Fair’s Fair “For Book Lovers”

after fireworks

i appear just a blue shadow
on snow-covered river ice

someone’s emptied beer bottle
lies where tossed on the river

last night last week don’t know
i just stand here breathing winter

arms rest on turquoise railing
graffitied about damaged males

named as abusive to women
men who’ve never stood here

in daylight unless they played
in a band some july or august long

weekend with riverside drive closed
to vehicles   food wagons lined

the footpath on the riverbank
green   over ten thousand people

families extended and in part
a crush of the local populace

mouth-breathers with beer-filled lidded
coffee mugs and opaque water bottles

curly fries buffalo burgers henna tattoos
donairs cotton candy chicken souvlakies

local country rock bar bands open air
on raised pedestrian pedway platform

between here and the street bridge
firefighters and fireworks roped off

pleasure boat flotilla on the water
but right now it’s ice and blue snow

– Joe Blades

11 September 2006

retro republic
first time: everything ever
thrown away came back
unrecognized then familiar
washed up on shore burying
the beach and stilling waves
it piled so high the curve
of earth’s horizon was lost
and i was pressed backward
by the enormity of everything
that had meaning or something
or had crossed my path

the next time it was me
adrift in the river—nose
and an eye above water—
seeing bodies all around mine
—some dead some alive—
and more falling or being pushed
by fighting—saber horse and gun
—back downriver one way
or hopelessly another with no
one looking for survivors except
ourselves if we made shore

third was the sound reborn the noise
of a gone-for-how-long-now
come-of-age nirvana killed in garage
brought back to life in beograd
by persistent popular request
no garlic paprika or horseshoes
dried flower wreaths by the door
everywhere zombies drop their heads
translucent slow life motion
mud and straw bricks crumble dust
over another half a millennium town
changing not so fast a sudden death

– Joe Blades