#243: Three Poems by Michael Morell

~These poems were selected by Clara Jane Hallar, Assistant Editor, Poetry

~This poem was previously published in Paterson Literary Review (2004).

The Ghost of My Grandfather

I.

It was a summer night in August

when my grandfather came downstairs from his bedroom

wearing an undershirt, scarf, dress pants and hat,

and asked my father to call him a cab because he wanted to go home.

Gramps was eighty-two, I was ten, and he’d lived with us for seven years.

When my father questioned him, reminded him that he was home,

Gramps gave his boyhood address in Darby, two towns from where we lived,

close enough for a man to smell the ham and cabbage

his mother cooked for him on special occasions.

After hours attempting to convince him

he lived with us, fruitlessly showing him his bedroom,

my father called for a cab, slipped the driver extra cash

and asked him to drive Gramps around the block a few times

before bringing him home. Fifteen minutes later

he was sound asleep in his bed.

Sometimes the mind plays tricks on you, son, my dad said.

Three weeks later my grandfather died.

II.

I drive to my parents’ house for Friday night pizza

and my eighty year old father, who no longer looks like

he’ll live forever, calls to my mother like a crow

home home I want to go home. Later, I drive my father to Darby,

where he was born, where his father was born, past Fitzgerald

Mercy Hospital where I was born. He sees the pointed brown bricks

of his childhood, overlooks new storefront signs, falls back into

1940 and penny candy, today’s Soul Food Store once again

Waxman’s Shoes, smell of glue, rubber, and polish permeating the air.

III.

I have always wanted to go back in time and meet my parents

as children, eye them walking home from school or chasing fireflies

on a summer evening, begging their parents for one more minute

of playtime before surrendering to the darkness, and now, here

my father sits, man, boy, dad, son- a mixture of everything he is

and was, time stripped aside, years peeling away like old paint

to reveal bare, clean wood, a moment where the sea of consciousness

is parted by some invisible staff we cannot grasp.

*****

~This poem was previously published in Slipstream (2005).

Philly Skyline

We'd spend hours

throwing worn

pairs of sneakers

at telephone wires,

drumming our past

into the future

the way our big brothers did.

They dangled like trophies,

a mid-air walk of fame

bigger and brighter

than when worn,

you'd tell big-fish tales

about the fade-away you made

over the blacktop kingpin

to whoever would listen—

mostly old men in the barbershop

on Saturday mornings,

asking which pair were yours,

growing younger themselves

as you told your story,

wondering how wingtips might look

shining in the sun, what they would say

to their wives if they returned home

shoeless.

*****

~This poem was previously published in The Silt Reader (2007).

Getting Him Back

Last night my dog

strolled into the living room,

lifted his leg,

and urinated on the carpet.

Son of a bitch, I thought.

I jumped up off the couch,

walked out into the backyard,

and pissed in the dog house.

That oughta teach him.

*****

THE STORY BEHIND THE POEMS

The Ghost Of My Grandfather

            The impetus for this poem was visiting my father in the hospital, at a time when he’d been shuttling back and forth between rehab facility and hospital, having difficulty swallowing, losing weight and being tube fed.

            For most of his 76 years, his hair was jet black, and almost overnight it turned into a silver-white, like Charlton Heston’s Moses in “The Ten Commandments.” After one visit, I left with an ominous feeling, realizing that even as an adult I’d been living that lie about my parents always being there for me, and that my father ‘no longer looked like he’ll live forever.’

            With that realization, it’s no surprise I went back to the story and death of my grandfather, a time when I was too young to realize what a profound effect it might have had on my father. The story is of the type that when you tell it to people who know you’re a poet, they say “there’s a poem in there” or “you should write a poem about that.” I was finally able to write the poem, and with the year my father passed away.

Philly Skyline

            I grew up in a small suburb just outside Philadelphia, PA. Utility poles and power lines dotted the landscape like trees, and every school playground had basketball courts, as did many driveways, not to mention the local swim club where three courts- small, medium, and regulation- ran parallel to each other. The family photo album has a picture of me in first grade, squinting up into the sunshine and camera, holding my Biddy Basketball trophy. Apart from organized sports, as I got older I realized there was an alternative way to earn a trophy, a rite of passage involving old sneakers- Dr. J’s, Chuck Taylors, Keds. The most impressive way to get your sneakers up on the wires was without anyone seeing you. This became the birth of town rumor- stories, myths, and legends were made.

Getting Him Back

            This is a fairly straightforward piece, the result of a meditation on revenge and the lengths people will go to for carrying out such acts. To avoid being preachy, the poem utilizes two of my favorite techniques- humor and absurdity. Here, art is imitating life.

*****

ABOUT MICHAEL MORELL

Michael Morell is currently completing a Master’s in Applied Meditation Studies at Won Institute in Glenside, PA. He lives in the Philadelphia area and enjoys photography, swimming, and bird watching. His writing has appeared in numerous print and online journals including Paterson Literary Review, Rattle, Lingerpost, Slipstream, and Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature.