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Orange House, Crystal
Night
Picasso would have laughed, out loud
to see the color of the house there by the road.
So orange. And Herman Göring would have drawn
his pistol
thinking gypsies might live there.
An orange not seen in nature or found in any crayon
box.
Someone hates the orange house and has
thrown four handfuls of dark mud
high up on the wall.
Stark contrast dripping down against the orange.
A deliberate insult,
I think the mud thrower would drag a homosexual
behind a pickup until just a lump of bloody meat
remained in the ripped and dusty clothes.
Or force a noose around a negro’s neck
and haul him kicking into the air
To the glee of a brainless mob
with close-set eyes.
There is mud thrown on the orange wall, and
it is November 1938, Crystal Night, again and I hear
the hateful shouts and unmistakable sounds of
shop windows being shattered throughout the land.
Its just a baby step from hating the color of a house
To hating its owner.
From throwing mud to throwing rocks,
and worse.
Joel Fallon
Copyright © 12 February 2004
Black Widow Spider
Her skin was white and creamy
and her eyes were soft and dreamy and
She said she had a spider, a Black Widow spider,
in a big glass jar.
“Does that seem strange,” she asked me, that I should keep a spider
in a big glass jar?”
“It depends on why you keep it
in a big glass jar.”
She said “To see how long she’ll last without water, food, and air.
Its been eighteen months now
And she’s going sort crazy in the big glass jar.”
“Was the spider thirsty? Had she just eaten when you put her in the
jar?”
Her creamy skin grew dark
and her dreamy eyes turned cold. Then she gazed into my soul and
said,
“Don’t get so scientific.
“She’s my spider, my Black Widow spider, and I’ll treat her as I
please.”
She smiled a secret spider smile.
and I could tell she wondered
just how long I’d last without water, food, and air like a spider,
Black Widow spider,
slowly going crazy in a big glass jar.
Joel Fallon Copyright © 14 September 2004
Old Images
How cumbersome the camera was,
the tripod too and box of plates.
The fuss to get the light just so,
to make the whole thing straight and true
was almost more than they could stand.
Important too that everyone
be still, not thrash or mill about.
Regardless, trees moved in the wind
and water flowed and smoke
wafted where it would.
But it was worth the fuss because
it froze the women – dark dresses,
with their shoe tips peeking out and
mustached men in unpressed suits,
with vested bellies fobbed and chained.
All so unhurried, simple and
everybody seemed to know that
you and I would study them and
so they wore their Sunday faces.
Strong and plain – sure and beautiful.
Joel Fallon
Copyright © 23 February 2007
City Boy Grows Pears
Last spring I asked the wrinkled man
“When should I plant a pear tree?”
He smiled, “Best times are
ten years ago and today.”
I bought the tree and planted it.
Then, this spring, fruit appeared –
timid, doll-sized, round at first,
then finally, pear shaped.
A city boy, I felt proud and pleased.
I could almost taste the lovely pears.
The tree was fed and watered; the pears
became more beautiful each day.
“Tomorrow I’ll pick the pears before
the birds have them for lunch
before they fall
to rot on the ground.”
Next day, with my basket,
I visited the tree and found
a slender branch had broken
under the weight of pears.
Diverted by desire for its fruit
I neglected nurturing the tree.
Perhaps it will give the city boy
another chance at growing pears.
Joel Fallon
Copyright © July 2007
Blue Streetcar
Of course Vienna is Vienna,
with the opera,
and with Sacher’s and
Maria Theresa
everywhere you turn, but
when Don Juan in Hell makes
your head throb,
and Bruegel’s codpieces
seem about to burst,
and flea markets make
you itch ? escape
to Grinzing. It’s attached,
like a remora, to the
shark’s
belly of Vienna. Simply
slip away
to Grinzing for wheezing
concertinas and
songs from smokey throats,
and dragons
snoring in the sewer,
but mostly – flee
to Grinzing for unhurried
buzz from cloudy wine
tasting of earth. The
only risk in Grinzing is
missing the last strassenbahn
– the blue streetcar.
It’s a long walk to Vienna,
if you’ve drunk up
all your money. You may
have to join the circus and
receive your mail addressed
to Grinzing.
Joel Fallon Copyright ©
2003
Steinhart Aquarium,
Cathedral of Fishes
Past the sinister crocodile
slumbering in the skylit
vestibule,
to the tile-floored twilight
transept,
where fishes dart and
laze in tanks.
Electric fish generate
clicking pulsing undercurrents
hunting and poised for
battle.
Ghostly gliding shark swim,
swift and agile in luminous
tanks.
And surf drums and thrashes
in glassed-in tide pools.
A woman holds a child
up to the glass.
Blue eyes intent.
Small starfish hands flat
against the tank.
“Momma, Can she see me?”
“Yes honey, she can see
you.”
“She is beautiful momma.”
“You are both beautiful,
honey.”
Unblinking
child and fish
regard each other
through thick glass,
feet of water
and millions of years.
