Last Call
Page 1
Selected Poetry by David Lee
Day’s Work, 1990
Paragonah Canyon, 1990
My Town, 1995
Covenants (with William Kloefkorn), 1996
Wayburne Pig, 1997
The Fish, 1997
A Legacy of Shadow: Selected Poems, 1999
News from Down to the Café: New Poems, 1999
Incident at Thompson Slough, 2002
So Quietly the Earth, 2004
In a House Made of Time (with William Kloefkorn), 2010
Stone Wind Water, 2011
Texas Wild Flowers, 2011
Moments of Delicate Balance (with William Kloefkorn), 2011
Last Call © 2014
by David Lee
Cover: Judge Roy Bean’s Jersey Lilly Bar. Photograph by Jan Lee.
Author photography by Jan Lee and Shae Van Wagoner.
ISBN: 978-1-60940-375-1 (paperback original)
E-books:
ePub: 978-1-60940-376-8
Mobipocket/Kindle: 978-1-60940-377-5
Library PDF: 978-1-60940-378-2
Wings Press
627 E. Guenther
San Antonio, Texas 78210
Phone/fax: (210) 271-7805
On-line catalogue and ordering:
www.wingspress.com
Wings Press books are distributed to the trade by Independent Publishers Group
www.ipgbook.com
Cataloging In Publication:
Lee, David, 1944 August 13–
[Poems. Selections]
Last call : new poems / David Lee.
pages cm
“Wings Press books are distributed to the trade by Independent Publishers Group”--T.p. verso.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-60940-375-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60940-376-8 (ePub ebook) -- ISBN 978-1-60940-377-5 (Mobipocket ebook) -- ISBN 978-
1-60940-378-2 (pdf)
I. Title.
PS3562.E338A6 2014
811’.54--dc23
2013043117
Contents
Reveille, Adolph’s
The Traildust Gospel
The Monument to the South Plains
E. U. Washburn’s Story: Uncle Abe
Kay Stokes’ First Visitation
Overheard Conversation Between Billy Klogphorne and his son William
At the Sign of the Flying Red Horse
San Antonio Incident
Driving Solo: Clovis Rants: A Monologue in Five Acts with Intermission
The First Miracle
Aftermath Evaluation from a Pickup Window
First Miracle Redux
Substitute Teacher, or: The morning Billy Klogphorne taught the adolescent male Sunday School class lesson … and Why he was never invited back to teach Sunday School again
Lost in Translation: a monologue from the pickup cab
Second Visitation
Prelude to the World’s Greatest Meatloaf Sandwich
Idyll
Pain
Lake Hills, Texas: A Tale of Rapunzel’s Lover
Zen and the Art of German Engineering
The Second Miracle
Eloise Ann’s Story: Upon Her Daughter Finding the Shotgunned Bodies of a Sandhill Crane and her Colt in the Grainfield Stubble
The Committee to Review and Revise The Board of Education Mission Statement
Higher Authority
Third Visitation
Jacks
Elder Johnny Bert Ezell’s Attempt to Re-resign as the Young Adult Men’s Sunday School Teacher
From the Pickup Cab on the Back Road to Adolph’s
The Third Miracle
Monroe
Fourth Visitation
What They Say
Idyll: Thursday night, Adolph’s, Lake Hills, Texas
John Sims’ Story: The Oil Well Fire
Last Call
Coda
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For Eloise and Jan
who kept us for the most part on the high road
LAST CALL
Our revels now are ended.
—Prospero
The Tempest, IV, i
Reveille, Adolph’s
Lake Hills, Texas
Rena working the bar past John Sims
with the coffee pot asked
Yall boys going
to the School Board Meeting tonight?
Clovis said I don’t imagine I will
but Billy has to go
since he’s nominated
to be on a hoity toity committee
Billy said
I doubt I’ll be there either
Rena said What committee
and what’s hoity toity?
Billy said Part A is meaningless
and as for Part B
according to the Oxford English Dictionary
hoity toity in the denotative sense
comes directly down to la dee fucking dah
It says that in the dictionary?
