Sustenance and Verse

by Doug Stoiber

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
parts 1, 2, 3

part 2

I had to confess to myself: I do not “get” most poetry. Nor do I feel like trying to. I want to write fiction; that’s all I want to do. Expand it, dissect it, explore it, explode it. My mind is a theatre that closes only at bedtime. I don’t remember dreams. Dialogue, settings, crazy twists, whole stories often visit me when I sit down to my laptop. There are volumes of sci-fi, humor, horror, prospective, dystopian stuff inside me that I want — I need — to share with the world.

I have a hard time crediting poets with as much strength and stamina as fiction or non-fiction writers. They seem like layabouts who can play four chords on a guitar and want applause like they’re Jimi Hendrix or something.

I knew a bunch of dirty limericks from grade school. I wondered if I could clean up four of them and mash them together. Nah, I’d have to read them out loud with a straight face in class, in which I estimated that there were about a dozen students who were like rilly psyched about this assignment and would make me look like a high-school sophomore.

Free verse — I mean, you could just about type out “What I Did on Summer Vacation” in four-line chunks, with “meaningful” line breaks and there’s your poem. Same concern of being graded a stooge in a class full of overachievers.

Well, something would come to me. Moon, June, spoon, balloon. Before Monday’s class... I hoped.

The next day at work, I was enlisted into the wait staff for a special catering event, after which I had to do all my regular galley duties, too. This was going to be a late night, albeit a little more rewarding monetarily.

It was nearing ten p.m. when I got around to taking out the trash, and only then did I remember the encounter with Marlo the hobo on the previous night. As I loaded up the first bargeful to go to the dumpster, I figured chances were good the bum would have moved on somewhere and I wouldn’t see him again, as I was an hour later than usual in getting to the dumpster pen. He might have gotten tired of waiting, looked in the bin for something marginally edible and headed for the junkyard.

But just in case, I eyeballed a couple of broiled salmon filets from the banquet that were going to be dumped and slid them into a styro to-go, along with some saffron rice and broiled squash. No one looking, but I slipped the contraband in between the barrels just in case.

I was within fifteen feet of the trash enclosure when Marlo materialized around the corner of the fence. “Hey, Des man, working late tonight, huh?” he sounded equal parts anxious and starving.

“Yeah. Big party. Double workload today.”

“No sweat, Des. If you don’t mind, I grabbed some burger patties outa there that looked okay to eat. That alright?” He looked for all the world like a starving dog eyeing a scrap that fell on the floor.

“Nah, man, don’t eat that crap, dude. That’s garbage. Here, this salmon just came off the line for a rehearsal dinner. There’s rice and some grilled veggies, too.” Now he looked like a kid on Christmas. Man, what a predicament for a human being to be in. Marlo pitched the slimy burger patties into the trash and gratefully accepted the carryout clamshell.

With his free hand, he fished in the pocket of his grungy winter coat.

“As promised!” Marlo announced brightly as he proffered to me a sharply creased paper, like he was presenting me with some orchestra seat tickets for the opera.

“What? Oh, yea, the poem. Hey, just in time for me to turn in on Monday.” I felt like humoring him. “It’s too dark to read it out here. I’ll check it out when I get back inside.”

Marlo seemed to want some clarification. “Are you gonna turn that in for your assignment? I mean, not written on that scratch paper, right?”

“Nope. I’ll get it all typed into my word processor soon as I get home, pal. And thanks again there, Ezra Pound.” I was sure I was going to have to explain that reference, but he chuckled.

“Probably more like Edgar Guest, Des. Hope you like it. Hope your Creative Writing prof likes it, too.” And, with that, Marlo started toward the pine thicket. But pausing and turning back, he held up the food box and added, “Hey, I owe you another poem!”

I gave him a “thumbs up” and turned back to my work.

By the time I got the trash cart back to the kitchen door, Gertz was waiting inside, hands on his hips, “C’mon, get a move on, I don’t want to be here till midnight!”

“Roger that,” I said, and double-timed the rest of my clean-up, completely forgetting the folded paper in my back pocket.

By 11:00, I had finally gotten Gertz’s grudging seal of approval on the kitchen status and dashed home for a quick change of clothes, hoping to catch some of my buddies at the Time Capsule for some Friday night pizza and trivia. I tossed my work clothes in a heap by my closet and skedaddled.

Got home well past 2:00 a.m. after much pizza and fun and crashed until ten the next morning.

Saturday, my roomie and I met up with a dozen or so other guys for a three-on-three hoops round robin tournament. I played until just after three and left with just enough time to get back to the apartment, shower, dress and get in to work at the restaurant.

My black work pants, I remembered, were in a pile in the corner of my room. I had intended to do some laundry, but you know why I hadn’t done it. So I risked the wrath of the Barbarian and threw on a pair of khakis that looked halfway presentable.

Sure enough, Gertz caught my wardrobe choice first thing. “Uniform!” he barked in a literal “dressing-down.” I gave Gertz my best innocent little-kid shrug face and threw on my apron. In another thirty seconds, he was bawling out his fry cook for making a cell phone call in the kitchen, which was like the Eleventh Commandment or something, so I got busy and out from under his watchful eye.

Busy night, typical for Saturdays in spring, so it was nine p.m. by the time I made the first trash run. No Marlo waiting on me and the lamb kebabs wrapped in foil, which I had spirited out of the kitchen. And so, into the dumpster with the bags they went.

Maybe the hard-luck chump had been run off from the junkyard. Maybe he got escorted out of town by the cops, who knows? Oh well. I felt in my back pocket for the paper with the poem on it.

