In Search of a Unicorn

-- and other poems --

written by michael soetaert

for Linda, who started it, and Susan, who keeps it going

They came down from the highlands

in their battered convertibles

with the rusted trim,

those proprietors and promoters

of the world’s greatest shows,

In search of a unicorn –

the unique freak

that no carnival

could be complete without.

After an afternoon

of endless searching,

in every sleepy

beer stained saloon

within twenty three miles

of where they had paid some gypsy

to tell them

where it should have been,

their patience’s were depleted,

their car exhausted,

so they settled instead

for some destitute farmer’s

sad plow horse,

which they dyed blue

and then stuck on

a candy-striped papier-mâché horn.

And housed inside

the battered remains

of some moth-eaten tent,

the people all paid their quarters

so they could come inside

to scoff at it.

Published in PinchPenny, June/July 1982, and Midwest Arts and Literature, Spring 1983

War of the Worlds

From the backseat

we stopped to watch

the best part of the show

The part where the spaceships

come crashing down

while the people,

scared and huddled,

sing hymns,

waiting for the end.

But it never comes.

From under the seats

and over the mirror

we pieced ourselves back together.

While the people,

dumbfounded,

came from the churches

and watched the little men

stumble from their ships and die.

Published in Midlands, Spring 1983

The Creature

There’s a creature

living in the sewer

underneath the city

that no one has ever seen –

no one living, that is.

An it comes out at night

and eats things.

I kow, I have proof:

It ate the thrash cans

right off Mr. Ballow’s pack porch;

It at Billy Balinski’s bicycle,

whole, not even a ballbearing left;

It ate Mrs. Cline’s cat,

didin’t even have a chance to meow;

And it has real long, skinny arms

it slithers like snakes;

that’s how it got the marbles

out of Mike Maloney’s dresser drawer;

it at them, too.

I’ve heard it walking at night;

it goes

Sluth! Sluth! Frump!

The frump is where it limps

from being shot by a whole division

of the National Guard

back in 1947.

It ate them, too.

So lock your doors

and bolt your windows,

And for God’s sake –

don’t go outside

if your hear a

Sluth! Sluth! Frump!

or it will eat you, too.

Published in Uncle, Summer 1982

Something You Should Never Have to Worry About

Late at night, when you’re all alone, safely tucked away, and the floor creaks – it’s not just the house settling down for the night. There are shadows that move.

There’s a sad, sick man in a raincoat – hiding in the hallway, just out of sight of the door – waiting. Or maybe in the closet, just far enough back. An old coat hanging loosely, ready to fall.

And when your swollen eyes can no longer stay open – you barely drift off to sleep – softly, softly, to your beside he’ll creep.

And from deep down in his pocket he’ll pull out his razorblade – very long and very, very sharp – soft and sticky with blood.

Your eyes will open wide as he quietly laughs from behind his black and rotten teeth, with breath that smells like death. And you’ll try running and screaming and fighting and crying, but you’re bleeding and bleeding, and dying and dying and dying.

And you can’t move and no one can hear you, because you’re already dead.

So sit up straight and eat your peas. Be good little girls and boys – it’s the only chance you have from sharp, sticky razorblades and mommy and daddy, early in the morning, saying, “Oh what a mess you’ve made.”

The Bell Tower

Cloistered,

high above the churchyard,

the old monk sat alone,

reading from his gold bound bible

in the softly fading glow

of his slowly burning candle,

scratching with his quill,

“Deus Leges Dei Hominibus.”

The soft night mist

fell silently on the window,

slowly rolling down the saints,

leaking through the ceiling –

dripping, dripping, dripping –

into the chalice

set in the corner to catch it.

A nighthawk,

feathers ruffled in the rain,

returned to her nest

in the crevice
where the bell used to be

with food for its young.

And without thinking,

returned to the wind

above the waves

breaking from the sea.

