E.J. Hudak: (Poems 23-26)

Steve I have a friend who has a head we go places because he is a magic giant A magic giant with a head a heart & a mind which on occasion climbs inside me to work the controls pointing me onward the direction of the up-elevator robots stop and rust without magic giants with heads hearts & minds. Mallory’s Bar & Grill When I was young I was truly young & spent my days on a sandblown dune Answering the gulls victim of the sun, gathering castoff wood by the foam till noon. All my friends from the other world, built their lives on a split-level hill Amid two cars & a dog feeding the brain, seduced by its speed forgetting the sky Cursing the snow cursing the rain, laughing & pursuing their ten-carat dreams Climbing the crushed-stone serpent’s back & damning it all at Mallory’s Bar & Grill. Mallory’s Bar & Grill cars lie rusting in stacks, rubber & oil stain the serpent’s back Houses tumble as a natural whim as brains glow bright & masters grow dim. The dune shifts before my eyes, hair graying, skin going leather but still the sea Offers wood to me the gulls cry, ‘Old man, our living was good.’ our roof was the sky our house that sandy hill. Laugh on my friends of the other world, your house & stars were Mallory’s Bar & Grill; Lift your glasses to the sun lift your glasses to the sea, & gather at my gravesite as the wind & sand bury me. New Years Eve I arrived at nine & already Ids lay shattered and broken in pieces on the floor; They were dragging the old man kicking & screaming out the door; you would think he’d go willingly A drink ... a kiss ... the blast of a horn; no reason to suspect this child to be any different once it’s born A Song For Judy Judy always liked to dance Most nights when I’d come over I would surprise her pirouetting Before the mirror One yellow spring day Judy fell in love with an accountant Who only liked to dance When he was drunk I never saw Judy after that But I would picture her longing For the crystalline ballroom And the hush of all those crinolines Now when I walk alone through country fields I imagine Judy spinning from my grasp Dancing ever dancing waist-deep In tall grass and yellow flowers Then too I think of that accountant In some gray convention town Laughing and drinking with an overnight wife While Judy comforts a crying child.

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