squares.
(A crabby neighbor once called
the city to have
a square replaced
after a girl scratched an unauthorized poem on it
with a stick.)
Many
establishment poets
dislike the sidewalk poetry. I myself –
hardly an established
writer – have a supercilious, superior
attitude toward it.
Anyway,
as I
turn up Laurel,
past Mr. Green’s house, I come to the first poem,
titled Second Lover –
He
kissed the girl
in the ballerina skirt.
It was a long one –
like the kiss –
drenching
her sneakers
in tulle.
Pretty racy! Maybe the city
should
have censored it.
I thought that “long one” referred to the kiss all along, but it turns out to
refer to
the ballerina skirt.
Ballerina skirts can definitely be long and made of “tulle” (one of
those poetic words).
Sneakers with the tulle skirt is a nice touch, though. And
the long kiss,
drenching the girl’s sneakers, is quite erotic. Walking a little farther,
I come to –
Tonight
in the dark kitchen
only the stainless steel
sink
holds the moon.
The moon must be shining in by the kitchen window.
Only the sink
“holds” it, so its reflection is the only light
in the kitchen.
This really does create an eerie, solitary feeling.
I wonder, did
a teenager write it? or the woman who lives
in the house?
Was it composed on the spot? or had it been written
some time before
and finally chosen when the opportunity presented itself
for sidewalk publication?
(I’ve since learned that the poems are submitted to
a municipal office,
and those selected are installed on the sidewalks
by construction crews;
but please let’s try to forget this
inconvenient truth.)
Well,
here’s one from the other side of the street –
A
boy, skinny legs pale
as peeled willow, pedals
to his favorite pond, pole
in hand. Years until he
dates.
He desires only slime,
slop,
the fish and frogs of his
secret spot.
This one is an exercise in “p”-alliteration
– until the end.
when the “p”s
switch to “s”s. The first image makes me wince a bit, as it forces me to
imagine a boy’s
legs as “peeled.” But the poem is onto something
when it matches
sexual desire with ”slime, slop, the fish and frogs” of a boy’s
“secret spot.”
I’m
already getting a
little tired of jotting these poems down, when I
come to a
stretch around Laurel and Pierce, where I enter a veritable
sidewalk-poem village –
Wet-cement
opportunity.
It only takes a second
to change this spot
forever.
and
Origami bird,
You have great long wings
to fly.
Why do you sit still?
and
A puddle
where a moth
can shake the sky
After these haiku-like poems,
it’s a relief
to encounter this more robust effort, titled Interloper –
On a delicate pappus you rose.
Alighted on the turf,
seeming benign,
Locked into bedrock with
pointed toes
Stretched lemon head to
the sun.
Hydra, you dodge the mower
blade.
I whack you with a spade
for fun.
Fine! Senseless to fret.
I’ll transmute gold locks
into wine
And eat your children with
vinaigrette.
The speaker is evidently a kind
of ogre, whacking
and devouring beautiful,
delicate flowers “for fun." I guess the first image works OK –
a dandelion before
it opens is a green bundle, kind of like a “pappus.” I’m troubled
by “Alighted on
the turf,” though, except that we know that dandelion seeds do alight and
then sprout roots,
fastening themselves down, even into bedrock. Nice
rhyme scheme too –
the poem isn’t unskillful – I don’t know about the appropriateness
of “toes,” but
it does rhyme with “rose,” – also “wine”-”benign,” “fret”-”vinaigrette,”
and “sun”-”fun.”
There’s a somewhat brutal ambivalence about these brazen weeds –
like my ambivalence
about the poems themselves, which actually seem to improve somewhat the more
I study them.
There’s
a lot
more, but enough’s enough. There are no poems on my block of Ashland,
but just around
the corner, on Fairview,
this one is stamped – the last I’ll quote –
A little less war
A little more peace
A little less poor
A little more eats
The Friends communion has its
meeting house just three blocks away,
on Grand Ave.
Although this part of St. Paul is very much a Roman Catholic community,
the sidewalk poems
have a stubborn dissenterly feel – made by people who try to take
their own account
of the events transpiring in the vernacular of their lives.
And they prove
that, however it may fare elsewhere,
poetry is alive
(and – well – alive)
in my part of south-
western St. Paul
