Poem Bale Three Regarding Horseplayer Luck & Lack Read online

of Rimbaud?

  I’ll carry my Plebeian fire

  in a pick-up truck, fancy myself

  kin to Prometheus,

  delight every bar from here to Kentucky.

  I’ll seek out Magdalene to guide me,

  tell her the wizard resides in Louisville.

  First I must orient her to my trade,

  visit every driveway and road I’ve paved.

  Reciting poems of shovel and rake,

  I’ll woo her wild under a broken moon,

  convince her asphalt’s a mating place.

  Art, my dear! Imagine I’m an artist

  like Cezanne. Love me once

  on my canvas and it’s bluegrass forever.

  (I hear Rimbaud has a mount in the Classic.)

  If we’re discovered we’ll say we’re testing

  driveways for Consumer Reports.

  It’s going to be a hell of a Derby.

  Prometheus says the poet is blessed.

  I’ll take the role of the flame

  swiping Titan, but Magdalene,

  don’t be a vulture, ale is a better way

  to waste a liver. Act like a gentle swallow

  at play and I’ll be renewed

  like the Tinman, Lion and Scarecrow.

  Dear Magdalene, your heat

  has melted the black masterpiece.

  I’m calm enough for death but skip the stone

  just apply a healthy blacktop square,

  mail dance invitations to the folks

  I’ve offended. Dearest Magdalene be

  Little Egypt on the yellow brick road.

  Then Rimbaud and Dorothy will grind away:

  a Derby rose between her teeth.

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  Important as Weather

  Herbie is in the woods

  splitting logs

  to get into shape

  to ride again.

  A string of horses

  ready for Brockton Fair

  his to ride

  if he got sober,

  kept his damned trap shut.

  The trainer made the offer

  in the Bobbin Lounge

  tossing a handful

  of clippings in a puddle

  of Herbie’s spilt scotch.

  The trainer read off results

  of races Herb had won

  but didn’t recall:

  Hawthorne and Golden Gate.

  The trainer said a month

  of axe work upstate

  would get him fit

  to ride nine a day.

  Did right by Abe Lincoln he joked.

  Herb squeezed the scotch

  out of his history,

  gazed at the corner table

  where some fool was kissing

  his ex-wife’s foot.

  He wondered what kind of derelict

  was minding the kids

  then borrowed the bartender’s reading glasses.

  Herbie perked up as he remembered

  being as important

  as weather and obituaries.

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  The Clocker, Narragansett Park

  He rarely smiled,

  never held a stopwatch

  yet he called himself a clocker.

  His tipsheets were canary yellow

  like his lucky sportcoat

  30 years ago at Hialeah

  when he’d picked 7 longshots.

  He printed his selections quickly

  in a rundown trailer

  not far from Narragansett

  as soon as he got the scratches.

  The ink was always smudged,

  his hand press was so ancient.

  After a decent afternoon,

  two or three winners,

  maybe the double,

  he’d circle the horses’ names

  on the tipsheets that remained

  with a laundry marker so strong

  the odor made him high.

  He’d pay Project kids who hung around

  the track instead of school a buck or so

  for distribution.

  He knew his help tossed his advertising

  down sewers but luck’s so rare

  even an old man not on a laundry marker

  high might cherish sharing good fortune

  with rats, teeth yellow as a seven

  winner sportcoat.

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  Clocker Sarge

  Any morning you could find

  the clocker snug at the rail

  eyeing his watch and recalling

  war and hand grenades.

  Pin released, he times horses

  whose clopping fills his head

  with his favorite music,

  “The Grand Canyon Suite.”

  After the explosion

  rocked his head,

  his jockey pal visited

  the hospital

  and tried with no luck

  to get at least a war

  story out of him.

  Sarge used to stop

  his trusty timepiece

  as precisely as a conductor

  halts his philharmonic.

  In the nursing home

  he stares at the wall

  as if it’s full of five

  a.m. workout

  thoroughbreds.

  The jockey brings in

  the watch that survived

  hitting asphalt

  when Sarge collapse

  and places it

  against his stroked

  friend’s ear

  and he does the same

  with a tape deck

  playing his “Suite”

  but nothing penetrates

  the new world walls.

