Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois
Raccoon
I hear a noise on the porch
put the DVD on pause
open the door
see a wild raccoon on the steps
Well, all raccoons are wild
but this one looks rabid
red eyes filled with hate
a klansman with his hood off
It’s like looking at myself
He snarls
I slam the door
slump down on the couch
take the DVD off pause
my eyes again intent on porn
Peace and Quiet
The dead use fire
to make their wishes known
They use ice and snow drifts
When frustrated and insistent,
they use wildfires
that burn thousands of acres,
avalanches
They might as well be mute
so poorly understood are they
Even the poets among them
lack eloquence
Their mouths are sewn shut
the open mics
are closed
The painters among them can only paint
with their Mounds of Venus
The whores paint with their mounds
the gluttons with
Peter Paul Mounds
the alcoholics
with vinegar
We don’t hear them because we’re not truly listening
even those of us with ouiji boards,
dice, shrunken heads, chicken feet
When all else fails
the dead use war
When they are frustrated with using war
they try peace
though rarely
Ode to a Baroness
Thelonius Monk
said that she was named Pannonica
after a rare species of butterfly
her father had discovered deep in Africa
but that was just because he was in love with her
How could he not be?
One of the richest broads on the spinning globe
and she’s hanging out with musicians
a true bebop baroness
even blowing weed with them backstage
and when the cops come to bust them
sports a big smile and says:
Officers, these weeds are mine
A great-niece says:
No, not a butterfly
a moth
but what does it matter
who we are as we fly
above the mundane world
Thelonius with dissonant harmonies
melodies twisting angular as a Harlem knife
percussive attacks
like a gang of hoods burst out of an alley
then dramatic hesitations--
those were also the qualities of my first wife
the schizophrenic
She, like jazz
could not be silenced
The Baroness Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild de Koenigswarter
made it the business of every one of her fancy names:
her friends would not be silenced
even after Charlie Parker died
in her Stanhope rooms
and the management
said they didn’t care who she was
how much money she had
they were kicking her out
The fools!
Did they think they were the only grand
hotel in town?
She re-located to the Bolivar
230 Central Park West
the Blue Bolivar
Monk called it in the title of a song
which got a good laugh from
the Baroness
She had a memorial jam session in her suite
in Bird’s honor
Parker was like her
she said
a creature of the air
birds and butterflies need to stay together
even though life for them is seldom long
She sent her chauffer and Rolls
to pick up the crew
Patron and friend she was faithful,
nursed Thelonius through his final illness
stroked his
forehead broad as a piano keyboard
after his mind broke
and said, in French,
My dear, for each of us
the time does come
Moon
The moon is ten miles away
There’s a strange pull on my body
and in my ears
It has nothing to do with gravity
which has become enormous
My own body has become enormously large
and simultaneously, microscopic
It’s a weird symptom I brought with me
from childhood
It used to bother me more
I don’t know what it means
but I think it may be something profound
I work for the Nabisco company
I eat cookies for lunch
I haven’t brought lunch from home since I was somewhere
in my early twenties
I eat Fig Newtons all day and night
I go to the barbershop and they call me Tiny
I have dark, luxurious hair
The barbers all tell me it’s a pleasure
to cut
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Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over twelve-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the US and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for and Nook, or as a . To see more of his work, google "Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois". He lives in Denver.
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