Sample Poems by David Galef

Lusus Naturae

“Stay out of that patch! That’s fireweed—
It’ll burn your hand,” my father said,
Pointing at a thicket by my shoe,
The green stalks tipped with glowing red.

Another time we came upon a ledge,
Seamed like an old woman’s face.
A spry brown root filled the cracks.
“Take five years, might take ten,”
My father tapped the face with his stick,
“But granite-buster did all that.”

We walked along the meadow’s edge,
Viewing someone else’s lambs.
They all stayed away from a tipsy flower,
Low to the ground and butter-yellow.
“That’s sheepsick, that’s why,” said you-know-who.

My father taught me all he knew
Of blossoms and stray blind growths:
Creepy crawler that clogged dirt roads,
Jimjam berries that tasted of punch,
Queen bee with its purple-black plush
Against a field of gold.

I retrace the paths, aiming to recall
All that he taught me on random walks,
From green and white crocodilly teeth
(“Good for digestion”) to a growth
On a log: a brown, yellow, and orange
Mixture that he carefully labeled “stew.”

I loved the names from out of his mouth:
Raven’s down, bearded lily, spider’s teacup—
But did I love my father, too,
When I found out he’d made them up?

It’s all right, I guess.
I’ve been lied to before.
And now I’ll tell a truth of sorts.
I grew up in the Bronx,
Where the only thing that grew
Was the brittle brown grass
Fringing the sidewalk cracks.

My father?—an office accountant
Without any knowledge of botany,
So I had to invent him, too.
The strong brown father who
Took me for walks has mostly gone.
But I still love the names.

Bi-Cycle

The blind event that caused this lurch
Is back again, the sheets adrift
As the clock proclaims, “How late, how late.”
My wife wheels around so noiselessly,
In synch with my revolutions,
We might as well be dreaming but
For the wail that cuts right through the night—
Abandonment and desolation.
It’s my turn, no yours, says one of us,
As I skate into slippers and stumble hallward,
The dark parting thick as the curtain of life,
Into the chamber that houses our son.
His legs shoot outward, pedaling
The tricycle stolen just last week.
I pick up our hero; I soothe him with hands;
I tell him it’s all right till he understands.
Leave slowly, turn once, keep the door ajar.
I move in reverse to the bed but lie wide-eyed.
After so many wakings, my sleep cycle’s bent,
Like Dizzie’s dinged trumpet, a warped lemniscate.
My wife’s on her side with the bulk of the sheets.
I shut my eyes tight and coast until dawn.

Night

His wife sends him out to shovel the snow,
But the ground outside is bare.
The door has shut. There’s nowhere to go.
All he can do is turn and stare
At the cloudy spot where the moon should be,
Marked by an uncertain trace.
If he squints, he thinks he just might see
The outline of a child’s face.
And so the man waits as he has all his life
For a lucky break, for his job,
A family, his lonely unsatisfied wife—
His joints begin to throb.
He reflects that his house is a hovel
In a world he never made,
When softly falling onto the shovel
A snowflake glints on the blade.