Last Call by David Lee Page A

clothes
    let the sun shine on me
    my muscles wouldn’t heal up
    on my stomach where I’d been burned
    just ugly skin there you could see through
    I only weight ninety six pounds
    I’d lay on a quilt and look back at the valley
    and just wait to be dead and have it done
    you know by god I guess I’d still
    be laying up there waiting
    except after a while LaVerne she went
    and bought these two hogs for me
    she knew I’d like that
    I got to coming down early to feed them
    when I was up there
    I’d get to thinking about the market
    making money
    I got so cited I come down one day early
    went to looking for a boar
    to get a herd started
    the next day I forgot to go up and die
    then pretty soon I about quit
    thinking about it altogether
    it just don’t take much to keep
    some people going
    that gets us about to here
    which is nearly last call
    before heading home
    time for one last beer
    they say God takes special care
    of children and idiots
    I guess he’s been watching out
    for me and you two
    by god I’ll always remember them times
    they was good times for the most
    but I do hope to Christ
    they don’t never ever come back

Last Call
    The two saddest words in the English language.
    â€”from a conversation with Bill Kloefkorn
    1
    Tonight
    moonglow
    from within
    softly
    like a candled egg
    and softly
    stars diminish
    until incandescence washes
    the dark sky
    until midnight’s
    lightslick
    its ebb and flow
    liquid
    the candent universe
    rolls
    softly
    2
    Midnight
    remonstrance:
    there are those
    I wish honestly
    only to remember
    being gone
    and only memory
    and
    there are those
    I wish to never remember
    desiring
    only their presence
    lasting as long
    as my life
    until forever
    as
    I cannot imagine
    living in a world
    containing
    only their memory
    3
    And you my friend
    whom the gods call
    into that other alone
    wherever you wake
    be it desert or forest
    mountain or seaside
    find tinder
    dry moss and kindling
    flint
    strike a small fire which
    being eternity
    will flicker beyond forever
    sing
    your bright poem
    fork your lightning dance
    I will find you
    sooner than later wherever
    you wait in the darkness
    We will sing together
    delirious and off key
    We will tell great lies
    to shame the heavens
    We will cook with wine
    I promise you this

Coda
    What do you honestly think
    about that pile of stacked up junk?
    I honestly think
    it’s probley one of the most beautiful things
    I ever saw in my goddam life
    Are you shitting me?
    I shit you not

Notes
    While there are dozens of allusions and references in this book to scriptural and classical authors, as well as known and recognizable writers from the middle ages through the twentieth century, certain contemporary writers are quoted and should be acknowledged.
    In “The Committee to Review and Revise the Board of Education Mission Statement,” the italics are from T. S. Eliot. In “Lost in Translation,” the marvelous Mr. Nims is John Frederick Nims. In “From the Pickup Cab,” the hero is Robert Creeley. In “Idyll,” the prophet is Phillip Larkin. As far as I know and to the best of my knowledge, Jack Shit was an invention of either William Kloefkorn or my Uncle Odell Latham, who I have wanted to acknowledge as a major influence in my life for almost seventy years and am delighted to use this opportunity to fulfill that goal, even though I am sure beyond any shadow of a doubt that these words never crossed his lips.
    In the poem, “The Monument to the South Plains,” the images of farm implements and machinery used in the sculpture’s construction are taken from poems by William Kloefkorn and by the author of this book.

Acknowledgments
    The author wishes to thank the editors of the following presses and journals where the poems in this book originally appeared:
    Bosque:
“The Traildust Gospel”
    Clover, a Literary Rag,
Volume 3, Summer 2012: “At the Sign of the Flying Red