Poems
by R. Gerry Fabian

 

 

 Required Resume

 

I was an outcast as a child

because I couldn’t pronounce my r’s.

It left me on the outside.

I formed bonds with animals unlike the others.

Skunks, spiders and weasels

became firm friends.

It was a label that became an association

that became a lifestyle.

I was always two steps behind or

three years ahead.      

 

My people were “Military Service” people

so I was always an accent behind.

In Virginia, I was California;

in Canada, so southern with “Yank”

as a bitter irony.

Philadelphia found me with an “aye”

at then end of each sentence.

 

I’ve associated so long with the underdog

that when I put my attic life

into a mild semblance of respectability

I naturally became a poet.

 

 

 

 

 

Do Not Enter - Exit Only

 

A highway child -

As a traveler, she wore her cloak too well.

Her secrets formed a one-way street to the end.

Dead End.

And even now

the white lines blur.

Someone

contemplates her ghostly path,

ignores the yellow caution signals,

refuses to read the warnings,

exceeds the limits.

If nothing else

may these words be a roadmap

to indicate a detour

or offer the exit

she never found.

 

 

 

 

 

Cutting Ties

 

He rubs his gnarled hands together reaching for the thermos.

Pouring hot coffee into the faded plastic cup top,

he hears winter winds blow across the site.

Taking a careful measured sip,

he daydreams about the July shore vacation

and the crabbing.

The hot sun, two bottles of chilled beer

in the cooler with a ham spread sandwich in tin foil.

A small smile breaks across his ice chapped lips

as he remembers buying the crab keeper.

So much money they didn’t have

and she railing and ranting at the extravagance.

“Still have that keeper.”  His mind confirms.

 

The kid comes back in after his cigarette - ready to go.

As he slowly rises, his knee screams in shooting pain.

“Cut six boards to length,” he tells the kid.

It’s time to let him nail.

“Damn kid.”

It is obvious to everyone except the kid.

He thinks of slowly pulling the crab cages

out of the warm bay water.

His knee starts to buckle and he smacks it into place.

Prepared for this pain, he only winces.

A week, maybe two at the most.

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