The Wireless Scream by David S. Pointer

 

You can huff
false-narrative paint
on a thousand problems
until your face is red as
a penal colony rash, and
the increased militarization
of the police protecting one
percent mega-property
responding to desperate
economically excluded
areas dons a reconfigured
fur-suit called reasonable
man doctrine digging the
graves for rainbow privilege
inside ongoing globalization
tricking the masses not at all
experienced enough in hot
button diversionary issues
to sort through concentric
circles of class warfare
reverberating off markets
to offer more than blood
and vast cyber-blindness

Two Poems by David S. Pointer

Gum Based Good Times

The antique gumball
machine tech patted
his little globe dispenser
saying it was “the gum”
that really got each
baseball game started,
and helped a fastball
burn hot as a fireplace
front or brought out a
cartridge box boom
at the crack of a bat,
or helped the coach
keep up maintenance
on all our game gear
stored in that Nicaraguan
coffee gunny sack
season after season,
so in baseball’s brief
little league time line-
It’s the chewing gum
that may be going down
into history with the
chomping rest of us.

-Previously appeared in “Spitball”
____________

Land of Post Season Fever

Opposing flame thrower
high on circus bear bravado
atop dusty pitching mound
blowing code, sign language
to their ever crumpled catcher
found me remembering that
time in 67 when the Yardbirds
finished torching the radio and
the sports announcer came on
telling how owner Charles Finley
was taking the Kansas City As
out to Oakland in one of those
Brooklyn Dodger city betrayal
deals riding off on mismatched
reindeer turning us Royal blue

haiku by David S. Pointer

 

detonating round
hits field embalming machine
extra funeral

John Basilone by David S. Pointer

In Marine Corps boot camp
they taught us about Manila
John Basilone-how he was
a hero on Guadalcanal with
two others holding off 3000
Japanese, how on that first
day at Iwo Jima he led the
charge all the way up that
volcanic hill holding a hot
water-cooled 30. caliber
machine gun then John was
topside… blown apart into
ever conspicuous gallantry
posthumously remembered
by all those former young
action type over achievers
who came back home to
negotiate official facades
or false flags or Sunday
dinner with a great family
always thinking of what
others paid to open the
iron gates at Arlington
National Cemetery

Other Voices by David S. Pointer

-Dedicated to Ray Manzarek
in Memoriam

At 9, I felt like a
cadaver dog sniffing
at a lizard doorstop
when Jim Morrison
died then Manzarek
sang Tight Rope Ride
a scorching single and
it lifted me out of the
grief over losing a
rock star hero, now
as I listen to their post
Morrison albums at
Ray Manzarek’s death
I realize that a storm
damaged door with
beveled stain glass at
architectural salvage
is still a hell of a door

Three poems by David S. Pointer

Joe’s Fishing Lake

A 14 year old
kid skipped
school and
caught a 52
pound Buffalo
Carp at Joe’s
pay lake then
I came on the
scene a couple
of years later
at age 9 or 10
catching a 14
and 16 pound
carp—the little
kids thought
I was the big
fish magician
still fighting
the tangle of
ten pound
test line as
if it were
Brautigan’s
Octopus
Frontier

____________

Remembering
Brautigan

Pitch forward
like a bullet
pocked corpse
into every page
of the reading—
own your own
pain into the ink
and maybe you
can avoid a non-
invasive hangman’s
noose into the
other world,
coming away
with a chap,
novel or even
nothing more
than a gray
day to evade
or celebrate

The Company by David S. Pointer

The company
has announced
cutbacks on
anniversary
coffee mugs, and
employees, it’s
debatable
whether there
will be future
funding for
those antique
begging dog
buttermilk mugs
either as you
wonder about
extreme profits,
realizing the
next election
cycle is going
to bring those
slender cardboard
silhouette cutouts
of the candidates
that pummel the
mind like bare
knuckled boxing
posters

17 Cents A Pound by David S. Pointer

 
The counter attendant watches
the old rusty truck frame-windows
as shattered as the customers
recycling muddy aluminum cans.
This is Mark’s Iron and Metal, you
can grid search far off grounds
for carbon nanotube cables
or a neutronic fusion reactor,
but each time you creep-in
across the parking lot grey it’s
the last spider cracked window
on the 35 Chevy pickup seemingly
knowing the can scavenger’s way