Published in Midwest Arts and Literature, Spring 1983

Grampa’s Funeral

Dressed in my only suit,

I was led to Grampa’s coffin;

Mama held me with one hand

and cried with the other.

I wanted to cry, too.

I didn’t.

It was the first time

I’d ever seen grampa

without his pipe.

Mama stayed inside

crying with all the women;

I got to go out with my father

because I was a man, too.

They all stood around shuffling,

uneasy in their stiff suits,

smoking and joking,

their muffled laughter

mingling with the smoke.

I shuffled, too.

I wasn’t allowed to smoke.

Uncle Bill told about the time

he was a deputy sheriff.

There was a robbery.

He hadn’t even gotten his gun out

when he was face to face with the robber.

The robber had eaten fried onions.

Uncle Bill’s face was powder burned,

but he missed.

Uncle Bill still remembers

the sound of the bullet

speeding past his ear,

The robber got away.

Uncle Bill never became sheriff.

Uncle Claude remembered

driving his car into a train.

Becoming completely sober

the second before he hit.

The car tearing to pieces,

feeling each one of his bones breaking,

hearing people running,

the doctor whispering,

certainly he couldn’t survive;

Gramma holding his hand,

softly sobbing.

“One foot in the grave,

but the other one wouldn’t go.’”

Everybody chuckled.

Dad told a war story,

the kind I’d never heard before

and never again.

No one laughed.

The boat stopped too far from shore.

Screams and bombs and cries.

Left alone,

trying to hide,

knowing he’d be found.

He stayed there and it got dark

and quiet;

afraid to move,

waiting and praying.

Even crying.

When the sun finally shone through

he could see

the burning boats,

smoldering sand.

He wasn’t alone.

They had won.

The cigarettes were done.

The smoke had cleared

when the women came out.

Everybody went home.

There was no more crying

or story telling.

Mother and father

stayed up very late.

I had to go to bed.

Published in Image, Fall 1982

Tufted Titmice

When I was only eight

I got this really nice book

all about birds,

and I was never allowed to believe

that tufted titmice

were furry little creatures

that hid in the brassieres

of fat old ladies.

Driving by the Home

Through the heavy wooden door

that swings freely on well oiled hinges

the sticky sweet smell of flowers surrounds,

drawing them into the dimmed darkness past the door –

each in turn leaving his name –

passing into where the music plays the loudest;

the low, solemn sounds moving dimly

like the man in black behind the curtains,

tall, with eyes that never raise

and the soft whispering lips that never part,

nodding row by row to smoothly drift,

each in turn to look past the polished glass wood

and the soft pleated silk that lines the lid

waiting to be closed and the screws set,

with each passing cuff ruffling

the curtain that hides the wheels.

Christmas 1965

There was no Santa Claus

no reindeer

and no wonderful workshop

hidden at the North Pole.

All of the Santas

standing on all of the corners

were just fat old men

with elastic beards

in off-red suits,

ringing their bells for no reason.

No one would slide down the chimney;

the cookies would be uneaten;

there would be no new bicycle

to ride in the morning,

and no reason to stay up the night.

In the Bathroom

Susan

slides back the mirror

as I’m brushing my hair

and my head disappears.

Published in Blue Unicorn, February 1983

Dreaming of Heaven

The nun stood in front

of the boys’ Sunday morning

sixth grade CCD class,

as big and black and unmovable

as any mountain there ever was,

and from somewhere behind

all of those black clothes

she dreamt out loud

about heaven,

while Billy Balinski,

with his mind out the window,

tried to figure out what the heck

CCD stood for.

One of the C’s had to be Catholic,

but durned if he could get the other two.

“And in heaven the wine

flows from fountains like water…”

Billy’s uncle had given him wine once.

Billy still remembered

running to the bathroom

to spit it out

while his uncle laughed like a lunatic

Billy had seen once in a movie.

