WILLIAM MILLER - POEMS

William Miller's eighth collection of poetry, LEE CIRCLE, was published by Shanti Arts Press in June of 2019.  His poems have recently appeared in The Cumberland River Reiew, Crossways, Dappled Things and Grey Sparrow Journal.  He lives and writes in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

                               A Drink for a Stripper

​                                                   Right there, on the cusp between
                                                   the afternoon and night pole,
                                                   she was in street clothes, asking me
                                                   to buy her a gin and tonic.
 
                                                   A natural blonde, indigo-eyed
                                                   with a Mississippi drawl,
                                                   she told me her story, as if for
                                                   the thousandth time:
 
                                                   a man, a boy really, a lover turned
                                                   pimp, brought her here--
                                                   one year on the bricks, then a ring,
                                                   white picket fence…“I think
                                  
                                                   you’ve heard the rest, baby.”
                                                   Old enough to be her father
                                                   and then some, I was still fool
                                                   enough to believe in the tower
 
                                                   and falling hair, a redneck Rapunzel
                                                   safe forever in my arms.  But I was
                                                   also a satyr, born again, wanting
                                                   her all day every way in a Creole
 
                                                   cottage off Bourbon.  I offered
                                                   to buy her a second drink, but
                                                   she had to be sober, “sex work
                                                   was still work,” the right dance  
 
                                                   for the right customer.  She wouldn’t
                                                   always be young, deadly curved,
                                                   bewitching sad men in the stage lights,
                                                   a ring of cash around her perfect waist.
 
 
 
 

                                After the Meeting
​

​                                                     An out-of-town visitor, he stood
                                                     by the red church door, let in the Pennsylvania
                                                     cold.  His story was the best and worst
                                                     I ever heard.
 
                                                     Three DUI’s earned him a cell
                                                     in San Quentin, cold on the hottest day
                                                     of summer.  He met Charles Manson
                                                     on the exercise yard,
 
                                                     the X on his forehead almost faded.
                                                     He still had drunk dreams. 
                                                     In the worst, he killed a whole family,
                                                     crashed his car into theirs
 
                                                     head-on, walked away without a scratch.
                                                     “Charlie swore he was innocent,”
                                                     he said, told anyone who’d listen,
                                                     ‘I never hurt nobody.’”
 
                                                     Dry, not sober, he didn’t have
                                                     a real home, only told his story
                                                     in parking lots after closed meetings,
                                                     If he told it at all.
                                                    
                                                     He didn’t believe in God or any                         
                                                     of that religious stuff. His higher
                                                     power was a child’s last scream.
                                                     The X on his forehead never faded.
                                                
 
      

                                 Revenge Body      
​

​                                                       She appears, born again,
                                                       Venus on the half shell,
                                                       flat stomach, wrinkle-free
                                                       Botox skin.
 
                                                       His abs belong to a gladiator,
                                                       the six-pack dreamed of
                                                       and worked for
                                                       in the after-hours gym.
 
                                                       Those who dumped them
                                                       by text or tweet now
                                                       cringe and retreat,
                                                       jump off the cliffs of despair.
 
                                                       But the body takes its own
                                                       revenge, puffy eyelids,
                                                       the spare tire of middle age
                                                       no cream or rep can cure.
 
                                                       Beauty’s bones litter the sea floor.
                                                       Smartphone selfies mix
                                                       with jars of Egyptian kohl,
                                                       eye makeup for any occasion.
                                               
 

                                    Waffle House Index   
​

​                                                          Warning then watch—roof tiles
                                                          are peeled and tossed; the first cars
                                                          stall in the rush of brown water.
 
                                                          Lights go out, switch pulled or hit
                                                          by lightning strikes.  Live wire lines
                                                          crackle and hiss like snakes.
 
                                                          Cracker Barrel protects its family
                                                          patrons, closes for their safety.
                                                          Yellow and black signs hum, flicker,
 
                                                          still shelter the long-haul truckers,
                                                          chickens or oil pipes. Yet even these
                                                          darken in the worst of storms,
 
                                                          the very worst, the measure
                                                          of the furry wheel taken by the number
                                                          of glass and steel doors locked from
 
                                                          the inside.  The myth persists that one
                                                          never closes—red vinyl stools,
                                                          hot coffee, smoky grease.
 
                                                          Nighthawks ignore in pools of florescent
                                                          light the end of everything.
                                                          They know its always the end,
 
                                                          train wails or not, metal sheets
                                                          scraping by on the blacktop.  They have
                                                          a place to sit and read a day-old paper,
 
                                                          fork a piece of cold lemon pie bought
                                                          with loose change, green pennies,
                                                          pretend they’re not alone.
                         
                                                       

                                  Tell the Truth Monday
​

​                                                          The Cajun coach, the boy from Larose,
                                                          who wide-receivered his way out of the swamp’s
                                                          dead water and hanging moss,
                                                          crowds the podium.
 
                                                          Red-faced, gray-haired, he has stood there
                                                          for two decades, told half-truths,
                                                          crazy lies to keep his team’s, his state’s,
                                                          his own dreams alive.
 
