{"id":967,"date":"2019-03-20T01:02:34","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T01:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/?p=967"},"modified":"2019-03-08T03:08:20","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T03:08:20","slug":"two-poems-by-don-thompson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2019\/03\/20\/two-poems-by-don-thompson\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems by Don Thompson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Don Thompson has been writing about the San Joaquin Valley for over fifty years, including a dozen or so books and chapbooks. For more info and links to publishers, visit his website at www.don-e-thompson.com.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Just Another Long Goodbye
\n(Raymond Chandler)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no easy out for discontent
\nat the office. Nothing helps,
\nnot a bottle stashed in your desk,
\nnot even girls from the typing pool
\nwilling to help you slip out of your skin
\nfor an hour in the afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solitary drives up the coast and back down
\nonly leave you where you began.
\nA dead end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And writing? No help either
\nbecause the noir\u2019s inside you,
\nnot in LA,
\nand all the wisecracks, the cynical asides
\nnever amused the demons that much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hollywood\u2019s just another oil company:
\nnothing to choose between an intractable plot
\nand a ledger that refuses to balance
\nwhen it\u2019s always you
\nfailing to make them come out right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Studio execs keep the hooch on hand
\n(an unwritten codicil)
\nas you scribble in your closet.
\nAnd Marlowe\u2019s there in a dark corner
\nsneering at you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you\u2019d better go home to La Jolla, Ray,
and lay your throbbing head once more
on Cissy\u2019s lap,
calm at last\u2014a weaned child,
except for the whiskey at bedtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Shopping at Guarantee Shoe Center
\n(Seamus Heaney)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brando in sandals and then scuffed boots
\nas an introspective Zapata,
\nwho went barefoot most of his life;
\nFred Astaire\u2019s scuffed brogues
\nwith metal taps, dinged and nicked
\nlike worn out Kantian philosophers;
\ncrepe-soled brothel creepers,
\ngeriatric Birkenstocks
\nand the has-been rocker\u2019s brogans;
\nthose bankrupt penny loafers
\nin the dust of my closet,
\ncrouched in despair, abandoned
\nfor Spanish leather driving moccasins:
\nShoes of all kinds, but none
\ncompare with the hand-stitched high-tops
\nSeamus Heaney wore
\nat that post-reading grad student party in \u201972:
\nShamrock green with yellow scroll work,
\nglistening leprechaun footgear
\nthat no one mentioned\u2014
\nthose timid poets
\nblathering loud nonsense over their beer mugs
\nas if they were outr\u00e9.
\nAnd no one got close enough to Heaney
\nto risk stepping on his toes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don Thompson has been writing about the San Joaquin Valley for over fifty years, including a dozen or so books and chapbooks. For more info and links to publishers, visit his website at www.don-e-thompson.com. Just Another Long Goodbye (Raymond Chandler) There\u2019s no easy out for discontent at the office. Nothing helps, not a bottle stashed … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-fB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=967"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":970,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions\/970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}