Catfish McDaris
Mopping The Floors With Love I hadn’t seen her in thirtyyears, she was a big bonedwoman with style all over Her mahogany gravel voicewas midnight graveyardand lonesome freight train She sang about swinging amop to feed her hungry babies,I slid into the shadows, lit aMarlboro and sipped rye whiskey When she finished I vanishedlike Geronimo into Mexico. Phalanxes Of Tombstones Reclining against a warrior’s headstone,listening to a chevron of geese overheadwatching the pewter dawn sun peer forth There’s no happiness at the end of a rifleor in a bottle or magic potion, sitting amongmy dead brothers, I know there’s no such Thing as revolution, it’s just another wordmeaning leap frog of the rich, so they canbuy a bit of power with the blood of the poor The honking dies and fog vanishes, moneyequals greed, possessions turn into traitors,no one can stop time or conquer the rain. Van Gogh’s Ear & The Low Riders Of El Paso Del Norte Looking around at all the famousBeatniks, I wondered why I’d beeninvited to read & the flyer had my name On the main night of three, a bigshot asked me out of the blue tostart the gig, I realized an ulteriormotive to my invitation I’d been watching this young drummerin the back of a pickup entertaining twoyoung Cherry Valley ladies, I asked himto beat the conga while I did my thing We found a bigger louder drum & hestarted jackhammering a rhythm, I startedwith a coyote whoophowl from the backof the room making the audience turn ifthey wanted to see me dance Apache I woke up everyone screaming “This is forthe ear of Van Gogh & the lowriders in El Pasodel Norte, now let’s limbo & get down” Jumping on stage for the second poem, thedrum was beating that crowd into a frenzieddervish, we had them in our palms & leftthem all jonesing & wanting more Later I wrote a poem about whenthe Monkees asked Jimi Hendrix toopen for them & he started playingwith his teeth & set his guitar on fire. Catfish McDaris is an aging New Mexican living near Milwaukee. He has four walls, a ceiling, heat, food, a woman, two cats, a typing machine, and a mailbox. That’s enough for him. He writes for himself and sometimes he gets lucky and someone publishes his words.