Resurrection of Time Now Dead By a Poet Who is Going Blind, #2

RESURRECTION OF TIME NOW DEAD
BY A POET WHO IS GOING BLIND, 2


I had taken this three-stop flight
from Bemidji to Tampa.
The no-stop flight had been cancelled due
to a strike
Of maintenance mechanics.

The first segment was peaceful because
I was alone in a seat by myself.
The flight would take seven hours,

So I ordered seven small bottles of wine
That are sold on airplanes.
I sipped wine, thought of Anglo Saxon poems.

I was thinking about Anglo Saxon whale roads
and seabirds
When after the first stop, a man sat beside me.
He immediately started to talk about
his sadness.

He never paused, he continually talked.
I could no longer think about the dim dawn
And the grey seabirds of Cynewulf’s poems.

He was a strange-looking man,
looked like a figure
In the 1920 cartoons of John Held.
He wore a black tuxedo, his hair was flat.

His hair was black, shiny,
looked like celluloid.
He was telling me all about his sadness.
His wife had forced him to move to Florida.

He was going to miss his buddies.
They would wear Viking helmets with cow horns
sticking out the sides.
Go to all the Minnesota games.

The only time he was silent was when
He would drink bootleg whisky from a thin
Flat, silver, 1920 flask.

After the second stop, from exhaustion
By being bored by listening to
this man’s sadness,
I felt fast sleep
and dreamed about mermaids.

When I awoke after the third stop,
I found the man had passed out
from being drunk.
I reached over to touch his starched cuff.

I found it was not cloth, it was paper.
I touched the tuxedo, it was paper.
I cautiously put my finger on his nose.

His nose was not flesh, but paper.
He was a figure from a 1920 John Held cartoon.
I had been bored most of the flight
by a talking cartoon.

I folded up the piece of paper, stuck
In the pocket behind the seat,
Started thinking about the Battle of Maldon.


Duane Locke

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