Oscar Peterson, that roll of runs

but nothing that will crack
nothing that will wash away
nothing that will peel off
this high grey end of March dusk sky
and replace it.

Not even when Jimmy Smith
comes on the radio
can this now night drive
be anything but still winter darkness.

Not even that Hammond organ
that should be wide open windows
and June insects blaring
and the warmth of the moon
and a sky like shallows warm water:
not even that can outpace this cold.

I need something loose and angry
like an Eric Dolphy squeak wail solo
drunken swagger walking a hungry assed dog:
surround that with Mingus and a melody.

But even Mingus might not be
enough to break us out of this minor funk.

And maybe wine when we get home
will not even be enough.

And that scatter of birch twigs
that has snapped off all winter:

I will tomorrow gather them
in a corner of the backyard:
fence hidden: to let them cure:
which means realize they are
completely dead:
which I know is a pathetic fallacy:

which is okay on days like this
when the sun sulked

and because of last night’s freeze
the early shoots of the irises
were brown moping

and I can’t for now believe
they will this spring blossom
like a flock of purple singing birds.

John Walser’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Plume, Posit, Nimrod, North Dakota Quarterly, South Dakota Review, and One Art. His manuscript Edgewood Orchard Galleries has been a finalist for the Autumn House Press Prize, the Ballard Spahr Prize and the Zone 3 Press Prize as well as a semifinalist for the Philip Levine Prize and the Crab Orchard Series First Book Award.  A four-time semifinalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize and a three-time Pushcart nominee, as well as a Best New Poets nominee and a Best of the Net nominee, John is a past recipient of the Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award. 

He is a professor of English at Marian University and lives in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, with his wife, Julie.