Five Poems, by Thomas M. McDade

​Five Poems 
By Thomas M. McDade

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​Calm Down
 
Forge a hook of desire
Compulsion or love
Anything will do as long
As it is diamond hard
Reel in you brain
Or soul if you prefer
Spark loose the grey
With a Yoga’s exhalation
Snag your craw
Dredge your diaphragm
Clean like a Diva
Lips Sprung
Guts depart
Dragging, dragging
Cells, arteries and vessels
You’re a tumbling die
Come to rest outside
The Colosseum
Don’t dally with notions
Of gladiators, emperors
Good or bad
Ignore architecture
Focus on the woman
Collapsed in the dust
Making a show of her
Son whose leg she
Bent to better beg
 
 

Verses vs. Versus
 
I bought the dog
Eared paperback
Wager and Win 
At a shabby shop
On W. North 
Just “Second Hand
Books” for a sign
I waved and smiled
At a Palmist named
Madame Eve who
Beckoned me from
A storefront window
On N. Charles
   I was staying
At the YMCA
Near a library
Art museum
And a Basilica
   I was twenty 
So I lit as many
Dime candles
   I was Rooming 
Under a 
Protestant roof
But forget the
Born again angle
The score of flames
Flickering were
Purely for luck
   On the bus
For Bowie
I studied verses
About Racing
Knowledge
Versus hunches
And of course
Searched entries
For a name 
Smacking of Eve

 
The Vessels
 
The theater critic empties
Cheap wine into vintage bottles
Chateau this and that
He’s yet to be caught so what
Does that say about his guests?
The ex-mayor is an alleged peeping Tom
The bartender at the Snail Pace Bar
Once a mortician in training
Flunked but is still called Digger
There’s a loud pinball machine
That plays music if all the right
Bumpers are nudged lit and no tilt
A landscaper who once played
Minor league baseball has more
Regrets to drink away than most
This gin mill is near the sound
Two drunks have drowned
No word of a frantic soul raiding
The critics trash to fill the dead
Vessels with messages
Pleading for help just yet
 
 
What a Round of Silver Begot
 
Walking around a parking lot then veering off
To a strip mall I find a quarter that’s dirty and wet
I know full well it lacks the luck reputation blessing
A penny but the piggy bank I spot in the window
Of an antique mall is made of mirrored glass and I feel
That shine does my discovery a jot of justice
In front of a Persian rug shop with fabric thick
Enough to mute the fall of many doubloons
I realize swine are linked with good fortune in China
               At the abutting art school a woman studying
               A canvas snaps her head my way and waves
               A brush three times in a circle like a magician
               Working a wand and I recall knowing one trick
               As a boy namely plucking a coin from an ear
And why not feed my asphalt gift to the thrifty pig
Although that’s more of a prank I know yet
I backtrack only to learn that the sty won’t open
For hours so I flip for advice and George
Washington lands on his head and I lose
Duly depriving a buyer my little surprise
            Before shuffling off hands in my empty pockets
            I gaze at the downed eagle wings and recall
            That old saw of impossibility - If pigs could fly
Would curiosity roused by the rattle of my coin
Have caused someone to smash the bank on pavement
Instantly unleashing years of bad luck unless
There’s a cork to pop like on a bubbly bottle 
            Rescuing my twenty-five licks of luck
            I recall a fit flying pork companion
            If wishes were horses beggars would ride
                                    
 
Classic Cars
 
Doug drove through torrential rain
On his way to Florida in a Chevy Impala
With defective wipers before stepping
Up to the classic Caddy of his dreams
Not long after his baseball card          
Card collection was complete
All the players he grown up with
After years of searching 
He had a copy of his boot
Camp photo so how in
Hell could he not be bored
He griped about a library charging
Non-residents a fee, wrote the mayor
He painted his trailer which was against
The rules and purple at that and put
Up a flag pole higher than allowed
Then took off to New England
With just one suitcase
Never a drop of rain so he emptied
And refilled the windshield wiper fluid
Reservoir in memory the watery Impala
He talked away all the keepsakes
Left behind as just material things
He traded the Coup de Ville
For a Corvette he’d lusting for
At age sixteen and wrote off all
The speeding fines as immaterial
And never got top down
Caught in the rain
 

Bio:
Thomas M. McDade resides in Fredericksburg, VA. He is a graduate of Fairfield University.McDade is twice a U.S. Navy Veteran serving ashore at the Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center, Dam Neck Virginia Beach, VA and aboard the USS Mullinnix (DD-944) and USS Miller (DE / FF-1091). He's been recently published in Rusty Truck, Medusa's Kitchen and Dear Booze. 

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