[Here's L.E. Leone's latest, & a beautiful & heartbreaking poem at that. Enjoy.]
Beautiful Mind
It’s a beautiful mind, really, that can look out
the window of a train from Regensburg
to Ingolstat for forty years, see
hunter’s deer stands
on the edges of clearings, and think
they are fire lookouts. To not
see, on the other hand, the shelves of
Jesus books at the uke shop, sure
the uke store man is joking when he
wonders if you pray. His shop, in fact
a front for Bible Study classes,
beautiful mind. A beautiful mind makes
stories out of nothing, and nothing
out of hard news, hot soup, true love, great sex. Shocked,
my pink toenails on a windowsill in France, the warmth
and smell of coffee
over sunrise over sailboat masts over the roof
of a barn, where tractors are. Under all
that color in the east, a creative writer
with a beautiful mind sleeps next to an excellent
editor with a beautiful mind while I, a chicken farmer,
farm chickens. France feeds me, the cleaning
of coops and rolling of heads, yes, the way we
weigh what we take away, the livers, gizzards,
the dozens and dozens of hearts I clean, cut,
and cook, with cherry beer and carrots. How I loved you,
how, tell me, am I supposed to believe anything, ever
again, let alone Jesus … fire lookouts … the word wife
Survivers are drawn to the arts, and helping
others, according to psychologists,
but also have a tendency to reinvent the Catherine
Wheel. Or richtrad, in German. They’re who
invented it.
And psychotherapy. Beautiful minds.
A beautiful mind gave me a diary
for Christmas, dumped me on New
Year’s, declared me mentally unstable by
Epiphany. Sat. 1/9 I can’t believe it.
Sun. 1/10 I can’t believe it.
Mon. 1/11 I can’t believe it.
Tue. 1/12, Nope. Can’t believe it.
Wed. 1/13, Still can’t believe it
Thu. 1/14, I can’t believe it
Fri. 1/15, I can’t believe it, that person
next to you is bad
in bed, worse in the kitchen, can live
without you, had the bad sense to say
so and this poem, finished on Friday,
February 12, proves I’m
the better editor.
L.E. Leone
© 2010