Ed Werstein Verse-Virtual 2016 April

April 2016

Despite being a life-long consumer of poetry, I spent 22 years in manufacturing before my muse awoke and dragged herself out of bed. I sympathize with poor and working people and I advocate for peace and against corporate power. My poetry has appeared in Verse Wisconsin, Blue Collar Review, Stoneboat and a few other publications. My first chapbook, Who Are We Then?, was published in 2013 by Partisan Press. You can find more of my poetry and other great poetry here: http://littleeaglereverse.blogspot.com/

At Home and Barefoot

Like a discalced Carmelite
I’m barefoot again.
Poetry’s the culprit,
always poetry.

I don’t know why the reaction
manifests (pedifests?) itself
in my feet, but it is less painful
than having the top of my head
taken off.

This morning it was a line from di Prima,
the only war that matters is the war against the imagination
I halted
re-read the line
and felt the chill.

I looked down on my exposed toes
and my Goldtoes lying there
halfway to the wall.

It might be Stafford,
Your one little fire that will start again
or Ferlinghetti
comparing Willie Mays to a footrunner from Thebes.

The first time it happened
it was a line from Levertov,
Tolerance, what crimes
are committed in your name
and I felt the air between my toes
my socks launched with such force
they were airborne.

I don’t have the same problem
in the library or the park
or on the bus, but
tell me, who reads poetry
at home
with their shoes on?

First published in Poemeleon

Kooser Groupies
...as a teenager my impulse toward poetry had a lot to do with girls.
-Ted Kooser

At the breakfast reading
they call out to hear their favorites
the way girls in the forties begged
Frankie to fly them to the moon,
or in the sixties screamed
for John and Paul to hold their hands.

And a few of them may have ridden
to the moon on Air Sinatra
a time or two,
behind closed bedroom door
phonograph spinning with their dreams.

Many no doubt had dreamed
of George's slender hands
fingering more than
the neck of his weeping guitar.

But a different man sets them
swooning now, a quiet unassuming man
rooted in their heartland.
A man of well-chosen words
that do his singing for him.

And the women call out:
"Read, The Beaded Purse"!
"A Jar of Buttons", "Mother",
"How about "Pearl"!?

Oh, you've got them, Ted.
They may not be girls any longer,
but you've got them.

First published in Steam Ticket