Clovis said If Billy said it is
it’s exactly verbatim
which to him means
that’s the gist of it
Billy said Ledbitter
you don’t know Jack Shit
That shows what you know
I might have known him once
Oh bull said Billy
you rattle on as much
as that damned old Dodge pickup of yours
you old high pockets
Rena said Now you boys
yall just straighten up and act respectable
this is a high class joint
and it’s too early for yall arguing
when real people mostly can’t even understand
what you two ex-professors are saying
Clovis said As a matter of fact
I remember it all now and I believe I did
I think he might have lived
in Tahoka a while back
and I could have met him there
Yeah and in what part of a Chaucerian pig’s anatomy
do you think we’ll believe that? said Billy
Would yall like a bump on your coffee?
Naw we better get going
make hay while the sun’s shining said Billy
Rats to kill said Clovis
What yall got planned? said Rena
Dunno yet said Clovis
haven’t had time to think about it so far
Got to see what the weather’s going to do said Billy
Looks to be a purdy one
Well I hope so said Billy
If it gets hot we can sit on the porch
and shade bake, tell some lies
Might haul some garbage
Mebbe go down and count Delphin’s three cows said Clovis
You can write about it again
now that you know for sure how many there are
Billy said See what I mean?
Ledbitter, you never did know Jack Shit
That’s right
I probably wouldn’t recognize him
if I was sitting right beside him
would I?
I bet yall find something interesting
at least to talk about said Rena
Let’s go Klogphorne
we’re burning up sunshine
Yep said Billy up and at’m
Bye yall
Yes’m
Bye Miss Rena
See yall tomorrow morning
Bright and early said Billy
unless we decide to hold the School Board Meeting here tonight
then we’ll be back with the libationous expeditionary force
I imagine that’s a fact said Rena
I�
�ll be looking for you either way
either time
you boys be good now
Yes’m Miss Rena
unless we get lucky
Will you come on Clovis my godamitey
I’ve been standing here half the morning
waiting on you already
You just button it up Buffalo Billy Bob Klepfrog
I told you I’m coming
save your breath to cool your mush
Mr In a Big Hurry
Well you’re sure not
Bye, see you later, said John
See yall tonight I’m betting
From what I’ve heard
you pretty much only bet on sure things
so we’ll probably be here
I spect that’s right said John
I’ll be here awaiting
The Traildust Gospel
¡Contempla!
—Juan Bautista, who, folk legend tells us, lost his mind over a woman’s footprints in the dust somewhere east of Pecos
1
Onella Penny smoked a pipe
P. A. tobacco you could smell
two yards over
nobody ever mentioned
outside our neighborhood
but what finally made her famous
after the big stomp
was when we noticed
how she walked so hard
for a woman who wasn’t
to speak of necessarily
fleshy
in a dry season
her steps wove dust
cyclone children on the way
to the trash barrel or clothes line
past her ankles, swirls
almost to her knees
so that
one August morning
Billy Klogphorne and Clovis Ledbitter
perched on the back porch furniture
morning coffeeing in short sleeved shirts
saw her emerge like Venus
in an ocean of heat waves
with a kitchen trash
bucket
footstep whirlwinds
all around her back yard, in immaculate Texanese
Clovis said One them air dust devils
gets under her housecoat
up her nightgown arising
she’ll lift herself
like a full grown female angel
right off the ground
I bet
she
looked smartly their way
so Billy couldn’t laugh or take the wager
leaned over and pretended
something in his coffeecup
needed to be looked at
anything else right then
was not going to be worth the chance
2
Then the day Marvin Penny
came outside
looking like second place
in a two entrant
world champion fist whipping
she became
legend
neither one surprised
after they heard the scream
through the housewalls across the yard
to the back porch PBR libations
when she learned the rumor
of his gallavantation with Kim Pierce
Billy in perfect Tejano splendor said
Clovis
that isn’t no knucklebumps on his head
you get up and look close
I’ll put two dollars
yougn see a clear footprint
from his busted lip
up between and past
that eye’ll be swolt black tomorrow
with a bloody nose in the middle
Clovis said No bet
that looks to be a fact
3
When Cephas Bilberry heard
at the Dew Drop Inn that night
he said Well I hope Marvin he learnt
a lesson from it either way
whatever it was needing
such immediate education
Billy said I imagine he did
Cephas said That being what?
Billy said Next time
he gets knocked on his ass
he’ll make sure he falls face down
so the following foot marks
don’t show
Cephas
said You mean
whoever did that stomp
it was after he’d already been knocked down?
