Pepsi and a Package of Planters Salted Peanuts
Five-hours dodging trucks and traffic
stupid drivers and old people
putt-putting along
in the rain. You arrive finally
check in to Holiday Inn Express
off exit 9 of Turnpike
Hang up your clothes
keep them wrinkle-free
old “on the road” salesman habit
Then you buy a Pepsi
from the vending machine (you prefer Coke
but sometimes there isn’t a choice)
and a one-ounce package
of Planters Salted Peanuts
Pull off your shoes
plop your feet up on the desk
eat and drink
the room quiet and dim like a mausoleum
when have you ever felt better?
Vegetables
Of course you don’t believe in an afterlife,
a silly but comforting notion for some people.
“Living” forever, up in the clouds
or the ether or the asteroid belt,
your consciousness residing in a holy place.
Not likely.
But wouldn’t it be swell if such a place
existed just like we were taught in church,
the way Dante told us: heaven,
angels and cherubim, St. Peter waiting
at the pearly gates, spending eternity
amongst your loved ones.
Maybe that wouldn’t work out so well.
What if Uncle Lenny was up there
still talking the ears off a brass monkey
or Uncle Johnny drunk as a skunk
chain smoking his brains out,
and Aunt Alice reminding you once more
to eat your damn vegetables!
Light
So what’s wrong with all these
shadows in the hallway
splinters of light sneaking
under the doors
do you have to watch TV all damn night
haven’t you got more important things to do
something, anything
learn something earn something
a university degree perhaps
or some money
paint the garage
clean the gutters, repair the shutters
pull some weeds, call your mother
anything
Do you even know
what’s behind those doors
in the hallway
have you tried to figure it out?
why not grab a flashlight
and take a look?
No, of course not, you’re too busy
slumped on the sofa
watching TV
crime mysteries for Christ’s sake.
What would Dad say about you
wasting your time?
or Grandma Sadie
what would Thomas More do if he knew
or FDR or Caesar
Dante, Michelangelo, Mozart
Ernest Hemingway or Jesus. . .
what?
Michael Estabrook is a recently retired baby boomer child-of-the-sixties poet freed finally after working 40 years for “The Man” and sometimes “The Woman.” No more useless meetings under florescent lights in stuffy windowless rooms. Now he’s able to devote serious time to making better poems when he’s not, of course, trying to satisfy his wife’s legendary Honey-Do List.
–Art by Rona Keller