“…and in heaven the streets

are cobbled with gold…”

Billy couldn’t ride his bicycle on the street

in front of his grandmother’s house

because it was cobbled.

But if it must be cobbled,

why not chocolate?

At least you could eat chocolate.

“…and only good little boys and girls

get to go to heaven…”

Billy wondered if anyone

would be able to hear

Judy Jefferson screaming

from inside the cinder block box

where the janitors burned their trash

on the playground,

or if anyone would see

Billy running away.

Billy knew that he was slowly strangling,

but he dared not fool with his collar

unless he wanted his necktie to fall off again.

Jesus hung over the blackboard

looking down on the nun

with sad, swollen eyes;

the blood on his hands

still looked fresh.

Billy couldn’t help but imagine

that Jesus would rather be someplace else.

Published in Rhino, Fall 1982, and Pteranodon, Spring 1983

A Lot of Passing

Monday morning,

May 8th is another wonderful day.

We got a good rain Monday night.

We are having nice weather.

Imojean and I hunted some flowers.

You don’t have to live next door

to have a good neighbor.

Went to the doctor at West Plains on Wednesday

and watched the girls take swimming lessons.

She is doing as well as can be expected.

We pray she still continues to do so.

The family has our sympathy.

Count your blessing.

You don’t know how much you miss them

until their gone.

A lot of passing here these days.

Historically Speaking

The winners of war

Are few;

Caskets and crosses

And a vulture or two.

The Last Meeting

The Secret Society of Spies

was holding an emergency meeting

(all except for Eddy Engels,

who no one bothered to get).

They sat tightly locked together

in the tunnel

where the creek ran under the street,

their egg-white eyes

taking in each and every detail

on the slick glossy pages

as Mike Maloney carefully turned them.

And with each new page

Billy Balinski’s heart beat faster and faster,

and his breathing grew harder and harder.

All Kevin Cline’s brother had told him

was true – mostly.

Billy wondered if Mary Ann Walker

would look that way

when she grew up.

Probably – but certainly not that big.

The emergency meeting had to end

because Mike Maloney

had to get the book back

to where his brother had it hidden

up above the heating duct

down in the basement.

But before they all went home

the Secret Society of Spies

all decided to take out

the part in their oath

about not liking girls.

Published in Image, Fall 1982

The Fortune Teller

By the roadside,

stood the gypsy’s sad horse,

swaybacked and gray-eyed,

chewing aimlessly on the dead brambles

of a dead bush,

untethered and unrestrained,

but too old and too tired

to go anywhere else.

Beneath the mud-caked canopy

of her broken-down wagon

sat the gypsy,

her eyes held open only by fatigue.

In the darkness,

her black candles

flickered in the gray evening wind

while the curtains fluttered

like ghosts uncertain of flight.

And there she would wait

for the blind merchant

she had seen dimly through the dust

covering her murky crystal ball.

She would wait

for the low, coughing laugh,

the blade hidden under his coat,

and the fading sound of hooves

becoming more distant in the night.

Stink Bait

Undisturbed for countless years sleeping soundly, half buried in the soft, silty sand that was a thing – whatever it was – weighing forty-six tons (most of which were teeth). All two hundred and ten ferocious feet of its black bulky body was covered with think, crusty scales; it had little tiny feet and a huge polliwog tail, but mostly tie was teeth – rows upon rows of terrible, treacherous, very sharp teeth.

Making his way through the thickets and trees, old wind worn Wendell wound his way down through the woods to his favourite fishing hole, armed with only his fishing pole – and a jar of stink bait. Leaning back against a tree and resting his pole on his knees, Wendell wiped the tobacco that had dribbled down his stubble, and then pulled from the pocket of his faded coveralls the greasy, slimy jar of stink bait. And giving the stubborn lid a twist there immediately arouse such a stench that every nose in the county was opened and for a mile around all the leaves turned brown. With his face streaming tears and his sinuses perpetually cleared, Wendell told himself that without a doubt, “That the most powerful stink bait I ever sank a hook into!” So seated comfortably on the bank with the water suffocating the stink that the stink bait stank, Wendell let his line out.

