THOMAS PIEKARSKI - POEMS

Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly and Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry and interviews have appeared in literary journals internationally, including Nimrod, Florida English Journal, Cream City Review, Mandala Journal, Poetry Salzburg, Poetry Quarterly, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, and Boston Poetry Magazine. He has published a travel book, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems.
 

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​Gold Fever

​Stored in a gold vault for all time mankind survives.                   
It cannot be omitted by the foofaraws bandied about.                  
Certain commissars hasten to deliberate whether or
not Pisces is on the rise. Then our intermediary Eros
adopts what’s left when Mother Earth yields gold no
more. There was gold galore in California until it got
suddenly flooded with thousands of immigrants who 
expected quick fortune by simply panning its streams. 
Most of these poor souls went broke, backs aching,
and struggling to survive in a dangerous wilderness.
Those first winters brutal, scurvy, cholera outbreak, 
no law except vigilante. The majority of the miners
packed up meager belongings and headed back home.
Soon California became a state--foreigners residing
in the Gold Country scorned, treated like animals,
beaten, whipped, shot, and hanged, often for crimes
pinned on them of which they hadn’t the least guilt.
 

​Simpaticos

                                                 We met, three simpaticos
playing hooky from reality, at sunset near the head of windswept Fisherman’s Wharf.
                                                 Amalgamated teammates,
 
we were seasoned coworkers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I’ll kick this off with one
                                                 tall and thick-shouldered
convivial lothario Ricardo, followed by Polly who’s earned the title Sea Otter Princess
 
                                                 because of gentle care
she gives feeding, bathing and preening them as if they were her own chosen children.
                                                And me, fugitive from
 
time’s madcap encampment. They’d arrived before me at our planned rendezvous
                                                munching crunchy appetizers,
presumably kibitzing about their recent vacation to New Jersey during which Ricardo
 
                                                 luckily impressed
her well-to-do, rather conservative parents. I sat down beside them on a metal bench
                                                 overlooking Monterey Bay,
broke out flasks I’d purchased and filled with rum for this particular unique occasion.
                                                 Each of us took little 
sips, then I assessed the situation, and in complete amazement declared serendipity
                                               has much to do with why
we were there that evening. Or maybe destiny. Look straight ahead, I directed them,
                                              do you see that pretty pink
 
store at the left front corner of the wharf, the one with the big and bold blue sign that
                                               says Harbor House?
I was hired there an hour ago. That’s how I know we were definitely meant to meet
 
                                               at this time and place. My soul
tells me it can’t be otherwise. And then we made our way along the bike path, over to
                                               where steep concrete steps
 
led down to an awfully rocky beachfront, but not before passing the regal bronze statue
                                               of Santa Rosalia, Monterey’s
patron saint. The city celebrates her every year with a festival at Custom House Plaza,
 
                                               event evolved from decades
during which after a parade Italian families gathered at the pier in order to pay homage,
                                               feast and bless the fleet.
                                                                                      
                                              We paused out in front of
that most venerable statue, and I wondered aloud how spiritualism and religion could
                                               have become so entangled
 
in this day and age. On second thought, maybe it always has been--shamans, priests,
                                               gods, saviors, prophets all
stirred in one big pot of delusion. The sun made a gradual descent; its bent reflections
 
                                                turned bay waters aqua
with a brilliant glassy sheen, as sailboats slid quietly back to their slips in the marina.
                                                We braved those steps
 
holding the heavily rusted iron railing, down to where it approaches intertidal waves,
                                                searched for a spot to sit,
which was next to impossible since the sharp, strangely-shaped granite rocks proved
                                           
                                                entirely inhospitable.
Finally we discovered two flat pieces of concrete to rest on, ruins, broken foundations
                                                of the Booth Cannery,
 
all that was left of the very first one in old Monterey. Booth who pioneered the fishing
                                                industry, began with salmon,
and soon afterwards discovered the plethora of sardines that created a huge silver rush
 
 
                                                coaxing fishermen from
many lands, with an extensive concentration of those Italians whose extra special skills
                                                were unparalleled.
 
Early Italians whose names echo like a Mafia lineup: Napoli, Aiello, Nicosia, Cardinalli,
                                                Torrente, Castaldo, Pomilia,
with great courage cashed in on the fishing bonanza and established a Monterey heritage.
 
                                                To Ricardo and Polly
I said there is a special reverence in this place that has no aptitude for frivolous religions.
                                                Swirling currents just
 
beneath our feet hurriedly shoved back by the outbound tidal flow. I boasted we must be
                                                coastal royals: Polly,
whose compassion for the fuzzy and childish sea otters has no rival. She conducts tours
                     
                                                of Elkhorn Slough
where otters in their intimacy and merriment can be studied up close from rented kayaks,
                                                a complete blast.
 
And then Ricardo whose bravado trumps anyone’s in the entire Aquarium. He’s top
                                              dog, the King
of promotional sales who gets big raises, and excellent reviews from the store’s patrons.
 
                                               Last, and perhaps
least, me. Inclined to be surly at times, gregarious but earnest, King Arthur who has yet
                                               to extract his Excalibur.
 
