Mr. Logan
Would you consider these poems I have enclosed for publication in (A Brilliant) Record Magazine? The Poems I have included are titled, “Street Lamp,” “Dandelion,” and “A Patriotic Sort of Leaf.”
Sincerely,
Jake Heller
Street Lamp
The deer
like a street lamp
lying on the side of the road
at dawn.
legs stiff as poles
light dim, but still in eyes,
as I step from my truck.
flicker and.
Out
-dead-
continue on
Dandelion
Do you remember that day atop the little hill in my backyard?
the only day we ever spent there
Among the ferns and trees and rocks bathed with moss,
and the sun guiding us with her custard skirt.
There was a fence and a shed
and an old bicycle wheel half buried in the dirt.
My cat prowling in the grass,
underneath a tree.
(The same one Bobby fell out of once
while we were trying to climb high enough
to peer into you backyard, two houses over)
What were you holding in your hand that day?
I can’t quite remember.
Perhaps, it was a dandelion. It was something yellow.
How yellow we were then,
So shy on the hilltop.
And we’re even shyer now.
We barely talk anymore.
And then you lifted up the dandelion (or whatever it was)
and put it in my hand and what happened next was this:
you kissed me
on the lips
it was quick
my eyes were open
but they weren’t looking at you,
no, but my cat
who was playing with the dandelion
that had dropped to the ground.
A Patriotic Sort Of Leaf
The leaf sings and falls off the tree
It is singing, “The Star Spangled Banner”
And the rocket’s red glare it croons
It is a patriotic sort of leaf
Light is refracted off its underside
As it comes to a rest, tickling leaves of grass with its long white beard,
The grass tastes the leaf and wonders where it came from
Grasses don’t have eyes; it couldn’t see the leaf fall from the tree
(the grass is curious about this, but not judgmental)
A wispy passerby drops a butt in the grass…smell of smoke
It spirals slowly upward in the way a hamburger tastes, juicy
Paul loves hamburgers; he orders them extra juicy – no mayo
But he orders them well done – extra mayo
“Number two and make it snappy”
They don’t make it quickly because they work at a fast food stop
“It was like, you know he like, first he brushed the hair of my cheek”
The prudent meanderings of a speaker box
He gave them a tip the snake he was
And then he slithered out through his window, in through their window, and up
and into the ice cream machine
He will eat it all
And the eccentric leaf is floating upwards now with a rock onboard
The upward sift of the air is what is causing it to rise
“Look at me!” the rock wees over the mumble of the leaf’s singing
Oh say does that star-spangled…
And the smoke billowed forth from the butt in an array of brilliant colors
