Robert Sward
Robert Sward is the author of Four Incarnations from Coffee House Press and can be reached at sward@cruzio.com
MILLIONAIRE
--Grandpa Max, 1860-1958
1. His inventions
Born in 1860, Austro-Hungarian immigrant,
inventor of a cap to keep the fizz
in seltzer bottles, a refinement to the machine gun,
and a metal Rube Goldberg bookmark
sold, believe it or not,
with a diagram and user manual,
Grandpa made big money speculating,
buying and selling tenements.
In the 1920s, offered stock in a start-up selling
flavored water and cocaine, he turned it down. "Coca Cola," he spat.
"Vhat dreck! Who'd buy?"
2. His economies
Lean, stiff-necked, pack-a-day smoker
with a fondness for Mogen David, the old man practiced
certain economies: wouldn't own a car,
used public transportation;
and, rather than buy toilet paper,
blackened his ass with yesterday's "Chicago Tribune."
Grandpa never left a restaurant
--"vegetable soup, roll, glass of water"--
without pocketing a few cellophane-wrapped crackers
"for later."
At six, I got my first lesson in thrift.
Grandpa with a smoker's cough:
"Cough into four corners of hanky,
like this--
four coughs minimum--,
before you dirty up the middle."
End of lesson.
3. His curses
Late summer afternoons, partaking of Mogen David
("Shield of David") wine,
he orbited the living room, sonofabitching
the government
and Democrats with no sense,
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, "betrayers of the rich,
and they stole my patent, too."
God damning union leaders, "the lazy swine,"
the United Mine Workers,
the AFL-CIO,
"Stand 'em up against a wall.
Shoot 'em, shoot the sons of bitches."
4. His secret to health and long life
Old Testament Moses,
cigarette and drink in hand,
white mustache, gray beard, pacing, pacing,
"God" (it was a prayer after all),
"damn" (the patriarch calling down wrath),
"son of a bitch, son of a bitch."
The last of his great inventions,
six syllables to God's four ("Let there be light"),
but good enough
(mantra like a slap in the face)
that we, with each repetition, do homage to him.
And that is how he'd breathe, cursing
--head back, chin up--everyone who, he figured,
had somehow cost him money.
"God damn son of a bitch, God damn son of a bitch!" he'd rage,
miraculously cured of whatever ailed him.
--Robert Sward
www.cruzio.com/~scva/rsward.html
________________________
"Uncivilizing" (poetry), ISBN 1-895837-17-0
Insomniac Press, Toronto
www.insomniacpress.com
[new!] "Mudlark #7, "Party Animal..."
www.unf.edu/mudlark/posters/rs.html
[Calif. report] www.comet.net/earthquake/
[Two Poems]
______
1.
POSTCARDS FROM SANTA CRUZ
City of Mystical Arts
Nightclubs, Jazz Jam and the Silver Bullet Lounge,
Music City, Planet L Records, Santa Cruz Guitar
* * *
artichoke and mushroom farms, greenhouse filled with roses,
dogs chirruping, birds barking back.
* * *
'Forest Primeval' in silent version of the movie "Evangeline."
'Santa Clara' in Joel Schumacher's "The Lost Boys."
'San Pablo' in Clint Eastwood's "Sudden Impact." Dirty Harry strikes again.
Location for Zazu Pitts' "Thunder Mountain."
For "The Entertainer," a crumbling 1940s resort.
* * *
Madrone, knobcone pine, live oak
foghorn, yellowy-white silicon chip windchime
no-color haze.
Amphetamine for breakfast.
Honey and honey-dew melons.
An ex-wife throwing sunglasses at my chest.
I've come a long way, not moved at all.
___________
2.
SHE WAS SLEEPING BESIDE ME
She was sleeping beside me curled up like a child, a smudge of chocolate
on the outside of her little finger. Natasha opened her eyes and blinked, "I
should have been a hair dresser, I really like that haircut I gave you. I
should
take a course in book illustrating... Maybe I could work in advertising."
Then she fell back asleep, her right arm stretched out over her head.
Waking, "My father gave me a goldfish and my first sable paint brush."
He said, "Natasha, you have too pessimistic a view of the world."
"You have such intensity, Eddie. Your intensity frightens me sometimes.
But you're pretty evolved for a man."
"And you?"
"Me, too. I'm the original 'what-you-see-is-what-you-get girl.' I hold back
nothing."
One thing I liked about Natasha was her six-track mind. Marriage doesn't
have to be boring. Not so long as we can choose the people we go around in
circles with.
_______________
"TEN YEARS UNDER THE EUCALYPTUS - The Tree That Destroyed
California"
"In wildfires, the tops or 'crowns' of the trees blast off
like miniature cannons, causing firey crowns to become
airborne, carrying seeds many hundreds of feet."
--from "Blue Gum Eucalyptus and the Santa Cruz
Heritage Tree Ordinance"
"It is therefore not surprising that everywhere the eucalypts
grow there is evidence of past fire."
--from "Eucalypt Ecology," Forestry Commission of Tasmania
"These are heritage trees. There's a $500. fine if you cut one
down. It's the law."
--Santa Cruz City Arborist
It was all a mistake
the tree that destroyed California
stands to burn down our house.
Came from Australia,
its oily, reddish bark
a clothing of finest fluffy timber,
_a dream, the California dream_
drought resistant,
resistant to insects,
fast-growing
But no good for lumber ("too brittle"),
no good for windbreak ("blasting crown of fire
torching everything around it"),
no good in a city ("a source of urban wildfire"),
no good in the country ("secreting toxins,
it destroys all native plants")
_Gee, let's bring it to California and see how it does._
And so, a hundred years ago, arborists brought it home
_Ta da! _ The tree from hell,
tree that needs fire--BOOM!
to propagate, seeds, little eucalypts
shooting off in all directions.
Good news for pyromaniacs,
a whole tree, oily sap aboil,
exploding in one big Whoosh!
That then survives what it destroys.
Tree that grows three feet a year,
in ten years covering
twice its former land mass,
then doubling, and doubling again.
Blue Gum, the Waste Land as tree,
Blue Gum that smells of rot and Noxzema,
a little poison oak at its base and nothing else.
"Climax vegetation," end-of-the-line tree,
death to the host vegetation,
death without regeneration.
"I rise in flame," says the Blue Gum Eucalyptus,
"I rise in flame, but you don't."
Tree that is the phoenix,
tree that is the fire,
tree that is the ashes,
($500. fine for cutting one down)
"Gotcha," says Mr. Blue Gum, "Gotcha!"
___________
Robert Sward