Ann Menebroker: Ernest Hemmingway Is On My Mind

Ernest Hemingway Is on My Mind

©2005 Ann Menebroker

Ernest Hemingway is on my mind. I think he was a big man and pretty good at writing. I think he lived as big as he was because if he slowed down he might have run over himself. I think he turned around only once.

John

©2005 Ann Menebroker

was going to be a priest. He also taught history and he loved philosophy, especially Heidegger. John fell in love and chased her from east to west coast. Married and divorced. No kids. Did handyman chores. Owned a restaurant with a partner. It went bankrupt. Ran away a lot. Worked in the mountains. Came back to this small river town where he now stays in a tiny cabin and is a garbage collector. He still reads Heidegger. He drinks dry martinis. He once gave me an identification bracelet without a name on it. That is the real story of John.

Deadly Cure

©2005 Ann Menebroker

why do you deny yourself being alive?

the steady drone of bees spills out of your eyes

you are a worker educated to caution conservative as a bow-tie

who has told you this is the way of the world? wo has drawn the map?

nightly I dream of magic and its invasion

only to find the world has discovered another vaccine

Focus

©2005 Ann Menebroker

the scene is the ocean and a wave of it slapping against a small boat knocking out a father and his two children curtain down green and green and green the performers will not come up for a curtain call

[click to view introduction]