Author: H.

The day I heard Elvis Presley

I was sitting behind the wheel

Of my uncle’s ’46 Mercury coupe

At the weedy edge of a cornfield

Where yellowed stalks awaited

The rain that would never come,

Where a machine swallowed

And chewed the stunted bounty

Into dross that would satisfy

The hogs and cattle but do nothing

To appease the bank, the creditors

Who joined the dubious appeals

For clouds in the hot, listless sky.

 

I had the wheel in my hands

But there would be no jostle

Over the clodded, dusty earth.

No grind of the starter bringing

The engine to ticking life.

I had come with my father

To deliver a can of gasoline

To the smoking tractor in the field.

 

My uncle was in the Navy,

Somewhere on some ocean

I had never seen although

I had imagined a landscape

Of nothing but water and sky

And I believed that the gray ship

Churning through the waves

Was a fitting escape from a life

That seemed, day by day, to shrink,

To rob the air I needed to breathe,

To surround me in darkness

Filled with whispers of doom.

 

While my father in the distance

Filled the tank, deftly, without

Slopping the volatile liquid

As I had done when I tried,

I turned on the radio in my uncle’s car

And moved the dial through

Static and voices and advertising jingles

Until there came a voice from a heaven

Much different than the one I feared

Because it couldn’t be reached

Without first dying, a heaven

Of possibility, of freedom

From the dust and smoke

And withered stitchings of corn.

Well, that’s all right, Mama,

That’s all right for you.

 

Beneath the chopping guitar chords,

The Mercury’s engine stirred,

The car lurched forward

Then lifted, climbed, and soared

High over the blistered earth,

Over the gray sheen of the sea,

Beyond the earth toward the infinite

Nothing that I dreaded in my dreams.

 

I’m leaving town baby,

I’m leaving town for sure.

 

But I was not afraid.

 

© Dennis Hathaway

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It was raining cats and dogs

On the tip of the iceberg,

And I was getting cold feet

Afraid that I may have thrown

The baby out with the bathwater.

 

Being the black sheep isn’t easy,

Not like shooting fish in a barrel,

Or getting your ducks in a row.

I need to start ruling with an iron fist,

And stop listening to those

Who are nutty as a fruitcake.

 

Although you couldn’t say,

That I’m as cute as a button,

I do have a heart of gold.

And when the ball is in my court

I won’t drop it like a hot potato.

 

And if love is a battlefield,

Then I’m in for a fight,

Although I can promise

Never to throw in the towel.

© Dennis Hathaway

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My fellow Americans, you can have justice,

Or you can have liberty, but not both.

Why, you ask? Look at the symbols,

A blindfolded woman in a clinging dress,

That slips off her shoulder, exposes her thigh,

A person about to engage in a sado-masochistic exercise.

The scales in one hand, a sword in the other–

What’s that about? Will she lop off the head

of her consort? And the symbols of liberty,

A cracked bell, another woman wearing

Layers of robes that conceal her form.

Could she be pregnant? She’s looking up,

Not down at the poor and huddled in the harbor.

And that crown. Sharp spikes warning away anyone

Wanting a closer look. Which do you want?

Justice is only as blind as the old man hunched

Above the fray, harumphing at the nonsense

Appointment has forced him to endure.

When he closes his eyes does he pluck digestible

Fact from acres of weedy fiction, or does he imagine

The young woman at the table in less seemly attire?

Liberty is not just a matter of chains and shackles,

But concerns the oily machinery of the mind,

Where everything is possible until the pulleys

Try to spin and gears try to mesh and the

Cracked bell rings its inharmonious tune.

 

© Dennis Hathaway

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Doesn’t everyone lie?

The president, the senator,

The mayor, the priest,

The insurance salesman.

The prime minister,

The son and daughter

Who try to sneak into the house

Without waking the sleeper

Who is easily disturbed

By far more subtle things.

The creak of the rafters

In a bluster of wind,

The scratchings of a

Prowling animal,

The long soft moan

From the pillow beside him.

What is she dreaming?

Of being chased through a field

By a horde of madmen?

Or was it pleasure,

Provoked by the taste

Of another man’s lips,

The clasp of his arms

Around her naked body.

Will she tell the truth?

Will she say that she

Has never felt such ecstasy?

Or will she say she doesn’t recall,

Or that it doesn’t matter,

Because it was only a dream.

 

© Dennis Hathaway

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