little report of the day

9:13 p.m., Lucky Bock in hand,

I inscribe: walked the lovely

33 blocks to school today, streets clear and

thick melting snow all around.

taught my 4 hours of poetry; the afternoon

class was hard; kid named Schweikert

kept on fucking up. took typed-up

poems of yesterday to Platt and put up

poster there of Anne and Reed’s reading Sat.

ate nearly 2 peanutbutter sandwiches with

raw carrots. typed. read kids’ poems.

at 4 I started home, got a ride

with Jim Bay. press release to daily paper.

stopped in Baird’s for 2 beers,

looked at paper. home, kissed Mara, Sierra.

in the mail: Out There, from Chicago, and a letter

stating the city of Grand Island had decided not

to prosecute re my arrest

Friday for intoxication. wonder why. Nick

the landlord didn’t show (he was supposed to

have us sign lease on the new duplex) (this place

gonna be torn down). ate

a very delicious supper, ham-and-cheese

rarebit with cold broccoli and cold oregano’d

tomato, cooked by Mara. paperwork, played a

game of solitaire, harried by Sierra’s

new red car. dropped over then

to the Korner Bar, put up a poster under the phone sign, said hi

to a few folks and got halloo’d by this guy I’d

spoken to 2 months before, who’d said his high

school son adored me, but it might be thought improper

that I hang around, shoot pool in Korner Bar.

a beefy mid-30’s man, he bought me a beer, apologized and

told me of his luck: he’d won a thousand one-hundred eighty

dollars today betting on one horse at Fonner Park.

we talked of poetry, family, work — he mentioned Kilmer,

Stevenson, Nash and others, quoted verbatim

his own published poem on fire-fighting (he is the G.I.

fire-chief). his boyhood favorites, whom he reads all of

even now: Edgar Rice Burroughts and Jules Verne. his son,

though epileptic, does the high jump at the high school; he was

disturbed that it wasn’t the broad jump, in which he

himself still holds a record, set in 1959.

the taxes have jumped up like crazy on their nice

spread just inside the city limits. I got up and

slapped him on the back and left, stopping first to ask

Clark, standing end of the bar, what he knew

of me on Friday night at the Kyriss. I’d blanked out

completely (woke up in jail, ate

blue oatmeal). he said I’d just got drunk, he thought Rod

had taken me home. he said, at one point,

just waking up, I’d grabbed the edge of the table and

tilted it till the glasses all came sliding

down and almost off, then tilted it back till they

slid back to where they were, and never spilled a drop.

he said I’d bought some beers for him and Pat but

before they could get to them drank

them up myself. okay, Clark, you’re a good guy with your

black curly hair and toothless grin, and your wild life. I was just

wondering. check with Rod when have a chance. —

and off, through mud and occasionally-lighted puddles,

home, where Mara’s napping still and there are (were)

5 Lucky Bocks in the white (today!) icebox. 9:50.

(no. 2)

after finishing that

(immediately after, during, in

fact) the

strange thing is there’s so much left out.

last night finished reading

The Vicar of Wakefield. the bluejays and cardinals that called

on the way to school. my beard

suddenly seems soft (that thought

off some day-dreaming about talking to

poetry students). reread

(for the last “making” time) “the 14,” the magazine; it is

all set. the poems

there, here now, seemed so abstract,

compared with what I’m used to,

but that in a way intensely and properly shaking

feeling and talk, tonight. the

revolution

(Mara gets up, starts drinking Pepsi)

and all that. (yellow sweater).

Copyright Credit: Jack Collom, “little report of the day” from Red Car Goes By: Selected Poems 1955-2000, published by Tuumba Press. Copyright © 2001 by Jack Collom. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Source: Red Car Goes By: Selected Poems 1955-2000 (Tuumba Press, 2001)