Ralph Monday- Three Poems

Ralph Monday is Associate Professor of English at Roane State Community College in Harriman, TN., and has published hundreds of poems in over 50 journals. A chapbook, All American Girl and Other Poems, was published in July 2014. A book Empty Houses and American Renditions was published May 2015 by Aldrich Press. A Kindle chapbook Narcissus the Sorcerer was published June 2015 by Odin Hill Press.
Website: Ralph Monday

Nostalgia Revisited

Back in the day, those were the

times, much better than now—

little golden paradise

nuggets that make us

believe in

yesterday.

Remember 455 A.D. when the

Vandals         sacked Rome?

Man, what a time!

Beheadings       perfectly legal,

women ripe      for the plucking, and

you could be a king with a long enough

sword.

Or 476 A.D. when the last Roman

emperor Romulus Augustulus was

deposed by      German mercenaries

and the beautiful,      light-filled dark

ages began?     Sweet!

How about 1346 when the Black

Death cranked up?       You could make a

fine living casting     chicken bones for a

cure.

If that’s not enough for remembering

the good old days,      just think back to

1478 and the    establishment of the

Inquisition.

Be a priest and strip women     naked to

see if they had moles or        birthmarks,

sure sign of the devil.             You could

examine them at your leisure,

probe at will—better than a     1950s

mutoscope card, and no one       accused

you of being a pervert. If the       witch

didn’t like the love,   burn her,

light her up    like a  Halloween bonfire.

Or just hit up 17th century Salem,

same deal,      different Bible.

If all this old stuff gets to be too much of a

drag, skip ahead to the nifty   50s,

you know, post WWII.      America

was rocking. Women           knew        their

place,  blacks     had to drink at      separate

water fountains,        pee in a different

pool. Sock hops, soda pops, and         love

in the backseat without         contraceptives

was all      the rage.

Man! Those were the         days!

I doubt if the       future

will ever be able to    look

back on such    swell   times.

Pandora in February

This one came from the west, the land of the

setting sun, in ancient mythology the entrance

to the underworld, but this was a birth

a gray owl wings billowing out as it hatched

from the clouds, this paradox of a storm named

Pandora.

Diversity flew from your box when you opened the

lid: snow, sleet, rain, ice, all in order like a band

marching the field in time.

Then ice, rain, sleet, snow released from the boxed

sky as though you had long waited, millennia, for

this chance to once again stare at the gifts

provided by the gods. This time you would be a

woman with a mind of her own.

This time you would chide Eve for not doing the

same, tell her that a tree and a heaven-forged

cube are Rosetta stones in their own right,

when carefully prepared,

roasted and turned at the stove, so that

all blends together in a fine recipe, that it is

ok to walk naked—

haven’t men and gods always made us do

so?  That it is ok to think for yourself, take

on your own personality not forged by

anonymous scribes. See how I come flying

from the sky? You can do the same and forget

about fig leaves—

you don’t need them. Take my hand, walk with

me. You can open the box as well, and I’ll be

damned if this time I leave them hope.

Perfect Cross

Strange at dusk two intersecting

jet trails at right angles formed a

perfect cross white-bleeding across the

blue waning to mountain purple.

It was as though history was stitching

a message in air.

This is the cross Constantine saw,

his Chi Rho that would intersect

the paths of history, hanging now

like a clothesline waiting to be

filled from the Inquisition to

Salem to the fog-filled Appalachians.

Inheritance that made acceptable

the wife for twenty years

accepting the drunk

husband—it is my cross to bear.

Or the homeless seeking shelter from the

winter cold—it is my cross to bear.

The hungry scrounging through

dumpsters—it is my cross to bear.

The angry-battered through no

self-fault—it is my cross to bear.

The desert refugee from chattering

guns—it is my cross to bear.

These days even the heavens has a

cross to bear.