“Ya gots to go deep when yer usin’ stink bait,” Wendell told his reel as the line went winding down. Down past the flowing reeds and the swaying moss and the rusting cans and the little fish swimming in rows, down past God knows what, that stink bait sank. And the line kept winding down, down even deeper, past where the bubbles bibble and waves waff, deeper and deeper into the dank, where that stink bait still stank a stifling stench. And finally it had gone as far as it could go, and it came to rest on the nose of that thing – whatever it was.

And without hesitating or even thinking twice, it gave a swish from its mighty tail and a push for this little feet, and that thing – whatever it was – headed for the top, all forty-six tons (most of which were teeth. Wendell saw the water bubble and boil and churn, and then it turned a dark bluish gray, but Wendell never saw that thing – whatever it was. He only saw the teeth. They never found Wendell, nothing, no trace, no clue, no tobacco stains. All that thing – whatever it was – left was that jar of stink bait.

Published in Road / House, December 1981

The Killer

There’s a killer outside my door,

hiding in the shadows beyond the peep-hole,

waiting with cudgels and bludgeons

and long, sticky knives.

And he will wait forever.

While inside,

I hold the key in a sweaty hand

and live with the constant fear

that he never will come in.

The Keeper of the Sacred Button

In the beginning there was Knowledge,

And this Knowledge was good,

But Man thought it not quite good enough,

And looking back towards Eden

Man said,

“Hmmm, could’ve been wrong.”

Sometime later

Man said,

“Behold, an Atom!”

And it came to pass that by splitting the Atom

Great energy could be made,

And even greater energy could be made

By smacking a few together,

So he did.

And Man said,

“Hmmm, this may not be so great.”

And so there was

The Keeper of the Sacred Button.

And in the third generation

Of the mighty tribe

That rose from the sands

Of Los Alamos,

The Red Phone rang.

And the Keeper of the Sacred Button answered it,

And those who spoke asked him,

“What is the air speed of an unleaden swallow?”

And the Keeper of the Sacred Button said,

“Hmmm, I don’t know....”

And all life as it was,

was no more.

Love Songs Never Sung

In the little room

(by the hour or by the week)

She sits like a queen on her barge,

And I would be her Paris

And give a kingdom for a mirth.

Her scattered face

In the shattered mirror,

Strewn a million different ways,

Perhaps more.

A heap of broken images.

I can only have one;

I am not strong enough for two.

The blaring light swings like a pendulum –

A bare blub on a frayed cord,

Undisturbed by its broken switch;

Plenty of light to pick lice by.

Love songs on the radio –

The Metropolitan playing much too loud.

With open arms she takes me

Sailing down the Nile;

Through tattered sheers

And broken panes

The peasants work their treadmills

And fear the Seventh Plague,

Rolling like rain across the plains.

The cigarette

Smolders in the ashtray –

“I’m dying, sweet Ceramic, dying.”

Was it for this, then,

That I found my way downtown?

To where the men stand on corners

In tattered overcoats,

Their white hair pushed down like grass

In an Autumn wind,

To beg for dimes?

I leave her snoring,

Not to disturb her until she is ready,

With cab fare she’ll never use,

Enough for a tip if she ever does,

Stuffed where she’s sure to find –

Gideon’s and love songs never sung.

Trade Winds

Sidewalk cynics

set up their stands

and sneered at passersby,

who ignored them.

One by one

they all left their posts

to blend in with the crowd,

while all their pamphlets

were carried away

by the same trade winds

that had pushed the Mayflower,

full of pilgrims,

many years ago.

Published in Midwest Arts and Literature, Fall 1982

Upon the Waters

Upon the waters

I have cast my bread,

and they have come back to me,

all unread.

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