Three Poems by Jeffrey Zable

Wondering

You can't always bless what kills . . . 

"Why not?" asked the aardvark of the canary.

And just as the clock struck 7 the window opened

and the rain came pouring in, while I prayed it wouldn't

reach me in the tub, give me such shivers that I'd die

before I got the the towels on the shelf.

And with that I returned to my internal muttering

only to remember the time my neighbor banged on the door

while I was bathing.  "Let me in!" she yelled,

"I haven't a single lump of sugar and it's my last cup of coffee!"

"Mother isn't here!" I shouted back, and eventually she went away.

I rose from the tub, shook myself dry, and listened to the rain,

wondering if I'd make it through another day . . . 

Golconda

Yes, it's raining Englishman and all I can say is that

I hope that one of them doesn't land on me, because

I completely forgot to put on some armor before leaving

the house, something I must remember to do as the world

has become such an unpredictable place that one must be 

ready for anything.  Speaking of which I was walking down

the street yesterday in a part of town that I'd never been before

when some guy stepped in front of me and said, "You've no

right to have all the money in the world when I have nothing.

Here I can't even buy a sliver of a corned beef sandwich while

you can buy the whole city if you wanted to!"  Telling him he's 

mistaken me for someone else -- maybe the guy who originally 

started that online bookstore -- I took out my coin purse and 

deposited all my change into his outstretched hand.  "That's more

like it!" he said in a voice that reminded me of my late father

who once commended me for reading the financial section

of the newspaper and reporting that I learned something new

which I'd one day be able to apply.  "Good to see that you're

taking the initiative!" he said with genuine enthusiasm 

before returning to the comics section of the newspaper . . . 

The Final Test

"No, mother, I would never put a chicken into a pot without plucking

it first!"

And as the world turns--mostly to dust--I recall that teacher who said

to our class, "Your identity will be 90% complete by the age of seven,

and for the rest of your days you will struggle to undo the trauma 

that beset you!"

With that, I asked, "Then why even bother living if that's all that one

has to look forward to?"

To which he smiled and replied, "That's entirely up to each of us to decide.

Now, are there any more questions before I hand out the final test?"

Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga/bongo drummer who plays for dance classes, rumbas, and Latin music gigs around the San Francisco Bay Area.  His poetry, flash fiction, and non-fiction has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies, more recently in Locust Review, Once Upon a Crocodile Raw, Defuncted, Fleas on the Dog, Uppagus and many others . . .