The Auction House

Ten times, Ruth asked him about the anchor.

“Did you find out what we could get for it?”

It was a huge rusty relic from an old ship.

Last time she dispatched him to Sotheby’s

to be humiliated because she and her daughter

had scrubbed off the patina

with tooth brushes and bronze polish.

Rendering the sculpture of St. Michael

by a disciple of Rodin virtually worthless.

The Roman oil lamp was a hit,

and the prick who did the appraisal

told him to hold onto it

with condescension usually reserved for a turd.

“I looked on Ebay, anchors like this go for a few hundred bucks” said Jack.

“Put it up on Ebay then.” said Ruth.

“I’ll give you a cut.”

“Sure” he said, knowing full well

this would be another exercise in futility.

MR Stuik 2018

Six to One

Thirty women at one table.
Laughing, dancing and
Celebrating the retirement of
One of their own.
The party was over,
But Mickey had one more song
As they were leaving he sang
Walk on the Wild Side
“One day of prayin’
Six nights of fun,
Make your odds of going to heaven…”
She left with a man he didn’t recognize.
It was the chorus, but he wanted to tell her,
She was arm in arm
and out the door
With innuendo.
MR Stuik 2018

In the Midst

At the top of the tower,
there’s not much activity.
They come up to water the trees
When they need to.
But it’s been raining for months.
Barbosa had a bed roll and a blanket.
Olive oil, bread, cheese and salami.
The wine was thick and red,
Like the earth.
It tasted like the rich dirt,
The work, the time, the living.
Not without irony.
The cheese was aged and Parmesan,
The bread was an ancient grain,
Alive before Christ,
The salami was made from pigs
That lived in the hills,
Medieval, among the olives
Black and bitter.
He had 12 Euros to his name.
But who cares?
I’m free and they don’t know where to find me.
MR Stuik 2018

In Wonderland

Against the stars

And a thousand points of light

Beneath the river

In the ground depths

away from cloying matters.

Above the humming city lights

Is a memory whose magic

is in itself.

Being young and beautiful,

Growing old and grounded

Dying to be set free,

Free of expectations and conventions

free to see the sea in a moment’s moment.

The circle of…

…deliberate action.

It’s never enough,

Even when you have it all,

It’s never enough until

You feel the arc of completion.

Back to this moment.

Right now everything is

Kosher and copacetic.

MR Stuik 2018

Lavanderia

A circle inside a square means

you can tumble dry the clothes.

The dots indicate temperature,

One for lower heat, two for higher heat.

A cross over the symbol means

you shouldn’t tumble dry the garment.

Clothes hanging on the clothesline

means you don’t have a fucking dryer.

Ophelia washed the clothes by hand,

In the big sink on the veranda.

Her sweatpants and indigo silk skirt,

His shorts and teal blue football jersey.

Both of their blue jeans.

Hung them out to dry,

Then it rained. Took them in and hung them

Out again when the sun came out.

They had toast with lemon marmalade

for breakfast. With Earl Grey tea.

Ophelia looked at her hands,

they seemed older than the rest of her.

And her fingers tips were cold

as she wrapped them around the her teacup for comfort and warmth.

Busted

Barbosa was hanging on for dear life when they found him.

He’d slipped on the roof tiles and nearly fallen onto the street below.

He had nothing on him because it had fallen out of his pocket when he slipped and fell.

He couldn’t really explain what he was doing hanging off the roof at midnight in the rain.

“Just wanted to see the view from the roof, and I slipped, had a little too much to drink.”

They cuffed him and brought him down to the station.

In the interrogation room, they put a velvet bag  full of gold coins and jewelry on the table.

“Never saw that before” he said.

He had a Dutch passport that was a poor forgery. He couldn’t explain that either.

“That’s what they gave me, I don’t know what to tell you.”

No one was at home at the place he robbed. So there was nothing linking him to the crime.

They drove him to the airport.

He waved goodbye. The 20 Euros in his pocket was not going to get him far.

He waited until they left, then went outside to where everyone was smoking.

“Buonasera.”  he said,  lighting up a Lucky Strike.

MR Stuik 2018

He’s a Monster

She’s aggrieved.

About a man, naturally.

He said one thing and did another.

Like all men do, he lied.

He said he loved her

and then left town with someone else.

He’s a monster. A monster with a heart of stone.

And he had the gall to come back

all full of conquest and bluster.

She never wants to see him again.

But he wants to see her.

And can’t understand what he has done.

She won’t answer the door.

He waits outside all night in the rain.

Calls from the street below.

The neighbor tells him to shut up.

He apologizes, and is brought coffee and bread.

“Let him starve”, she says,

closing her shutters and going back to bed.

The Women Loved Me

The musicians were playing.

And Papa was playing guitar and singing.

He was always the life of the party.

And women loved him.

Sometimes, I had to wait until he had been with them.

I like this story that I saw online.

It’s about these animals that live on a cement wall.

They all remember their past lifetimes.

There’s a whole colony of feral cats.

They all come from different classes.

One was a rich boy who died in a car crash.

Another was a famous actor.

A third was a grunt, and he was so happy to be free.

There’s also this fat old possum,

he’s the sage and he explains all the lifetimes.

He gives them context.

I think I was a football player

in my last life.

I scored so many goals.

And I was on tv, you know in the locker room.

And all the women loved me.

That Eye

Everything has potential.
Don’t get in her way,
She’ll turn you into a photograph.
Eagle eye
Evil eye
Private eye
A gifted eye,
An eye that sees shapes and ideas.
An eye for beauty,
A beauty also.
When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie,
Click, she’s gotcha.
When you have tears in your eye,
And you’re a fool to cry,
Click, she caught it, in secret.
When you’re laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Click, she made you.
When the place your in
Becomes a stage set.
Click, she’s got that eye.

MR Stuik 2018

Samsara

Sofia had left her lipstick on the glass.
He found it the next morning,
as he was cleaning up.
He had wanted a photo of her,
but had forgotten amid
all the excitement and laughter.
And she was gone before he had a chance.
Instead, he got a kiss on the glass,
an imprint of her lip,
a memory of the evening plastered there.
He hadn’t even noticed
that she was wearing lipstick.
He had just focused on her smile
and listened to her voice.
She had spoken about remembering
a former lifetime.
It was the 16th century and
She was dressed in beautiful clothes.
She was being taken through
a past life regression and
the man leading it instructed her
to remember her final moments of that life.
It came to her almost like a dream,
she died young, in childbirth.
Died giving birth to a new soul.
“I was sad to be leaving, but also proud
for bringing my baby into the world.” she said,
“And now I think in this lifetime,
I’ve come back to help others.”
“Tea?” He asked, wanting her to stay a bit longer.
MR Stuik 2018