Papa’s Song (clam chowder blues)

Papa’s Song (clam chowder blues)
I wrote this poem back in September of 1999, while looking at a calendar print of Marc Chagall’s “The Glowing Bouquet.” But looking at the painting today, it seems odd that I would have written the poem in what might be termed a blues style. Was it because of the blue in the painting? Possibly. I have always liked Chagall’s use of that color. The chair and window in the poem make sense, because there is also a small chair in the painting, and a window with square panes, which are bigger than the chair, even though the chair is nearer the foreground. And there are flowers in both the poem and the painting, and a woman. But my woman is nothing like Chagall’s naked one lolling about near the top of the bouquet, partially covered by flowers. Papa’s Song (clam chowder blues) My toenail’s stuck in the floorboard, dry shell full of slivers. My heel’s black, ’cause no one sweeps up ’round here. My blue chair’s parked front of my two-paned window, wash my face in the dawn. Doilies my mama made, smell like bacon gravy and wash day, 1929. My wife’s out sellin’ flowers, her gray hair hangin’ down. She takes ’em from the graveyard, plants her bucket ’neath the stop light in the middle of the town. Says she don’t mind, huh! never gives a holler. Says the weather’s fine, even when folks won’t give her money. Says a lot of things that could be true, though we both know better. These days, dreams I get at with a can opener, pour the guts out in a black-face fryin’ pan. Can of soup, warmin’ on the stove, lord! I wish it was clam chowder. Can of soup, warmin’ on the stove, lord! I wish it was clam chowder. Note: Poems, Slightly Used, a growing collection of work first published in my blog, Recently Banned Literature, can be found here. POETRY COLLECTIONS IN PRINT Available from Cosmopsis Books of San Francisco *Winter Poems* by William Michaelian ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 US $11.95; $8.95 at Cosmopsis Books 52 pages. 6x9. Paper. Includes one drawing. San Francisco, June 2007 *Signed, numbered & illustrated copies* *Winter Poems* displays the skills and abilities of Mr. Michaelian at their most elemental level, at the bone. Wandering amidst a barren world, a world scraped bare, he plucks the full moon like fruit from the winter sky, goes mad and befriends a pack of hungry wolves, burns his poems to keep warm. He is a flake of snow, a frozen old man, a spider spinning winter webs. Spring is only a vague notion of a waiting vineyard, crocuses, and ten-thousand babies. The author is alone, musing, reflecting, at times participating. But not quite alone, for he brings the lucky reader along. I’ve been there, to this winter world, and I plan to go back. — John Berbrich, Barbaric Yawp *Another Song I Know — Short Poems* by William Michaelian ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 US $13.95; $10.95 at Cosmopsis Books 80 pages. 6x9. Paper. Includes Author’s Note. San Francisco, June 2007 *Signed, numbered & illustrated copies* *Another Song I Know* is a delightful collection of brief, resilient poems. Reading them, one by one by one, is like taking a walk through our common everyday world and suddenly hearing what the poet hears: the leaves, a coffee cup, chairs — and yes, even people, singing their songs of wisdom, sweetness, and light. *— Tom Koontz, Barnwood* poetry magazine**	Also by William Michaelian POETRY Winter Poems ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 52 pages. Paper. —————————— Another Song I Know ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 80 pages. Paper. —————————— Cosmopsis Books San Francisco Signed copies available Main Page Author’s Note Background Notebook A Listening Thing Among the Living No Time to Cut My Hair One Hand Clapping Songs and Letters Collected Poems Early Short Stories Armenian Translations Cosmopsis Print Editions Interviews News and Reviews Highly Recommended Let’s Eat Favorite Books & Authors Useless Information Conversation Flippantly Answered Questions E-mail & Parting Thoughts *Poetry, Notes & Marginalia:* Recently Banned Literature Collected Poems by William Michaelian A Larger Life Monastery of Psalms Revelation Friends (includes French translation) Summer of Dreams Hunger Is It His Coat? The Boy Who Wrote Letters Forty Days, Forty Nights The Pilgrim’s Way A Christmas Wish The Teacher The Literary Awakening of America The Healer The Enigmatic Child What Happened to God Reading Tristram Shandy A Prefix of Obscure Meaning He Knows My Only Friend The World I Know We Do Not Need a Poem Three Short Poems The More We Are Looking For I Hear the Earth What Will I Give You? Great Minds Think Alike The Age of Us All I Met My Spirit Claim Denied Summer Days Greek Peppers Another Hard Day James Joyce Singing How Many Stones? At the Armenian Home The Peace Talks The Eggs of March Armenian Music If Poems Were Days Once Again I Lied Frogs One Last Thing Everywhere I Go Up Here On the Hill Pumpkins Winter View What December Said to January Winter Poems Spring Haiku How to Write a Poem, In Three Lessons The Walls Have Ears Why I Don’t Buy Grapes To French Vanilla and All the Other Flavors It Was Early Morning Haiku Someone’s Mother Fall Questions My Old Black Sport Coat The Clerk and the Windmill Roadside Distress, Part 2 Magical Realism (First Prize) Café Poetry Night: Two Poems Short Poem for Spring Short Poem for Summer I Find Him Eating Butterflies For the Sister I Never Had An Absurdist Play The Second Act Essay Of Poets and Other Things
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