  There’s a turn schedule

  designed to fight bed sores

  taped on the wall behind

  Sarge’s bed:

  eight o’clock left

  ten o’clock right

  twelve o’clock left

  two o’clock right

  and so on.

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  Three Talents

  The last time I saw him I shut up

  about the knack that was his big brag –

  breaking line bare-handed

  when he was in the merchant marine.

  Many doubters had kissed cash

  goodbye quicker than your average

  fool when he’d snapped a hank

  of sturdy manila very first try.

  I kept quiet about his barroom pinball

  mastery that had disappeared

  by the time I’d gotten drunk

  enough to bet on him.

  He’d sworn to recoup my losses

  and more employing

  his third talent at a bookie –

  six furlong horse races at

  Louisiana tracks.

  No point rubbing in that his picks

  ran as if their reins reminded

  riders of heaving lines

  and they were getting even

  for paychecks fathers lost at sea.

  Last time I saw him he was nursing

  a draught beer and he took up my offer

  to buy him another by switching

  to top-shelf whisky.

  We laughed like hell about his drinking

  advancement which was easy since there

  was no pinball machine and bookies

  were tucked in.

  He was the one who broached

  the line snapping.

  We staggered around a few

  back yards groping for clotheslines

  but it was futile considering

  how many likes of me he might

  have succeeded or failed to

  furnish proof.

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  Paradoxica
l Thirst

  There are times my laugh or tone

  of voice is so much like my father’s

  I feel I am becoming him.

  The sensation is strongest

  when I’m in a bar

  where we’d drank

  and played horses.

  Almost without choice

  I use his system: parlay

  the third consensus picks in

  the last two races at Aqueduct.

  It’s the lot of the son to

  extend the life of his father—

  at least his betting style

  and his drinking methods

  We imbibe a bit too much.

  Who knows how we get home?

  Mid-stretch in a dream I’m startled

  awake, aware when he was my age

  only my brother was born.

  In the bathroom, quenching

  my paradoxical thirst, I see

  my father in the mirror

  as he looked in his wedding picture.

  Like a sly old tout with all

  the inside information,

  I advise in his raspy whisper

  “Skip the next kid,

  like you would a bad race.”

  In the morning paper when

  I find his system worked

  I tell the mirror to forget

  last night and slick back my hair

  the same way he did his.

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  Systems

  Nineteen-thirty-four

  my old man could

  have been

  at Narragansett Park

  for the first

  'Gansett Special.

  Hell, stood right smack

  next to Jack Kerouac

  and his father

  and exchanged words

  about the horses passing

  on the way to post.

  My dad might have

  asked eight-year-old Jack

  what he was writing

  in the notebook prompting

  a detailed explanation

  of the personal thoroughbred

  racing world he'd created.

  This is all conjecture

  and wishful thinking

  of course but I do know

  my father employed

  a betting strategy

  that consisted of religiously

  betting the third favorite

  in a race alone or in win

  and place parlays

  not to mention daily

  doubles and bird cages.

  Neal Cassady used

  the same method I learned

  in a Kerouac biography.

  Add my father to form

  a trio that’s been known

  to whisper over my shoulder

  as I’m heading off

  to wager on a race.

  But that Great Depression day

  the longshot Time Supply

  was the victor and third

  choice Omar Khayyam placed.

  For a while I thought I came close

  to meeting Jack but I heard later

  the guy who said he’d arrange it

  was as dependable as

  a country fair tout.

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  Belated Respects

  Red was the one

  who picked the horse

  we split a bet on.

  Class Hero

  romped at 35-1.

  Red always looked

  for sprinters

  stretching out,

  routers

  turning back

  and he often

  mentioned the only

  sick week

  in his life.

  A nephew gave him

  a carton on Winstons

  for Christmas

  that nearly killed him.

  No straying

  from cowboy smokes

  after that.

  He never married

  but kept a cat.

  I’ve lost what

  he called it.

  Hadn’t seen Red in ages

  when I learned a stroke got him.

  The longshot’s name returned

  after a few months,

  an event