Clovis said
Unless she can walk around in the air
stomping on heads, you know
a better way?
Billy said
If it’s a point
needs to be made
or a trailway to be commended
it might as well be stated proper
so the muckling effort
doesn’t need to be repeated
Cephas
said Well that might be right
Clovis said Yep
ever footstep in this drought
raises a genuine cyclome or leaves a print
sometimes permanent
and that’s not blowing smoke
or preacher talk
and Cephas said Godamitey’s mama
aint it the truth?
4
Juan Diego Mendietta
unloading a case of Pabst’s Blue Ribbon beer
into the ice cooler at the Dew Drop Inn
heard a voice
saying A woman who walked in air
left a footprint on the face
of Marvin Penny
that could be seen clearly
with one’s own eyes
that night
he told Father Gutierrez
the things he heard but the Padre
shook his head sadly and said No my son
these are the words of a fool
drunk on bootleg beer
you must try to remember
milagros almost never occur in Tejas
where there are too many gringos
for the Lord’s work
so
Juan Diego Mendietta
went home in despair
his hope of imparting a miracle’s appearance
shattered like his youthful dreams
of making love to Hooter Hagins
but he told his wife Eva who some said
was de la familia de las brujas
while he ate the tacos she made for him
what he heard spoken clearly
who told
her sister Maria Calvones
who told her cousin Isabel Ramones
who cleaned Onella Penny’s house
every Monday from nine en la manana
until la hora de cuatro in the afternoon
who went to the Penny casa
the next morning even though it was a Thursday
and knocked
when he
opened his door he said
You aint posta be here today yet
it aint Monday is it?
she screamed and pressed her hands to her cheeks
the indelible print of a foot
clearly visible on Marvin Penny’s face
!Madre de dios! she screamed
he said What the hell?
but Isabel Ramones turned and ran
down the calle shouting
!Es un Milagro! !Un Milagro!
soon
votary candles appeared nightly on the porch
of Onella and Marvin Penny’s home
which he removed and threw
into the garbage barrel in his dusty back yard
until Onella stopped him saying
You leave those goddam things
right where they are and he said
Yes dear
entonces
for a decade the casa de Penny
became a flickering shrine to the miraculous
footprint of the Virgin seen by many
including Juan Diego Mendietta
who was said to be the first witness
and Isabel Ramones who gave the miracle
confirmation
and it came to pass
at last Onella died of consumption
and el viejo Marvin Penny grew old and sacred
the hairs of his head white as snow
and en la tarde when he went
into his dusty yard
to sit in the warm sun and remember
all those events of his life
that never actually occurred
la gente would come to his house
to sit at his knees and view his face
where at times
when the light
shone from the exact right angle
a small perfect footprint
could been seen by a select few
who were chosen to be witness
and the paisanos would touch his shoulders
and the denim fabric of his clothing
whispering to him
beseeching forgiveness
The Monument to the South Plains
Son
your mama who is admittedly a hair trigger weeper
walked all the way down to the barn to tell me
she is genuinely and purely exasperated to tears
with your sitting in here on your bed alone
for three days now wrapped up in divine and superfluous
thought over God knows what and that I
should unleash and afflict upon you a stampede
of accumulated wisdom in order to provide incentive
and momentum for possible confession and redemption
or in other words what in the world is the matter?
your mama really wants to know the cause of your pesteration
Willy John said Nothing’s wrong Daddy
I have to make a project in indigenous sculpture
for my Physical Art thesis and I’m trying
to come up with a mental design and materials
with not a lot of luck so far that I can speak of
Behold a wonder said a poet
you were named for once beneath a time Son
out behind the very barn where I have been piddling
all morning rests a considerable bevy of red bricks and paving stones
off to the starboard side used cinder blocks and dead concrete forms
on the larboard side a minor subaltern deity’s ransom
of worn out farm equipment my daddy put out for years
wondering if there would ever be any use for it
before the Second Coming or the Russian bomb
inside the barn seven sacks of ready-mix concrete
along with arc and acetylene welders and even a soldering iron
I would be just as happy as a crow
that found a dropped plate of communion wafers
if you could utilize that indigenous scrap material
so that it would seem I had a purpose all along
for my years of unrequited salvage, separation and stacking