Three Powers poems

Small Business Man

• He says it’s for money – they all do.
• Hypocrites, you know, in their small way,
• pretending to be more worldly than they are.

• He works morning, noon, afternoon, far
• into the night – sleeps – the next day
• gets up early in the morning, starts again –

• thinking, solving, creating as he works –
• How can we make this better? How
• to leverage…? What new idea…?

• Next time you pass it on the street –
• Sam’s Pizza, or Lombardy’s Muffler,
• or the Kit Kat Koffee Klatch –

• remember it’s not money you’re passing,
• but a life, a vision, a big shining loved
• irritating cared for goddam dream.

The Bomber Pilot

• for J. M.

• He said it was a game
• where you watched little puffs
• of explosion and cheered
• when the train, the bridge,

• the factory powdered into
• a target. You never thought
• of life, he said, cushioned
• high on safety, until one day

• the planes to right and left
• cracked into rockets and
• the buddies you’d beered
• last night snuffed out,

• and suddenly your jet,
• its wasped wings useless,
• plummeted earthward.

Pilgrims

• (2 friends move to England)

• Doing their small part to undo
• what the Mayflower wrought, they sailed
• east across the Atlantic
• and, on July first, landed to
• fight the forest and catch the beast
• (he stalked the rounds of the newspapers;
• she taught.) Standing alone on the strange
• land, they thought the least

• they could do was their small part
• (carving a new world)
• to discover America.

Arthur Powers’s poetry chapbook, Edgewater, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. He has also authored The Book of Jotham (Tuscany Press) — winner of the 2012 Tuscany Novella Prize — and A Hero for the People (Press 53) — winner of the 2014 Catholic Arts & Literature Award.