Wrong trousers, I realized. Well, maybe tonight when I got home, I would get cracking on the Creative Writing assignment, due on Monday morning.

This particular Saturday night — like so many others — hijacked my best intentions. A party thrown by the girls in the house next to ours went on until who knows when, but I woke up on their back porch hammock with a wicked hangover at about 6 a.m. Sunday morning. I hoped I’d had fun.

The folks were expecting that I would join them for The Big Meal after church with my little brother and sister. Wouldn’t make the ten a.m. church service, but I made sure I was at our house by noon for Mom’s fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green bean casserole.

The visit was fun, dinner was outstanding, my folks were happy to see me, and my siblings — aged 15 and 17 — were maniacs but, all too soon I had to get back to my place, change for work and be at the restaurant to set up the dining rooms for dinner.

And I realized I still had not done any laundry, so my black uniform pants were the same slovenly mess as I had left them two days ago. I was not going to face the wrath of the Barbarian two days in a row, so some quick and creative action was needed.

To address the ketchup smears and soft drink spills on the front of the black slacks, I grabbed a washcloth — soiled, of course — in the bathroom, ran some warm water, soaked the cloth and squirted on some body wash from a bottle in the shower. Scrub, scrub, scrub. Then rinse, rinse, rinse. Now the trousers were somewhat clean, but with large sodden spots on the front. Those would not be dry in time for work.

Neither roomie nor I had a steam iron —imagine that! — but I was hoping that the girls next door would have one and that one of them would be home on Sunday afternoon, and that they would let me use it to crease and dry my pants.

After several knocks on the back door, I was running out of time and giving up hope. But, at last, Bethany came to the door and invited me in. Of course she had an iron and board, and of course it was set up on their upstairs landing and ready to go.

As I babbled my repeated thanks, I checked my phone and saw that I had about five minutes to accomplish the sartorial rehab and get my young ass to work. As the steam iron warmed to its task, Bethany began to chat me up about my classes and my job. Any other time, I would have given this honey my undivided attention all afternoon, but as I finished putting a couple of serviceable creases down the pant legs and just about dried out the wet spots, I knew I had to cut the tête-à-tête short and book it for the restaurant.

That’s when I came upon the folded sheet of paper in the back pocket. Marlo’s poem - which I did not have time to examine. Bethany seemed disappointed that I couldn’t stay for a visit — and so was I, believe me — but I stumbled over yet another thank-you-so-much-gotta-go and streaked for the exit. Damn.

Back in my room, I jumped into my black slacks and fished out the folded sheet from the back pocket. Which, without even unfolding, I pitched onto my desk on top of my laptop. The poem was due tomorrow, and I still had no idea what on earth the hobo had written —or scribbled? — on the paper.

Barely in time and in uniform, I escaped a Gertz interrogation and got busy with dinner setup chores. Promising myself to use any free moments I might have to think about how to complete the assignment for Creative Writing — instead of daydreaming about buying a motorcycle — I promptly forgot my promise, and thought instead about taking Bethany a little thank-you gift. Mom and Dad had raised such a little gentleman. perchance I could get a restart on that long-form conversation.

Gertz and his two cooks broke down the hot line at 8:15, and I began rounding up the trash. Since Marlo hadn’t shown up the night before, I supposed he had moved on to greener dumpsters. Hoping so, anyway, so that I wouldn’t have to tell him I hadn’t checked out his handiwork yet. Sure enough, I dumped several barrels at the trash compound without a sign of Marlo anywhere. I finished my duties, clocked out, and headed back to my apartment to get right on that homework assignment.

Lying there where I had tossed it, Marlo’s paper sat on my laptop’s closed cover. Time to find out if by some miracle I would have something presentable for my writing class tomorrow at 9 a.m.

Perhaps my bias about filthy, slovenly, homeless beggars was showing, but I was mildly surprised that the sheet of paper was pretty clean and neatly folded. Square corners and everything. How about that.

Again, mild amazement that the writing was in crisp, firm, strong block letters and completely legible, as I scanned the title he had bannered across the top of the page: HOW TO WRITE A POEM.

Well, that was certainly a... catchy title.

HOLY...! What the heck IS this? I thought as I read. Picture me with my jaw resting on my desktop.

How to Write a Poem

(You said ANY topic, Des. Marlo)

If you would undertake the task of writing poetry,
Then face your world with open eyes and creativity.
First, find that place within your space where life is most dramatic.
Then give yourself artistic license as to rules grammatic.

Behold a moment or a thing — a flavor, scent, or memory,
Emotion, inspiration, or a vision only you can see.
Now summon words and phrases that suggest themselves anent
The subject you have chosen in your poem to present.

With these expressions all a-whirl within your mind’s arena
Play mix and match to see how they might fit a metered schema,
And which among the words you choose might find a rhyming mate
(Words may not pair exactly, but quite smoothly syncopate).

Your rhyming dictionary and thesaurus close at hand,
Create with all the passion and resources you command.
Your only challenge to yourself: take pride in what you wrote,
Look in the mirror and behold that wondrous soul: a poet!

Could this be possible? The entire four stanzas, written in ballpoint pen, and not a scratch-out or erasure anywhere. Was this the original work of a dumpster-diving tramp?

One way to find out, as I began transcribing every line into a new Word.docx on my laptop. Copy and paste the poem into papersowl.com, the free plagiarism checker and see the results. I had a sick feeling in my stomach.

Maybe he thought he was helping me out, which I kind of get. But if it turns out he cribbed this from someone else (Edgar Guest?), then I’m in the same predicament as before he gave it to me.

Proceed to part 3...