Tag: Tom Barlow

Monongahela Christmas by Tom Barlow

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Monongahela Christmas

Comes the snow, drifting across
the wild grasses like the water
that polishes river rocks

of the Blackwater into ornaments.
This is the raw Christmas, pines
tipped with hoarfrost, torpid trout

holding place in their current, while
wild ponies turn their backs
and gather together to endure.

Hunters plod through the valley
for whom the forest opens just wide
enough to allow them to pass before

folding closed again, stealing
the sound of their gunshots for
the wind. Mercy has found little

foothold in the winter mountains
while the whole countryside
attempts to sleep, some until spring,

some never to wake. This is no place
for an infant; only the glare of the sun
off the river ice could be mistaken
for a star that seeks a savior.

*

Tom Barlow is an American writer of novels, short stories and poetry, whose work has appeared in journals including Hobart, Tenemos, Redivider, The New York Quarterly, The Modern Poetry Quarterly, and many more. See tombarlowauthor.com.

Battle of the Bulge by Tom Barlow

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Battle of the Bulge

1960. I’m 15 watching Dad size up the used car dealer,
not a stalwart man but he does wear a vest, smokes Luckies
like my old man. We walk his lot; he carries a chamois

to buff the chrome trim of each car we pass until we
come upon a red ’57 Ford Galaxie. The guy opens
the front door, waves Dad inside. He slides the seat back,

takes the key, fires it up. The exhaust is a little blue,
but the interior, immaculate. Even the ash tray is clean;
I’ve never seen that before.

The guy offers to sacrifice the car, with seventy thousand
on the odometer, for a grand and a half. My old man scoffs
at first but then the guy offers a ten percent veteran’s discount,

which allows him to mention he was in the Battle of the Bulge,
spent a winter in a foxhole outside Bastogne. Young
as I am I can tell he’s sold a shitload of cars by introducing

that little fact, true or not. It’s obvious Dad believes him
and figures even if the car is a little overpriced General Eisenhower
would say this guy has earned the sale. Now, my old man

had a rough time in his Navy hitch, suicidal from malaria while
guarding the Panama Canal from U-boats, sent home early with
a general discharge that some folk look upon with contempt.

In the office Dad glances at me, trying to gauge if I
understand that the check he is about to write is part of a
far-off battle he will be fighting the rest of his life.

He seals the deal for the Ford and as we drive away I can see
the salesman throw his feet up on his desk and clasp his hands
over his belly, obviously no longer even thinking about that

foxhole, probably doing some mental math to see how close he
is now to a speedboat of his own he’ll name Battle of the Bilge.

*

Tom Barlow is an American writer whose work has appeared in many journals including Ekphrastic Review, Voicemail Poetry, Hobart, Tenemos, ONE ART, Redivider, The New York Quarterly, The Modern Poetry Quarterly, and many more. He writes because he finds conversation calls for so much give and take, and he considers himself more of a giver. See tombarlowauthor.com.

Jingle by Tom Barlow

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Jingle

       three demisonnets

1955

The white boy with the tousled hair
on the TV won’t eat his cereal
he needs a jingle to change his mind
or maybe a cartoon character.
I’m drinking it all in like my dad with
his cold Stroh’s. At five I’m unaware
I’m an idiot. But television knows.

1968

I grew up in the days of angry flags
we carried in our mobs, when guitar riffs
and fatuous lyrics stuck to me like the leeches
the less fortunate were picking off their uniforms.
By burning my apron strings I learned
that if I screamed an idea loud enough
I could convince myself of anything.

2024

Lately a string of geezers my age
have been hawking a pill that will clear
the fog in my memory. I want to tell them
they needs a good jingle and a cartoon
character. I would suggest the mayfly,
an insect that emerges in its adult stage
to couple and die in the same day.

*

Tom Barlow is a widely published author of poems, short stories and novels. He writes because conversation requires give and take, and he’s always thought of himself as more of a giver.

How I Learned Prophecy by Tom Barlow

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How I Learned Prophecy
          after Oliver de la Paz’s
          “How I Learned Bliss”

Walking home from the shop I pass St. Michael’s and spy
a swastika spray-painted on the bell tower. The bald woman
is back working the High Street stoplight with her cardboard sign.
A Ford Ranger dragging its bumper stops, gives her a dollar.
Once home, I hop on my Harley Electra Glide to meet my buddies
at the clubhouse for a supper ride. Fifty miles of corn fields, the smell
of them like a fog. The bike handles better with no one on the back seat,
but the radio is still shit this far from Columbus. At supper in Xenia
I hold to a two-beer limit, as promised. On the way home the sun
is setting behind us. Rays of light pierce the overcast and set
the winter wheat aglow, as though we are riding through fire, and I want
to say, “Can you believe this?” but there’s no one back there to hear.
How can I express this more clearly? It’s like opening a letter when
you know by the handwriting it should go straight into the burn barrel.

*

Tom Barlow is an Ohio writer of novels, short stories and poetry whose work has appeared in many journals including Ekphrastic Review, Voicemail Poetry, New York Quarterly, Modern Poetry Quarterly, and many more. See tombarlowauthor.com.