Gnomes & The Xmas Kid
GNOMES
and
THE XMAS KID
by Michael Andrews
The first section, GNOMES, consists of gnomic poems.
The second section, THE XMAS KID, is the author's autobiography revealed in a series of Christmas poems.
Copyright 1986 Michael Andrews
paper, pages, $4.95
Copyright © 1986 Michael Andrews
4.75x7.5, perfect bound with Black & White cover.
62 pages.
$8.00
CONTENTS
GNOMES
JELLY BEAN MACHINE
THE GREAT WOOLY CLOUD CAT
THE MISSION GNOME
A WALK IN THE RAIN
GUMBALLS
THERMONUCLEAR COLORS
TICKS
STRAWS
WEEDS
AN OLD ORUNK
BEACH DRUMS
THE WAY
MARBLES
RAGS
LADYBUG
THE PARK ON SKID ROW
WAKING, SUMMER
YO-YOS
MOST MEN
THE XMAS KID
THE XMAS KID
CASHING IN
XMAS IN LOVE
XMAS GOES TO WAR
XMAS IN CRYSTAL PALACE
XMAS ON LOMA DRIVE
XMAS GOES TO NEWCASTLE
XMAS TREE MASSACRE
XMAS AND THE WHOLE DAMN FAMILY
LUMPS
DECORATING THE TREE
XMAS IN TUCSON
ONLY 110 DAYS TILL XMAS
Pink is mint
and white is too
and green is lime
and yellow, lemon
and red explodes
strawberries
in my mouth
but best of all
black is licorice -
and no one else
will eat them.
The sun finds her sprouting from cracked cement
and splashes her portrait on the mission wall,
a silhouette of Whistler's Mother in butter and black.
It is six hours to a free lunch.
She is older than caring.
No time to set the world on fire.
Enough time to sit in the morning sun
and hide her knuckles inside layers of socks.
By noon the street folk will be lined up,
gnomes fresh from the mines, around the block,
shuffling in the morning dust,
swaping stories about the cops.
The gutters blow dust and dead shoes.
The sun comes early, stays late.
The smog eats holes in everyone's socks.
This winter will be the last.
Right now, this morning sun and
buttered wall belong to her.
Six hours to a free lunch.
No hurry. Nothing's Free.
Mostly they were paper,
one fat one gets more malt
than two skinny ones,
but sometimes they had flavors
chocolate and strawberry
coming up cold with milk
and sometimes they flexed,
so you could drink below the table.
And when the madness struck
we shot at one another
with straw bazookas
making hurricanes of wrappers.
I could shoot a spitball all the way
across the classroom when
Mrs. Feldcamp faced the blackboard.
And then came plastic straws
they lasted longer, shot straighter
and they mostly came in red
and I plunged them into malts thick
as chocolate cement and vanilla paste
and sucked them down to the bottom
where the last suck rattled air
in the paper cup and I knew
another malt was history.
On summer days it was cherry cokes.
I dreamed about the hidden places
that folded out of magazines.
I dreamed about a girl,
a cherry coke, and two straws--
the deep, red secrets of love.
1.
I find it on skid row
a ratty looking weed posing
against pink concrete.
It has color and geometry
so I make a print
and take it to the gallery
and Lorenzo says,
"You made a picture of a weed?"
I guess weeds don't sell.
It's against the rules,
weeds and poor folks.
2.
A weed is just a flower
that a gallery hasn't sold.
Weeds live in spite of cement
and gardeners, weed killers and rules.
Weeds live in spite of winter,
in spite of parched dirt and snails.
Weeds live in spite of flowers.
3.
Since weeds are against the rules
the first thing I do
is look for more weeds.
I pass a bright yellow building
and put the bike into a slide,
get off and lay on the sidewalk,
on my belly, shooting weeds
peeking right out of the wall.
Next thing I know I'm surrounded.
"Wutch you doin', man?"
I say, "It's OK,
I am an art photographer,"
as though that should
explain everything.
"Oh," she says,
"we thought tchew was crazy."
The sun is sticking
its fingers
in my eyes.
I walk along with
marbles in my pocket
where money used to be.
If we do not
do our dreams
we die.
That is why
we do not dream
our death.
There is a universe
hidden in my pocket--
one marble in a bunch
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
Friedrich Nietzsche
When I finally got to 6 I discovered
Grubby's sister and Grubby's sister's girlfriend.
They were girls and mysterious and I loved them.
Grubby also got an electric train for Xmas.
It went around and around and over hills,
through tunnels, by trees and station platforms,
people and dogs, cows and cars and tall pine trees.
It had a whistle that blasted away the unknown.
I loved Santa Claus too.
Someday Santa would bring me an electric train,
and maybe a girl like Grubby's sister.
She was an older woman, maybe eight,
impossibly wise and arrogant and worldly.
I worshipped her. She teased me.
They sat on the big round fender of the 48 Merc
dangling their long, downy legs, teasing me,
getting into practice for bigger game later in life.
I said to Grubby, "Let's go play with your choo-choo."
They laughed and laughed and laughed.
"Your such a baby," they giggled, pointing fingers
that shot lasers through my guts.
"It's not called a choo-choo, it's called a train."
It was the first time I understood
the power of a woman.
"You're such a baby," Grubby's sister said,
"I'll bet you still believe in Santa Claus."
