Likes a Live

Poema do Véio Buk, A Smile to remember:

A Smile To Remember



we had goldfish and they circled around and around
in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
covering the picture window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me, 'be happy Henry!'
and she was right: it's better to be happy if you
can
but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while
raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn't
understand what was attacking him from within. 

my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: 'Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?' 

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw 

one day the goldfish died, all five of them,
they floated on the water, on their sides, their
eyes still open,
and when my father got home he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother
smiled 

A Smile To Remember

Poema do Véio Buk, The Trash Men:

The Trash Men
 
here they come 
these guys 
grey truck 
radio playing 

they are in a hurry 

it’s quite exciting: 
shirt open 
bellies hanging out 

they run out the trash bins 
roll them out to the fork lift 
and then the truck grinds it upward 
with far too much sound . . . 

they had to fill out application forms 
to get these jobs 
they are paying for homes and 
drive late model cars 

they get drunk on Saturday night 

now in the Los Angeles sunshine 
they run back and forth with their trash bins 

all that trash goes somewhere 

and they shout to each other 

then they are all up in the truck 
driving west toward the sea 

none of them know 
that I am alive 

Marcelo Santos 34