Saturday, September 9, 2023

The Babushka _ new poem September 2023

The Babushka 


It’s not a person.

Like an immigrant boxer / mill hunky

Greased like a pig in the ring

Pursed pig lips ready for a cigar

Pierogi chest muscles to feed slums

No six pak abs but a quarter barrel keg

Blue eyes filled with hate and intolerance 

And the fear maybe it’s not 100% fixed

And he may be exposed as a 100% fraud

No spin from “the boys” could substantiate a win.


It’s not a place.

Like a club for men and whites only

Filled with permeating thick cigar smoke

The pungent smell of sloppily spilt stale beer

Men in three piece suits and beaver pelt hats

Pocket watch chains dangling on fat stomachs

A place they’d never let in suckers that vote for them

Suckers on the teat of spoon-fedfed division; culture wars

Slapping each others backs where lying is the art of the deal


It’s a thing.

Brought to North America by immigrants most of us are

And like other American fashions adopted by our ethnicities

A symbol of the melting pot of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 

With a utilitarian attitude expressing rugged commonality 

My grandmothers and their friends wore them almost always 

Except when they wore something more formal for Mass

In my mind I recall my young attractive mother with one 

As others of her age at Steeler games on Sunday television 

Waving them in the air on big 1970’s Pittsburgh Steeler plays


Written Saturday Morning September 9, 2023

By John Alan Conte, Jr. 

Poet

MyStrawHat.com 


No comments:

Post a Comment