Naturalistic and other poems

Noel Sloboda

Naturalistic   After a middle class upbringing Billy never didn’t work but nobody would have called him   career-minded.  Out of art school he floated around unfocused   job to job.  He would have rather stayed home and made robots that spun, whirred, grinded and   pantomimed humanity.  Parts from everywhere, bucket heads   fork hands, tin-can eyes, all drawn from the world alive yet mechanical and wound    tightly like him.  Still feigning delight or dreaming of death   the robots, ormolu coats bright in his mind’s eye, never looked quite right, even when   synthetic smiles reciprocated the expression of their maker.

Going Rate                  Frowning from behind a butcher’s block uncle Len wants to know what                my labors hourly earn me: how                  much for French tutoring? Junior college business writing classes                by moonlight?  Do I imagine                  such labors worth my while?  Relentlessly he crunches                numbers in his head and sighs                  to think about all that has been invested in my education.  Wish I had                something learned                  transcending figures for him maybe an allusion to leaves or elves                when he asks me what I                  get out of writing besides an unpublished elegy                or a ballad that’s soulful                   but slightly off key.  It would all be   lost on him anyhow.  I want to                insist it’s not worth                  less for that by many accounts.  Would he care                for treasures revealed                  exploring azure expanses of caves beneath Atlantis?  Maybe                if I brought a few fish                  home for Sunday dinner upon resurfacing both                our books would balance.

Puppy Love   Moving from feet up to knees, your bulldog                     noses between my thighs, and I   avert my eyes too tired to fight, thinking, too, how   it’s dangerous to stare at a dog.  Not   entirely true with men, you know.  You   threw me once a nugatory glance   filled with promises of lambent days and nasty nights   of love with socks and lights still on.

 

Noel Sloboda earned his M.A. and Ph.D. at Washington University in St. Louis.  He currently teaches English at Penn State York and serves as dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Festival.  His work has appeared or is forthcoming such places as ByLine, Aesthetica, Ghoti, remark, and Waterways.

Photo "Gadgets" by Bella Dante.

 

 

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Poems Copyright © 2007 Noel Sloboda. All rights reserved.
Photo Copyright © 2007 Bella Dante. All rights reserved.