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David Alpaugh’s latest collection Heavy Lifting
was published last year by Alehouse Press and has been nominated for
best book of poetry, 2007, by the Northern California Association of
Independent Booksellers. His first collection Counterpoint won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize from Story Line Press. Publications where his work has appeared include The Formalist, Modern Drama, Poetry, Zyzzyva, and California Poetry from the Gold Rush to the Present, and he has new work forthcoming in Raintown Review and Rattle. His article “The Professionalization of Poetry” was serialized by Poets & Writers Magazine
in 2003, drawing over 200 letters and emails and wide discussion on the
internet. He lives in Pleasant Hill, California and coordinates a
popular Bay Area poetry reading series in Crockett.
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The Man Who Loves Better Homes & Gardens is puttering, evenings, weekends, inspecting his gutters,plucking out loquats, acorns, eucalyptus leaves, so the still far-off November rain can leave his roof quickly, with elegance. He hales forth bindweed from the chinks between sidewalk slabs, star thistle from the caulking around the pool where gangster grasses shoot their way to glory. Sometimes during high wind a shingle breaks loose in the night and clatters onto the patio. Could he see in the dark he'd leap out of bed, climb his aluminum ladder and wedge the cedar shield back in place--before the roof rats got wind of it. He lies there waiting for dawn. Like model before mirror, he cannot sit on his desk Sundays without discovering fresh enemies to beauty. There's a gopher hill beside the spa, sprung-up overnight like a mushroom; and on the lawn a real mushroom he'd swear wasn't there last evening. The forces of darkness have flung a beer bottle over the fence. It's lying among his roses, crying, "This Bud's for You!" A shrike has eaten a finch or sparrow and left beak, legs, dangling from a twig on his ornamental pear. His right hand flashes forth in love and anger--drops bird in trash can, bottle in compactor. What a war! Statement Today I am throwing old checks awayThat lay in a shoebox five years, fearing audit. They're free--free at last, to burn or decay. Money still talks, but her ghouls simply say, "Something was sold at a price and you bought it." Today I am throwing old checks away. Each bears its signature; year, month & day; And pays to the order of Mammon: due profit. They're free--free, at last, to burn or decay. Here's one for Sears; here's one for ballet; Airfare to Rome; a homeless benefit. Today I am throwing old checks away, Saying "Ciao!" to old wolves they kept at bay While they tended our credit and fed it bit by bit. They're free--free, at last, to burn or decay. I crumple the papered past. I murmur, "Hurray." It's my shredder now much reconcile chit, chit,chit. Today I am throwing old checks away. They're free--free, at last, to burn or decay. What My Father Loved About Melmac That you could drop it on the floor.That you could hit it with a sledgehammer. That you could back over it with a Mack truck. That in this Henry J world where we rattled along crying for a Tucker--here at last was the real thing. that it came in a variety of colors including maroon. That you could get it with S & H green stamps. That once all 32 pieces were stacked up on the pantry shelf you'd never have to buy dinnerware again. That at last he could enjoy his Kix or shredded wheat in peace--knowing every bowl on the kitchen table was childproof. That never again would Mom shout, "Butterfingers!" nor grieve over china lying in ruins at our feet; nor swear as she cut her toe on an unswept shard. Pharaoh of our New Jersey duplex, Dad dreamed of burial, near the Nile, with his favorite cup & saucer. "Melmac," he said, "would last ten thousand years." |
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from Heavy Lifting Poems 1995-2006 (Alehouse Press) |
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