Gene McCormick- Two Poems

A Bottle Of Mateus

At four o’clock in the afternoon the low sun

casts a triangular shadow along the side of the building

diagonally from the top NW corner

down to the lower SE corner, while the rest

of the wall remains sun-bleached yellow stucco,

a pattern repeated every afternoon

until the sun seasonally moves on.

A man walks by the building, an older man

with white hair wearing an oversize white t-shirt,

black walking shorts that were suit pants

until he cut them off just above the knee,

black ankle socks and black wingtip shoes.

The t-shirt and shorts emphasize toneless

white stick arms and legs as he walks at a rapid gait,

his upper body leading the lower half so his head

casts a shadow across his black shoes.

If it were raining, which it is not,

the leather soled shoes would have trouble

getting enough traction to maintain such a pace.

He looks odd, dressing like that to take a walk,

close to the building, scraping against its warmth

on his way to buy a bottle of red wine. Mateus.

Play Autumn Leaves For Me

Slouching on the worn piano bench he uses his

left hand middle finger to hit the white keys

one at a time, each of them successively,

then with his right thumb taps each black key

again one at a time going from west to east

while his feet trundle the pedals in a

left-right left-right rhythm as though

in a chain gang prisoner march.

The sound doesn’t hang in the air for long.

His fingers are neither long nor elegant

like those of a born pianist.

They are short, squat, and his fingernails

are clipped too close, partly because

he wears heavy-duty gloves when shoveling coal.

Brief Bio: Gene McCormick thrives on burnt toast, gorging on it, dipping the blackened pieces in buttercream icing and washing it all down with jugs of Mateus while playing Chopin’s Polonaise in A-flat (Jose Iturbi’s variation) with his left thumb.