Mike Faran

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words of power

the pretty blonde girl who volunteered
at the senior center
also wrote poetry &
one afternoon decided to hand out
pages of her typed poems to the
elderly residents.  then she turned off
the t.v.

mrs. baker immediately created an
uproar & waved her cane at the young girl,
calling her a bitch & a
whore

mrs. baker wanted to see the results of the
dna tests,
to know who really made two albino
babies in the dark

so the t.v. went back on &
the pretty blonde girl reclaimed her carefully
written sheets of poetry

her blue eyes had welled-up with tears  -
she had never been called filthy names before

& she thought her poems could enlighten

*   *   *   *   *

years later  -
at a cocktail lounge in east los angeles  -
she sipped a vodka-collins & thought back on
that day

she smiled
knowing that she had to be called those names
because they made her lines strong,
her poems pop like cherries  

Without a Prayer

My dog, Camus, was
run over last night, killed.
Dead as dirt.

I dragged her dead weight into the
backyard.
This dead
pregnant pit-bull, white &
peppered with blood.

Damn it to hell!

But she wouldn’t want me to
express remorse,
nor would she had wanted a
nighttime burial  -

that today would be just fine.

So I dug a dog-sized grave in the shade
of the avocado tree &
drank my Saturday beer.

I buried Camus
without ceremony or prayer;
I only permitted myself one indulgence.

I kissed one of her cropped ears  -
an ear full of beauty.                    

                                                          
Mike Faran is the author of We Go To A Fire (Penury Press) and has appeared in Barbaric Yawp, Homestead, The New Laurel, Iodine, The Main Street Rag, and many others.