Tom Hatch- Three Poems

Panther morning  

 

It is 5:40 AM having twenty minutes 

left to lay with some

Thoughts before having 

to get up I could do this

Like a panther pouncing 

on prey before the morning

Pounces on me 

I am the prey for a moment knowing there is a

Rooster out there somewhere I hear

in the grey morning

With much more vigor 

than I can cock and doodle 

That sounds in my room

The minutes dwindle into 

The shower the night goes

Down the drain is this yesterday

today or tomorrow

 I a spotted panther 

that is what I am left with

Disguised as a man I will 

shave all the fur off anyway

Gnawing on a leather 

Briefcase in the

Crowd of type A

Personalities

Prowling through

Grand Central 

With money on their minds

 

Dipteria of Caddying 

Uncle Gordo was a caddy

Walked with a dip

A mad man he

Saw Jesus and the

Satan many times battling it

Out at the foot of his 

Bed a quilt work 

Of the damned

Slamming his hand

Through the window pane 

His best friend was

Golf Ball Eddy they saw 

Death staring it in the eyes of the Korean War

He walked with a dip too

At 25 cents a piece

Gordo was a master 

At finding the pitted white

Balls in ivy and high turf

He could spot one at

Twenty feet in 

A storm drain

He ran with a dip

Traveled the buses 

We ran with him to catch

The one that took us

To Brentwood entering

The lower part of the greens

Through a hole in the fence

He made years ago 

That was his secret

He told us stories of

The multimillionaires 

That lived along the fairways of the course 

Walking with a dip to the caddy shack

Below the main club house

Under the suspended bridge

That connected the ninth tee

To the ninth green

He shagged balls on slow days

With a white towel on his hands

Good days he carried a double 

Made twenty bucks a bag

I carried a single one day

For the scare crow of 

The Wizard of Oz

He tipped me ten at the ninth

Hole with a coke then

Tipped me another ten at 

The End 

Gordo was my man always

Ready to loan you a twenty (really give it to you)

showing me and my brothers

how life walks with a dip

At the Bel Air country club

Of the wealthy, famous and poor getting along

Fog, dew, crows and shower parting hair 

A showers "thought" this morning 

Fog is a warm cozy blanket

The dew has saturated into my feet on stone floor 

The crows crowed as they fly and throwing themselves out of the fog

The fog is picked up and carried off by 

The arms of the dew into a hazy sun light

The crows gather as a murder on the emerald lawn 

The thought of fog and dew and crows

Is throwing me from the parting of my hair 

A part should be as natural as the falling rain

If I was hunting in the wild for breakfast

Flinging myself around looking for any colored beetle

Under rocks or tarantulas to roast over a morning fire

My hair would have parted naturally by now

whipping my head I grab the brush

A thought of Biting into a well endowed 

Roasted hairy arachnid 

there it is in the mirror au natural 

Back to a morning thought

The fog is gone the hazy sunlight clear

The murder has flown away to the telephone lines

Across the road waiting for me to send them

To their next killing roost not any where near my hair