The world collapsed in toward it's middle,
like someone just punched it in the gut.
My face was red for being a baby, but now
my stomach turned green with suspicion
that I was about to hear something
I didn't want to hear, something
true and something horrible.
"What about Santa Claus," I demanded.
"He isn't real, you big baby."
I fought to keep my world for a while
but in the end, facts rolled me over
like a steamroller paving the world with truth.
I ran in the house and cornered Mom in the kitchen.
If she would only tell me it was a joke
it might not be true, I might be able to ignore the facts
I might be able to band-aide the world together again.
Well, the jolly old man in the red suit
died from a lethal dose of the truth.
I spent the rest of the day kicking cans,
throwing dirt clods in the field,
digesting facts.
In all my life, I never got an electric train.
We are living in sin.
Love is a stolen cookie.
We have a view of the surf
between the buildings
and down the alley.
We hear it pounding
at night, lying
on our spring loaded bed.
We eat mushrooms and rice,
build a fire, and make love
on the front room floor.
Xmas comes for the nice
and for the naughty
and for us.
We buy a two foot tree,
string popcorn,
and stand it on the drafting table.
I peel away your wrappings,
belt first,
down to underwear.
Santa's little helper
is going to climb
the chimney.
XMAS GOES TO WAR
Lights on the tree, flares in the night,
I am sweating in the bed
while the windows buzz from the bombs.
"Merry Xmas Laos," I say
and listen to the whine of the mosquitoes.
Santa Claus is coming to town
in a two-stroke cyclo
crazy as a mama-san
cheated for an all-night girl.
Green uniforms and red uniforms,
they all look like generals to me.
I send the maid out for a tree.
The locals are obliged to cheat a round-eye.
We fill it up with lights and bulbs
that we buy in the central market,
and tinsel that Pop sends us from the world.
We are trying to stay sane.
We strip down to underwear
and sweat out the night.
We pile up the gifts from home
and from Hong Kong
and from each other.
Flo never wants to make love
and I never want anything else.
The fortunes of war.
We are at war too.
And in love and in pain
and fear drips icicles at 95 degrees.
The body boxes are stacked and waiting
at the Ton Son Nhut morgue,
waiting for that last sleigh ride home.
"Merry Xmas World," I say.
"Fuck it," I say, and drive on
downtown, dodging whores and deuce-and-a-halfs,
change money with mama-san in the tea-bar,
give my liquor ration to a friendly wino.
I am waiting for the knife, the bomb,
the blind, random shot.
"Like a bridge over troubled waters"
wails from a tea-bar.
I bring candles home to Flo.
We light them up and open gifts.
We lay in bed sweating
too hot to touch,
holding hands.
It is good enough
to be alive.
A TALE OF REVENGE
I wanted you to know
that the only reason
that I got you that present
two years ago
was to get even
for the present you gave me
the year before.
And when you gave John
a present that was
better than mine,
I got you
an even better one
the next year
to let you know
that I was pissed.
So this year
I know that you
will give me a really
exquisite present
and that makes me feel
unchristian
and bad.
So,
I thought about buying
the world for you
but I'm feeling bad
and times are tough
and I want you to know
that I'm declaring
bankruptcy this year.
That is, I have some money
but my head's gone broke.
So,
this year
I can only give
what I've only got,
and all I've got is love
and stale wisdom.
But I've got no tree.
I've got no mind.
And I've got no gifts.
The thing is,
I want you to know
that I really care for you
and that's why I've got nothing
but a slightly soured cynicism
and this skinny poem.
I also want you to know
that next year
I will get even
and get you a present
more clever
more money
and more you.
A present for a present.
The more you give,
the less you have.
Bad things start with a lump;
a lump in the throat,
a lump in the budget,
a lump in the gravy,
"you have to take your lumps"
they say, when they think you
have had a life full of smooth roads,
a lump in a tire,
a lump in the mattress,
a lump in the breast.
Sometimes they say--"No problem,"
stick in a needle
and suck out some goo.
Sometimes they say--"Cancer,"
and sharpen up their scalpels.
"It is only a cyst," they say
but they strap Flo to a table
like Fritz dancing over Fankenstein's monster
pumped full of needles
and they cut and suck
until it hurts.
It hurts enough to shoot her three times
with the pain killer, but pain
you know,
never dies
really.
It is just very, very patient.
"Biopsy," they announce
like it was a nine pound boy.
"If anything is wrong
we will call you in the morning."
We drive home to a naked christmas tree.
The road is full of lumps.
After they cut out her lump
they wrap Flo up in Ace Bandages
like Abbott and Costello meet the mummy.
Don't open until Xmas.
Today we are going to decorate the tree.
It's a scotch pine.
It's tall and full and smells
like the Sierras in a snowfall.
We haven't had one for 6 years.
I go to Thrifty and blow 75 dollars
on bulbs and lights and tinsel
that really isn't tinsel anymore.
I get a few special things
to hide among the bulbs.
I almost died this year.
I am so weak that taking a shower
leaves me as breathless as the Boston Marathon.
Flo is sleeping off the stress
and the pain.
The phone rings and the doctor says
"Merry Xmas. It's malignant."
I hang up and melt down into the cracks
between the cushions and cry.
And I think, for us, life changes
from this moment on,
and open a package of plastic tinsel.