As darkness shed tears of exuberance we passed the flasks and traded random witticisms,
                                               Ricardo recording us
on his cell phone for posterity, I suppose. He then began brushing me up on the greatest
 
                                               local Pop sensations,
and hooted something about sea lions in orbit around planet Uranus. Polly turned her head,
                                               stared up at the statue
 
then flashed her magic smile that pulls enlightenment in its wake. I quite remembered then
                                               what she said about
Ricardo’s freckles, that in them she views universes gobbling one another in their attempt 
 
                                               to avert annihilation.
I continued that sometimes it’s better to die by your heart giving out, not like that unfortunate
                                               fisherman’s son, Joe
 
 
 
Ventimiglia, whose head got beaned in a baseball game at Jacks Park on Franklin Street
                                               and died two weeks later
of a subdural hematoma. His aunt was famous Joe DiMaggio’s mother, he of an extensive
 
                                               fishing family. Sadly,
young Ventimiglia never got to watch the immortal Yankee Clipper play. As Ricardo slipped
                                               a  kiss on Polly’s cheek
 
I warranted how muses come and go, my sweetheart of late gone into total hiding, in abject
                                               darkness, as though
obliterated, confoundingly miffed that I admitted my love for her in a poem and made it public.
 
                                               Then Polly offered:
we’re perfecting ways to turn ocean currents into electricity, enough to supply the whole world.
                                               Ricardo took a swig.
 
I informed them that this is the time of night when the scruffy, toothless hoboes light up there
                                               beneath a short pier
on Cannery Row where above it swanky Fish Hopper serves those yummy steaks and seafood,
 
                                              not far from where one day
I watched a skin diver toting snorkel and spear gun, his wetsuit tighter than a conga drum,
                                              make a perilous descent
 
down the cliff with his bare feet, feet that one would expect to bleed as they scrape sharp
                                              mica embedded in
the granite boulders. But not his. They skipped rock to rock as his keen eyes mapped each
 
                                              successive dock.
When he met the beach someone from above blurted what are you angling for? He hollered
                                              back I think mackerel!
 
Ricardo interjected the hoboes are throwbacks to when Cannery Row became a ghost town.
                                               Yes, I said, daily tons
of sardines harvested until they simply vanished all at once. Then the canneries went broke,
 
                                                became abandoned hulks
that were prime targets of arsonists, who set them aflame for the fun of it. The wood floors
                                                soaked with fish oil
 
fostered bonfires that lit the skies for miles. Now, by this time balmy bay waters had segued
                                                 to pale magenta,
and Polly thought she noticed a mother otter with a pup on its tummy, but to me looked like
 
 
 
                                                  a mermaid sprawled
upon floating kelp polyps. Ricardo swore a grey whale was flying at us at almost warp speed.
                                                  Polly’s umbra brightened,
 
which was really no surprise because it’s true there’s always a lot more to it than what meets 
                                                   the inner eye. We see light
as absence of night, I said, and every night the beginning of another end to life, phenomenon
 
                                                   that arrives and performs
much like tidal waters that nip at our feet and drive fears far far away to where they’ll concede 
                                                   settling in any ever after.
                                                                   

Maj​ority Rule

​In the twilight of my life I dreamed of a twinkling pixie
that purged the world of puerile words and wanton deeds.
At first there weren’t symptoms, things seemingly intact.
And then the world stopped turning and I stepped off of it.
I went on pretending I was some figure from memory’s raft
of deception. I reached out to touch the little children as they
screeched gleefully on swings at the neighborhood park. 
I drove by the graveyard with headstones dating to pioneer
times. Out of the cradle with rocks in my head, I consulted
the remaining populace and they voted to forge on. I was
a Spartacus collecting my horde of followers. We resolved
to push back, take on the kleptocracy, deploy everything
stored in our rhetorical arsenal, make use of what firepower
necessary in order to annihilate death and restore heaven.
 

​Inordinate Disorder

​The Cannery Row Starbucks
makes a suitable throne room.
I kick back in a cushy armchair
looking out at Steinbeck plaza
this dusk, presiding over
all of the delicious lattes,
over the locals, laptops, scones,
and music that slips through
an efficient sound system.
 
I’m in the mood to cash in early
on my fifteen minutes of fame,
and while I’m at it
may as well include the allotted
seven seconds of immortality.
 
I want to make the most of my time
left on this munificent planet.
I’m willing to be whatever you want.
I’ll be a ventriloquist, or do my best
as post-confessional poet.
I’ll be a saint, a false prophet, dictator.
But for now I’m smug in the catbird seat,
peering out the corner window. Neon lights
billow. The crosswalk glows. The street
retracts. People wibble-wobble,
a bit skittish because
inordinate disorder rules the day
as if atheism is the new religion,
and no-one’s quite sure
which way isn’t up.
 
 

​Conundrum

​As the spokesperson for a majority of riled citizens
I warn you we’re about to storm you like the Bastille.
Why should we settle for anything short of emptying
the pockets of every thief among our vast humanity?
It appears that our obsession with the devil is dead
yet we cook the books, take bribes in order to exist
as mysterious specters floating diaphanous among
imaginary angels. Some published rhythms belie
precious memories. If there is no present nor future
but only past, then what state are we in? Or will be
when that black cloud comes thundering over tall
mountaintops and the horizon becomes but a blank.