Last Call Read online

  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