                                                          This day is the same day, and he a tired
                                                          bull netted with lines and lead sinkers,
                                                          questions to pull him under,
                                                          soon enough to drown.
 
                                                          The truth was always plain enough:
                                                          no championship, national wreath,
                                                          no cup in the case holier than the one
                                                          that caught Christ’s blood.
 
                                                          Even if you won, he sputters,
                                                          you’d want “more, more, more!”
                                                          Heresy follows, the words no fan
                                                          can bear, those who bleed when cut,
           
                                                          purple, green and gold: “Football
                                                          is just a game, a damn game!”
                                                          Cameras pop, groans mix with threats.
                                                          He walks off the stage grumbling
 
                                                          about “guts” and “faith,” like the first
                                                          coach who turned his back
                                                          on children who worshipped false idols,          
                                                          walked off the playing field.
 
 
 

                                  The Penny Changer at Wal-Mart

​                                                         The all-morning hot rain stops most
                                                         from reaching the pumpkin-colored box
                                                         with black vertical stripes that converts
                                                         copper into cash. A poor family
 
                                                         from Holly Grove takes a three-stop bus,
                                                         a mason jar on the mother’s wide lap
                                                         filled with coins rarely spent these days,
                                                         dropped on the broken sidewalks
 
                                                         outside bars, in the parking lots
                                                         of convenience stores.  A soldier walks
                                                         through the rain, a cloth bag tied
                                                         with a bungee cord slung across his back.
 
                                                         They meet at the same time, crowd
                                                         the box while blue lights flash specials
                                                         down the near-empty aisles.  The jar
                                                         is tipped into a mesh bowl; the new
 
                                                         green bills are bickered over: candy,
                                                         a video game, anything but school shoes,
                                                         “anything!”  A beer, a chicken-salad  
                                                         sandwich, a pack of Lucky’s are all
 
                                                         the soldier needs—a day’s rations until
                                                         the VA shelter opens, a bed promised
                                                         for three years and six months now,
                                                         always by spring.
                                                 
 

                                “Mystery Date”       
​

​                                                       The front door opened on promises,
                                                       manufactured dreams, the best
                                                       of all possible beaus, tall, rich,
                                                       tennis handsome.
 
                                                       The unlucky girl turned the knob
                                                       and met the “Jerk,” sloppy, bewildered
                                                       in his mismatched clothes,
                                                       untied shoes.
 
                                                       All in fun, but more real, more sinister
                                                       than these 60’s girls knew,
                                                       huddled on their knees, giggling
                                                       over a popular board game.
 
                                                       The rich, tennis handsome,
                                                       sports-car driving ultimate “catch”
                                                       was sure to divorce her
                                                       in the wasteland 90’s, claim
 
                                                       a trophy wife with feet smaller
                                                       than Barbie’s, breasts
                                                       even larger.  The “Jerk” might have
                                                       proved the best of friends,
 
                                                       a man to read in bed beside,
                                                       stumble through a funhouse
                                                       future with, hand held tightly,
                                                       tripping, laughing.
 
                                                                                               
                                          

                                      Job’s Children
​

​                                                             Below that blue-black sky,
                                                             a goat-hair tent collapsed
                                                             by a sudden desert storm,
                                                             they died together.
 
                                                             A faith test under Satan’s
                                                             wings, planned to
                                                             seem like an accident,
                                                             the storm began in God’s eye.
 
                                                             They dreamed, like all children
                                                             dream, they’d grow old,
                                                             waists thickened by milk
                                                             and wild honey.
 
                                                             Blessed by two fathers,
                                                             they set the table for a banquet,
                                                             olives and date wine,
                                                             not to show one good man
 
                                                             would ever curse his maker.
                                                             In Sheol, their shadows
                                                             flicker on the cave wall,
                                                             prove the Lord’s good will.
                                
 
                   

                                    Jacob Summerlin
​

​                                                             The only preacher in my family tree,
                                                             the loud bass voice in a church
                                                             at the foot of a graveyard
                                                             packed with dead sinners,
                                                             he held himself apart.
 
                                                             God’s messenger, he lifted
                                                             a pair of scales, pans flecked
                                                             with dried blood, tipped
                                                             easily by foul words, girls
                                                             who kissed and bragged
 
                                                             about country lust. 
                                                             A stroke blinded him between
                                                             the outhouse and the killing barn--
                                                             he fell like Saul though no
                                                             creek water washed away his
 
                                                             sins, blessed him with a new
                                                             Gentile name.  He kept
                                                             a closet filled with shoe boxes,
                                                             dates, churches where souls
                                                             were saved, the love offering
 
                                                             that paid his rate.  He died
                                                             in his sleep, the mourners
                                                             at his grave few and old
                                                             enough to recall a young
                                                             man on horseback, a circuit
 
                                                             rider with a tongue of fire.
                                                             He never broke a law but gladly
                                                             smashed the Sunday tablets.
                                                             No love was offered, though
                                                             their souls were saved.
                                                              
 

                                      Gender Unicorn

​                                                              School was once a straight ruler,
                                                              gender as clear and simple
                                                              as a math problem written
                                                              neatly on the blackboard.
 
