February 2008 - Lisowski

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February 2008 - Lisowski

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"Soup du Jour"

Dallas J. Bryant - 2008

Joseph Lisowski

A Cycle of 3 Poems from
Stashu Kapinski Dreams of Glory
An amalgam of voices from the Lawrenceville neighborhood in Pittsburgh where Joseph Lisowski grew up — unemployed steel workers, chronic drunks, disenfranchised immigrants — who, in spite of it all, have not totally given up hope.

What are Friends for?

Me an' my buddy are downtown late
walkin' down this deserted street
to where he parked his car for free.
A kid comes outta the shadows
an' says, "Hey, I'm homeless
an' I'm starvin'. Can you give me somethin'
so's I can eat?" He's wearin' gloves
an' got a winter coat none-too-shabby.
My buddy says, "There's a homeless shelter
and soup kitchen two blocks from here."
"Yeah, I know," he says, "I applied an' waitin'."
"Well, that's all I got to give you, good advice."

My buddy opens the car door, gets in, and slams it shut.
I give the kid a buck, which pisses off my buddy.
He starts the car and jams it into gear
like he's gonna leave me there.

Fast Food

Hey, it's America an' lunch time.
Have a feast, get it cheap.
Getta 99-cent Whopper®, maybe fifteen people in line.
Behind the counter, a young girl is shufflin'
from register to the warmin' rack.
She mumbles somethin' ‘bout a hard day.
Right, like anybody cares. She's lookin'
for someone to talk to, maybe flirt.
There ain't no takers.
Every third order she gets wrong,
calls the manager who comes outta the back,
grease all over his shirt. He voids another one.

Everybody wants a feast fast.
But nobody's puttin' out. One guy
just orders coffee an' I see him waitin'
in the receivin' line five, ten, fifteen minutes, then more.

And what about all them others waitin'
on someone to kill the cow?

Excavatin' for a Mine

My brother gotta arm fulla holes,
little collapsed mine shafts
leadin' to an' from his brain.
My brother ain't got nothin' but words.
They run outta his mouth
thick as a gold vein
covered with dirt, rock, animal turds,
a lifetime of junk so deep
nobody cares to dig.
"Yeah, yeah," I say when I see him,
as he keeps talkin' an' talkin'
an' talkin'.

Arts & Crafts Menu Border - Ca. 1910

After growing up under the shadow of Heppenstal Steel Mill in Pittsburgh, PA., Joseph Lisowski has spent much of his life near the sea, including 10 years in St. Thomas, VI., which serves as the setting for his three published detective fiction novels, Full Body Rub, Looking for Lisa, and Looking for Lauren. An Alchemist's Alphabet, his most recent chapbook of poems, has just been released by the press of origamicondom.org.

Joseph has lived many lives: as a wide-eyed boy, a keeper of keys, a beachcomber . . . (There are poems somewhere commemorating them all.) Now he watches old Stooges' videos with his youngest son, and they bicycle regularly along the banks of the Pasquotank River near the outer banks of North Carolina. He and his wife Linda are both professors at Elizabeth City State University.

Contact Joseph
Chapbook at Origami Condom
Website

Sunday Dinner
Number One: Cream of Tomato Soup
"Scald 1 quart of milk with 2 thin slices onion. Remove onion, thicken milk with 4 tbsps. flour diluted with cold water to pour (Have no lumps in mixture). Cook 20 mins. in double boiler, stirring constantly the first 5 mins. afterwards occasionally. Put 1 quart canned tomatoes in saucepan, cook until thick, rub through sieve . . . add 1/8 tsp. soda, remove froth, add tsps. sugar. Pour tomato mixture into milk, then strain into soup tureen over 1/4 cup butter . . . serve at once with Croutons."
~from New Dinners, ca. 1910.
Elizabeth O. Hiller