Sample Poems by Philip Raisor

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The History of Plumbing in America

Through cobwebs and lime-packed damp soil I crawl
along the broken cast iron pipe where the odor leads

to waste and for some reason, maybe the fumes,
I think of Orpheus looking back in the worst moment

of his life and the scene in The Unforgiven when the Kid
guns down Quick Mike in a Wyoming outhouse.

I'm here because the tenants want pipes that sluice away
the unwanted and return the refreshed.

"Turn off the water," I yell, and the flushing stops.
I'm a handful of flashlight, wire brush, patching,

a zip bag of putty, sleeve clamp, nut driver, a carrier
of pipe strap, drill, plus galvanized screws. This space

reeks like the cell of Thomas Morton whose poetry
scathed the Puritan wags at Merrymount who, in turn,

deposited him in a dank prison. My grandfather read
"The Poem" and "The Song" to me from his wooded

throne, and for years I connected early American poetry
with nature's privy. From the TV above I hear screeching

voices accusing, threatening, pleading, demanding war.
Maybe this is no time to think of pagans and colonists

dancing around a sixty foot pole or tight-assed pieties
of our Calvinist stock, but fixtures that go from one

end to the other get clogged. I ask why I'm here
I don't know: money, control, heritage, community

My wife thought real estate was a good investment,
so maybe love, too. My hands do mechanical work

while I think poems or how to stop the stink in Syria
where slim arms dance the dabke while black-masked

marauders invoke Allah and stone gays in the streets
of Aleppo. It all smells the same down here, under

the channel-changing histories of our unresolved race
and the final countdowns to the great shoot-outs

that will end the music. What if looking back to see
if beauty is still there is not a sin but a guide out

of this shit-infested dark? I scrape off the rust
and crawl toward the open space.

---

Through the Morning Glass, Darkly

Let their crystallized voice proclaim their injustices
and demand their privileges.
John L. Lewis

My daily reprise: right arm numb, I wake
to death-thoughts, body fragmenting like shale.
Willfully, I change direction. Go to the Chrysler:
the Tiffany glass exhibit, sundry explosions
of brightness, alabaster sinking in streams of blue,
bowls shimmering, the suppression of angst
through a safe, quiet immersion in the past.

On other days, I awaken to malaise of mind,
dullness like sibilant cats at the back door.
I'm reminded of days when cats surrounded
my grandfather coming home from Ball Brothers
Glass Factory with tales of amber flint, cobalt blue,
plain packer jars, workers strikes, how to fight
for a thing that matters.

Some mornings friends don't call, most are gone,
I stir to work: spackle holes in apt. #2, tighten
a loose door knob. The way people live! Unflushed
toilets, open tuna cans, mounds of tossed clothes.
How do they look at a cracked bathroom mirror
every morning, their left eye scalloped, right eye
spidered? It will cost a repair. They leave it.

Yesterday, the heart palpitations. I passed soaked
newspapers puddled in print. At 49th street (why
always that section?), a body under sheet, police tape,
a small crowd, red lights thumping store windows.
Drug bust? Another cop shooting? How many
steps to the mother in pain who feels the world
will kill her more times than she has lives?

Today, from my window, I reflect on the Chrysler,
early sun feeding on its dome. Beauty as distant,
fragile. Then the sound of a morning's birth:
We want Truth! Justice! Present ? voices, dead young
men, marching for respect. A mother angrily hoists
love like Boston tea for the masses. A violent beauty
from the past is born is born is born.

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The Natural Process of Aging

Hands, these smoke and mirror crutches,
Bent exits too late to the party, mole
magnets, veined cages of failure, can't you
Hang up a hanger? It's been years since I've
Synchronized the delicious sound of words
With graceful gestures. No handshakes,
High-fives, caresses. Who cares about soul
When gnarled fingers pressed together form
Backhoes that send prayers the wrong way.

So this is the way it is. Accepted. I've decided
To make the best of crumbling buildings,
Old bricks no one wants. I'll cough through
Dust, gather histories, genealogies, stories
Of days when we pulled down Colored Only
Signs, littered malls with sit-ins, imagined
The territory ahead. I go back to see if I can
See what we saw. The past is clear, sharply-
Etched. I see my hands, I see them moving.

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My Heart Leaps Up

The Child is Father of the Man
William Wordsworth

Some say getting old is not for sissies,
you've heard that, everyone has, even
the young who dismiss it like paradoxes
or irrefutable arguments that take time
to sort out. While on the subject of the young,
let me say that a jump shot can only be arced
if one has a limber wrist, one that will flex and flip
like towels viewed through a laundromat window,
which is where I saw the reflection of my future wife
in that small town I was passing through but often left
when inspired by an anti-war march on Washington
or Wall Street raiders ripped up my state teacher's pension.
If you think about it, most of your time is spent mulling
around in your own mind, what you think others think
about you or the scenes where your wit is devastating.
No one watches themselves break bones in a nursing
home or vomit in hallways. What keeps me going
is the thought that next week, in my wheel chair,
I'll protest with the college crowd in their version
of Occupy and explain to them why sitting-in
is like locomotion. It's in the wrist, I'll say,
how you turn the gun-toward them
or yourself. Tough kids learn that early.