Sample Poems by John M. FitzGerald
Introducing Joe
Smith
He is the man you saw sitting at the bus stop,
His elbows on his knees,
Arms like pillars propping up his noggin,
Hands in a V, with his chin in the angle,
One palm against each cheek.
He wants you to think he doesn’t notice you looking,
So his head tilts slightly downward, but his stare
Rolls up from behind wire glasses, a perfect weasel.
When others come to wait, they don’t sit,
Despite two empty places either side him.
An instinctual air floats about.
And though slight of build, even lumberjacks steer clear,
As of the obvious bearer of some contagious disease.
He breeds distrust, like a stray dog tricked once too often,
Kicked by someone feigning a handout,
Too hungry not to try.
Be sure about it, visualize, he seems to meditate to angels;
And if you look close, his lips barely move the silence,
Until you too hear the voices in his head, whisper, gnawing.
Oh, how you wish he’d go away.
He sits in the middle on purpose, to be center of attention.
His name is Joe Smith, although none of us knows him,
We just pass by, shift our eyes to the dashboard,
An important song requires adjustment to the radio.
When he gets on the bus, he moves straight to the back.
Everyone he passes wishes – please don’t sit near me.
They set their magazines down next to them,
Try to appear larger than they are.
He scans, thinking God, let me find a place alone.
But they all have direction in common, location.
They all want to get where they’re going.
They all wind up back home.
Spring Water
Joe Smith works at the Spring Water Plant, in Tacoma.
All his life, everyone called him Joe Smith.
Never just Joe.
It makes him feel generic.
Joe Smith talks to God.
Or is it the devil, he isn’t quite sure.
He just knows he is chosen to kill people.
Anonymous people.
Joe Smith works in shipping and distribution,
But understands the whole operation.
Why he isn’t running the place by now is beyond him.
A man of his obvious intelligence.
How could they not have noticed?
He is special, he hears voices.
One day, he’ll show us all -
Joe Smith will be a household name.
Of all those sheep among him,
A few might have to be sacrificed.
So he studies poisons on the Internet.
Spring Water is sold in several States;
An undetectable drop here or there, and none the wiser.
They would never make the connection.
But that’s a problem.
To make any difference, he has to be caught.
Otherwise, Joe Smith will always be generic.
Scene One – Los Angeles, a car wreck,
Emergency vehicles already responded.
Driver dead, car stolen.
A bystander says “he drove straight at the wall
Across four lanes, not even wearing a safety belt.”
Policeman I: “Any alcohol in that bottle?”
Policeman II, sniffing: “No, just water.”
Wheels in Motion
Joe Smith takes a pickle jar and latex gloves
From under the kitchen sink, and sits at the workbench
In the tool shed outside his father’s house.
He dons the gloves, empties poison from six livestock collars
Into the pickle jar. He spoons the powder onto a scale
Until it indicates ten milligrams,
Then slides it into a plastic bag and zips it locked;
Repeats that process nine more times.
He puts the emptied collars, bags of powder, a funnel,
And the gloves into his lunch box and latches it shut.
He places the pickle jar with the leftover powder on a shelf,
Behind assorted cleaning fluids and a rusty can of turpentine.
Next morning, his shift starts at nine.
He gets off the bus at 6:30, stops for coffee.
Says hi to Monique and pets Holly Blue, then crosses the street.
He is always the first one in to work.
He goes to the conveyor belt, where the half-liters are ready
To be filled for the shipment to L.A., sets his lunch box down,
Opens it, and stretches the gloves onto his hands.
He takes ten bottles from the conveyor,
Pulls a blue Sharpie from his plastic shirt pocket protector
And underlines the word “pure” on each.
The line is hardly noticeable, but he wants to leave his mark,
To recognize the bottle if he sees it.
He puts the funnel in each bottle, pulls open a zip lock bag
And pours its contents in; replaces the bottles randomly;
Puts everything back in the lunch box.
He’ll throw it off the bridge into the Narrows later.
When the shift starts, a man in a white lab coat flips a switch.
The bottles ride the conveyor to be filled and capped.
They’re placed on a pallet, shrink wrapped,
Fork lifted onto a truck and driven away.
A Lucky Man and
an Unlucky One
This septuagenarian grandfather exits 7-Eleven
With a bottle of Spring Water in his hand.
He reaches into his pocket for his keys,
Presses the wireless to unlock his Beamer,
Opens the door, sits sideways,
Feet still on asphalt. He swings his go-aheads around,
Puts the unopened bottle in the cup holder,
Gets a glimpse of his own eyes in the rear view mirror.
He adjusts himself into the leather seat,
Its dents conformed to his shoulders and back,
And is about to close the door when a stranger waving
A handgun appears with a desperate, glossless stare:
“Get out of the car old man!”
He does as he’s told.
The robber drives off in a hurry.
“What’s that old man doing with a car like this anyway?”
“Stupid old man,” the robber laughs,
“Even left me a bottle of water, how thoughtful.”
He puts the bottle between his legs and twists the cap,
Chugs half of it down, recaps it, puts the bottle back,
Speeds east on Imperial Highway toward I 105.
Not a cop in sight, he’s making good time,
He’ll be back in Pomona in less than an hour.
The chop shop will give him a grand.
But by transition to the 605, our carjacker feels queasy,
Something’s happening. Maybe just nerves.
No! He needs to throw up. Holy shit, what’s happening!
That he’s in the fast lane doing 80 no longer matters.
At the curve he keeps going straight,
Just misses a Mercedes and a tour bus slams the brakes.
Head on into the wall through the windshield.
The old man has a story for his grandchildren that night.
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