My grandmother was a head case with a bitter stinging tongue, but despite her hard exterior, she was my grandma, and I was her grandson. And I will always love the moments we spent together.
Grandma Pearl - might I see you
with your bent back, purple hair, and your kitchen guilt
of osteoporosis - and a punishing gray tongue
your worn thin dresses
sweeping the floor in Denver on the linoleum,
past the one painting you did,
in the basement
where dreamland rendered
between red painted bricks of your home,
(hysterically) the nice Grandson watching,
while you apply more red to white canvas,
Suffern dreams danced-
Aunt Ruth, Uncle Bob, a stranger with a platform
in his pocket
and huge young bald head
of Denver Nazi Order
-radio spoke bad news
Alan Berg gunned down.
at the hands of a white supremacist
Grandma
Bruce Pierce is dead, Bruce Pierce is in Eternity, Bruce Pierce is with
Ginsberg and William Burroughs.
Though I see you walking still, a ghost in Highland Town Center,
down the aisle, observing my customer service
limping a little with a humped back,
in what must have been a worn thin,
overworked dress,
praising my father, the Dentist, on his visit to Denver
-see you bent over in the kitchen
cooking Macaroni despite Osteoporosis
and lighting the Sabath candles
to bring in one more Passover.
Bruce Pierce is dead and Alan Berg is not speaking
The fuel Berg spilled is not aired
Uncle Harold with his well groomed style,
Greg is married to a beautiful art teacher,
Andy guitar in hand, a monument in San
Francisco Chronicle playing psychedelic muse.
last time I saw you was the hospital
and you had lost that viperous biteyou were on your way out, headed east,
towards New York
and your dreams of Swan Dives into a stilled Suffern Lake.