Editor’s notes: In this week’s Poetry Corner, we feature the work of Jim Russo who was born in North Beach. He moved to Santa Cruz County in 1963. As a former actor, he likes to write words that make people laugh, among other things.
My Tub
A big damn Polar Bear
Is getting into my tub
Hey man, I don’t crowd your ice cube
It’s gone? That’s fucked!
Get out of my tub
Untitled
And birds make love at sunset
Humans should make love at sunset Everybody should make love at sunset
The whole planet having an orgasm
That’s the harmony the world wants
Can’t put a price on it because it’s free
Free as the birds
Looking Back
Love, Sex…Bad Sex
Sex, Love…Good Sex
Sex,Sex,Sex,Love…Great Sex
Love, Love, Love, Sex…No Sex
Colorado Computer
An ancient neighborhood of children, families and friends
Now red flashing coordinates on a computer screen
Exploding, fiery bombs plunge into their homes
Human beings dying violent deaths
Broken concrete hemorrhaging gore
Crimson blood drips from the arm of an infant
Broken bodies, dismembered pieces
Punctured and leaking the last of life
Plaster embedded with body parts
Black blood pooling on floors
Blown apart blood stained glass and steel
Fires burning, bodies scorched to charcoal
Creaking and collapsing roofs
Faint groans of the agony before death
The computer is turned off
Never again, a word or laughter or a child’s voice
The innocent, the not guilty
Chloe @ Five Months
Pink satin slippers and teeny-weeny white socks
Exquisite pink and white flowers, sawn to the tops
Look at you, in your hand crafted sock hat
Sporting one big pink flower, how about that
Not enough hair yet, next Christmas a bright pink bow
An alert smiling face and eyes that sparkle and glow
The beginnings of a sweet girlish giggle
Twisting, chubby neck, so, so little
Mommy, Chloe wants to see Daddy too
Straining for Daddy’s sound in the room
Soon, your hands and knees will be wheels, making squealing horns
Speeding denim overalls disappearing around corners
Soon, your spastic arms will actually obey
Grabbing Mommy’s pork chop will be child’s play
Wearing that knitted white sweater of wool
You will grow, to be prettier and too cool
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
He was dead for two and a half minutes
A low, low buzzing but not in his ears but everywhere
One sensation, a fuzzy, itching in his head
No sense of body or body weight
No sounds, no thoughts, just a dream
Like someone he knows being gently pulled and drifting back
A teasing dance, no fear, no joy, just gravity
Less than what we know, a slight gravity
Surrounded and cushioned by a cloud of warm air
Then a vortex cracks open with faint familiar voices
The pull is a bit stronger
There’s a light source, unclear where, unable to plot
The light begins to show its origin
He then said a remarkable thing, “I chose not to go”
Not a real thought more like an instinct
Almost casual not selfish at all
The LIGHT was fuzzy, itchy electricity with static, an annoying static
Do we spend an eternity listening to static?