Joel Fallon
Copyright © 15 April
2003
Perhaps Then
When all the bowls have cracked
and silver has been polished to a memory,
and light has traveled
twice to earth from far Antares,
When fearful weapons’ half-lives
have expired
and tanks and guns in rusty mounds
lie useless,
When body’s every molecule
has been sloughed off like
snake skin ?
leaving only fingerprints unchanged,
Perhaps then,
unlikely as it seems,
I may start
to love you less.
Joel Fallon
Copyright © Nov 2002
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Soon after I was annointed
Poet Laureate of Benicia
my wife Carolyn (aka muse
'Calliope') misappropriated the wreath for use doing household chores.
Turkey in the Straw
Summer time and there’s no breeze anywhere
on the east side of town.
Four days till payday and the kids beg for money
when the ice cream truck plays
“Turkey in the Straw.”
Mothers crouch in dim, warm rooms
watching Jerry Springer,
slowly going mad, wondering if
the meatloaf has gone bad.
No breeze anywhere on the east side of town.
The ice cream truck plays “Turkey in the Straw,”
and kids, like Pavlov’s dog, begin to salivate.
Four days till payday. The water bill is overdue.
The car is on the fritz. The old man took a pay cut.
And the ice cream truck plays
“Turkey in the Straw.”
The government says we’re better off than ever,
but there are no coins under the couch cushions,
and the meatloaf has gone bad.
Summer, four days till payday on the east side of town,
and the ice cream truck plays
“Turkey in the Straw.”
Joel Fallon
Copyright © January 2005
The Unbeatable Foe
Don Quixote de la Mancha,
remember him?
The underdog who tried
when his arms were too weary?
and bore the unbearable sorrow?
and fought the unbeatable foe?
The world loves Don Quixote, the underdog.
We were underdogs
at the Boston Tea Party,
and underdogs at Lexington
and Concord —
With long rifles
we sniped the Red Coats
from behind fences.
Refusing to fight in the open,
defending our soil.
We were underdogs
at Pearl Harbor
and underdogs briefly in the rubble
of the World Trade Center.
We are not underdogs now.
We are not Don Quixote de la Mancha,
not the minuteman at Lexington.
We are not Luke Sky Walker.
Ask us. We kick ass.
Ask us. We are the ultimate overdog.
We are Darth Vader.
This is the Death Star.
Ask us.
We are the “unbeatable foe.”
Joel Fallon
Copyright © 2003, April
The True Thing
Only the hand that erases
can write the true thing.
Meister Eckart
How can I tell you the truth
of how it was and how it still is?
So many memories wash in,
late afternoon sun, the water,
the music — and in the music a special
silence, with you
in the silence, smiling.
Those memories, that afternoon,
that music, that silence, only distractions.
Forget them.
Erase them.
From the start, the truth was,
and is,
I love you.
Joel Fallon
Copyright © Jan 2006
So That’s Why
As children we found arrowheads,
one or two each summer, when the hills were brown.
Scarce smokey gems, even scarcer now.
Each arrowhead was different, but
napped to the same master pattern
Like people, sort of.
We found no shafts or feathers.
They’d been consumed by the countless
hungry seasons.
Years later, in a small museum, I held entire
an ancient arrow in my hands, marveling
at the genius of its creation.
So that’s why arrowheads
were made that way ? to be
fixed just so to the shaft.
And arrow fit bow; bow fit man;
man fit the land ? and then
the road forked and nothing fit anymore.
Joel Fallon
Copyright © May 2004
A Hungry Year
The pale riders swept
through the village before dawn.
We heard them coming
and hid our heads.
With steel and lead and brass they came,
through columns of smoke they came,
through unplanted fields they came
churning diesel-drenched soil.
No men in the village,
no crops in the fields,
no tears left to weep.
Distant thunder on the left.
A year of dismal days. A hungry year.
Now, dull winter looms.
Our wounded hearts shudder.
Who will be left in spring?
Joel Fallon © Copyright 12 November 2005
Where Is My Paper?
Our delivery boy’s
From Mars.
He throws papers
under cars.
Who knows if its
the neighbor’s
or if the paper’s ours?
Without the morning
headlines, the comics
and the rancor,
I feel just like a sailboat
without a trusty anchor
The paper’s late again today.
Or is it just concealed?
I read it early yesterday
Before my eggs congealed
Is it in heaven
Or is it in hell
That damned
Elusive Chronic-el?
Joel Fallon © Copyright 14 November 2003
To Kill a Snake
Swim suited, slim shanked,
we stalk a snake that
had presumed to startle us that
high Sierra afternoon.
To whir-r-r urgently.
“Don’t tread on me.”
The civil warning is disregarded
because, I think, at twelve,
we are not civilized.
A mongoose does not debate
or weigh the merits as it sets out
to kill a snake. Nor do we.
The snake must die because it is a snake.
We have to kill a snake because we are twelve.
Galvanized, I find a branch and,
after posturing, pin it
to the killing ground.
My pal raises a sharp stone
and strikes and strikes again.
Not satisfied, we skin the snake,
soak and salt it, and set it
to dry in the high Sierra sunlight.
Am I more civilized today?
Joel Fallon
Copyright © September 2003
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