Featuring Norman J. Olson

the last horse and the tractor

the old John Deere tractor

was bought just after the war…  I can

barely remember the last of the horses,

huge and stomping around,

led by harness reins…

these were not race horses or

riding horses, delicate as the frost, but

workhorses with hooves the size of

dinner plates…  and shaggy coats…

I can see my dad

with the horse hoof held between

his legs, nails in his mouth,

nailing horseshoes

to the hooves of

a big slow black workhorse…

the last horse was named Black Beauty and I remember his

death

the horse was ill and was standing,

leaning against the chicken coop…

I could hear the cracking

And groaning of the wood…

it was blue black night and

the enormous old horse

was

screaming in a harrowing whinny,

almost like a person…  the

adults were afraid he was

going to knock the

chicken coop over…  I remember

my dad at the old wooden

phone that hung on the kitchen wall, cranking

up the phone, holding

the ear piece…

caling

cousin Erik

to come with his rifle

and I remember the

crack of the shot…  then

the last of the horses

was gone…  gone like childhood

or like yesterday morning, gone

like the sound

of an old John Deere tractor

sputtering

over the hills of my memory, gone

like a rifle shot

in the blue black night…

my civil service job

like the taste of a mint

melting on my tongue, the day

drifts away. one phone call

from a man who lost his

job and wants his final

check. his employer

is broke,

I hear this twenty times a day.

the next call from a

woman who

is obviously

insane, looking for another

lost soul to draw into

her web.  blah blah blah, hang up.

between the calls my fingers click clacking keys

I type virtual words into

an electronic nowhere

that

I trust to hold

them. answer the phone, hear

another story of a person’s life

being destroyed by

a swamp

that eats

the working poor. desperate voices

come through the phone

looking for help that does not exist,

looking for fairness in

an unfair universe, and

existing only as bits

of an electric potential in some

computer somewhere in between

silence and

the still uncounted stars.

poem for pia

other people’s poems keep

running through my

head

like rusty freight trains

across the Minnesota prairie. other

people’s knees

are bending

to touch the floor of someone

else’s chapel, to pray to someone

else’s god. other people

see and touch

you, lick your lips

and kiss your toes. other people’s

fingers - - perhaps they are your

fingers - - hold brushes

painting

beautiful things with bristles

plucked from a pig’s asshole.

somewhere there is art, beauty,

youth, women who bleed and men

who jerk off…

a place where they all smoke cigarettes

and get drunk

and make love

like horned mammals… but not here

here, the smokers are dying of emphysema

and syncope, falling to the floor,

clutching

their damaged brains

in

their hands

and the drinkers are old and sick with ruined

livers and bad breath… the lovers are

the worst of all, a horror of wrinkled skin,

sin

and lubricated death
no wonder I listen to other people’s songs

The Mental Cases

The mental cases

and brain

damaged

citizens sit

in the food

court.

Somebody is taking care

of them, at least for now.

They talk to themselves and

to the table and one

gesticulates wildly while another

says softly to people

passing

by,

“whodayou think YOU are?”

I don’t

have an answer

for him.

A woman about the shape of a giant

watermelon eats half a sandwich

in

one

bite.

She ignores

the mental cases

but she is looking

right

at
me.

The above poems are from Olson's collection Forty-Four Image Poems (mgv2 publishing, 2016): https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/norman-j-olson/forty-four-image-poems/paperback/product-22968292.html

BIO: Norman J. Olson, born 1948, is a small press poet and artist who lives in Maplewood, Minnesota USA.  Since publishing his first poem in 1984 after many years of regular submission and rejection, he has published hundreds of poems and artworks in the literary press in 15 countries and all over the USA.

Web Site:  http://www.normanjolson.com

Email:  normanjolson@hotmail.com