                                                              No more. These students
                                                              must take a test more bewildering
                                                              than any trial in the hall
                                                              or on the playground,
 
                                                              just trying to fit in, survive
                                                              until lunch.  He smiles beneath
                                                              his rainbow horn, gently prods
                                                              them to fill in blanks their parents
          
                                                              never dreamed of in starched
                                                              collars, pleated skirts. He smiles
                                                              sweetly and certain, foreleg
                                                              lifted as he marches
 
                                                              in the new world of endless
                                                              mutations.  Neither boys
                                                              nor girls, they lay weary heads
                                                              on first-day desks, just kids.
 
 

                                      Keats in Rome

                                                                Still upright on a springboard seat,
                                                                rarely coughing blood,
                                                                he rode in a post carriage
                                                                through the Appian gate.
 
                                                                The city was dead but alive--
                                                                he was dead but alive--
                                                                goats in the baths of Caracalla,
                                                                a poet in search of a grave.
 
                                                                He’d been half in love
                                                                with easeful death since Iona,
                                                                the ancient Scottish kings
                                                                mute in stone, the ruined abbey
 
                                                                he wrote into a poem about
                                                                a throbbing star, lovers who escaped
                                                                into a storm, breathless.
                                                                Deep red chili peppers dried
 
                                                                on poles stacked against
                                                                brick walls.  Little black-haired girls
                                                                sold flowers in stone archways:
                                                                “Fiori per morto.”
 
                                                                Mary was no lady without mercy--
                                                                a plaster Venus painted
                                                                blue and white.  Her eyes
                                                                were sightless, a plaster baby
 
                                                                cradled in her arms.
                                                                He lasted long enough to die,
                                                                bled and starved by the best
                                                                medical minds. 
 
                                                                 His plot was a simple square
                                                                outside the faithful buried
                                                                in rows, saints’ names
                                                                on their dying lips.  He knew
 
                                                                what flowers bloomed there,
                                                                the Roman spring eternal,
                                                                like words that lived beyond
                                                                the edge, bridges to green fields.
 
                                                               
                                                                
 
 

                                        Polio Vaccine

​                                                              We stood in a line against
                                                              the cinder-block wall,
                                                              boys with crewcuts, girls
                                                              with bows in their hair,
                                                              whispering, giggling, waiting.
 
                                                              Not a shot, a sharp sudden
                                                              prick and a cold cotton swab,
                                                              this was a sugar cube,
                                                              one drop of medicine,
                                                              for each assembled child.          
 
                                                              The live virus dissolved
                                                              in our mouths, spared us
                                                              metal braces, wooden
                                                              wheelchairs pushed into
                                                              into hospital corners.
 
                                                              The nurse wrote down
                                                              our names, the date and time,
                                                              a woman with a stiffened leg
                                                              who never looked up,
                                                              never met our eyes.
                                                              
 
                                                        
 
 

                                     Hitler’s Postcards    

​                                                             He hoped for more than any vagrant
                                                             on Vienna streets, hoped to set
                                                             the black forest, the river on fire.
 
                                                             Artists were born, he believed, greater
                                                             than politicians, kings and king makers,
                                                             throats croaking with authority.
 
                                                              Rejected by the art teacher’s cold eye,
                                                              he was told to find a respectable trade,
                                                              cobble shoes for merchants, the world
                                
                                                              needed cobblers, shoes.  The best were
                                                              street scenes, the blonde facades
                                                              or ancient townhouses, the morning
 
                                                              sun on an iron park bench.  Figures
                                                              failed to breathe, stick men and women,
                                                              children without shadows—except
 
                                                              for the Jew with earlocks and beard,
                                                              his heavy briefcase.  The banker,
                                                              the diamond merchant was a monster
 
                                                              of success, more real than Sunday strollers
                                                              twirling silk parasols, born to rob
                                                              and deceive.
 
 

                                      Nero

​                                                             His all-night concerts tortured
                                                             Roman noblemen, senators
                                                             and their wives, forced to listen
                                                             or face banishment, slow death
 
                                                             on a Scythian hilltop.  A throne
                                                             was beneath him, the stage
                                                             his kingdom and colonies,
                                                             conquest through beauty,
 
                                                             his stubby fingers on the lyre.
                                                             His nasal voice was worth
                                                             a heart attack faked at 2 am,
                                                             plebes and priests carried out
 
                                                             on litters into the cold night air.
                                                             He never fiddled, not even when
                                                             the town burned, but sang
                                                             “The Fall of Troy” mostly
 
                                                             to himself.  His theater burned
                                                             to black plaster shards, rebuilt
                                                             before the granaries and public
                                                             baths.  He favored good reviews
 
                                                             over dead Christians, fed on them
                                                             like ostrich eyes, lamb livers..
                                                             Betrayal dug his grave,
                                                             but his hand plunged the knife
 
                                                             into a great artist’s breast. 
                                                             He pitied the world, its loss greater
                                                             than the fall of any warrior king
                                                             from the golden age, dead in his
 
                                                             armor, honor intact.  His voice,
                                                             his music were eternal, though
                                                             his bones burned in a hasty pyre,
                                                             flames louder than applause.