THREE POEMS BY GERALD NICOSIA

To T.K. Splake

In my daydreams of him
He is always climbing
Climbing
And the poems are always
Flowing, flowing out
Of his head like
Little mountain streamlets
Even as he pauses
Once in a while to tighten
His bootstrings
Catches his breath 
And turns his eyes
To higher peaks still.


Poem for My Haitian Friend and the Snows of Yesteryear

Eugene, old bartender friend,
someday when you walk past Java coffeeshop
which isn’t Java any more
but high-tech vegan restaurant
$40 a plate and "keep moving"
will you remember me,
shy bearded poet,
sitting at far table over $1 coffee
so many early afternoons
just back from visiting my mom in nursing home,
reading or scribbling or taking notes,
then out into the sunlight or rain
to go home and work some more
bothering no one
except for a spoon or some half and half?
Eugene, will you have a pleasant thought of me
in years that have long-since disappeared
just as myself passing the house where I grew up
4143 Custer Avenue, Lyons, Illinois
(my return address for 30 years)
wished I could see the four-year-old
boy in cowboy hat inside
watching Lone Ranger, Howdy Doody, or Cinnamon Bear
who would someday grow into writer me
with two parents and half a lifetime of experience
buried forever in a mind
that won’t forget
and remains forever at war
with the world that takes away?


This is Your Life
 to Charmaine

Born illegitimate under a Hawaiian sun
that kept burning black-hot under your skin
despite the problems
the endless problems
you turned up at twenty
in a Long Beach hospital
suffering from ulcers
and a murdered heart
I found you later in a singles bar 
on Fillmore Street in San Francisco
playing dice games with the bartender
to keep from getting drunk
I used to wonder how you did it
how you even managed to get up on time
after an all-night riot that would have put
the Corybants to shame
all those little tricks you had with the alarm
and pushing the minute hand ahead
and how you never failed to find the clothes
you'd strewn across the living room the night before
the rapid sea-change in the bathroom
the thundering shower and a little makeup
clearing off the sweat of sleep
the salt that was so good to taste on waking
on the back of your neck
and the burnt-earth smell of your hair
transformed into a dripping mop 
above your cheerful smile, flashing eyes
and fast walk to the bus stop
raging always but never questioning
what had to be done
this life you'd been given such an utter mess
I'd never have accepted it
as readily or totally as you
you talked of suicide but only
as I later understood
to let off steam, release the stress
that might have really led to it
you loafed at work
but never have I known so hard a worker
at the job of straightening out the bends
of God or nature or whoever made you hurt so bad
whoever put those nerve-ends in your soul
that register the earthquake
of every cruel abrasion
you knew how many things you needed
you didn't want to use me
you used me anyway and I was glad
to be a station on so long a journey
as if you were a famous spiritual athlete
a Marco Polo of deliverance 
who had all Asia to traverse
just to get a good night's sleep.