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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 2012)
Street roots July 6, 2012 Matador By Jay Thiemeyer the way was clear this sidewalk bare of confusion, so he punched it full throttle, De/vil take the hindmost! his wheelchair fairly flew four wheel drift, only two wheels on the curves Fireball Roberts lives! Viva Fireball of the mind, the moment, the vague ember of a memory! Fireball’s mottled red sweats singing in the rain I lowered an imaginary cape said ‘toro,toro, Jack’ Jack lowered his head, laughed and fairly snorted into his soggy beard. smiled his keyboard grin, and nodded. it was the same afternoon as yesterday, the path a bit more worn between his SRO and the bar the invisible line an indelible memory and path like any other meaningless rut, but the laughter, the meeting of another person even an unknown matador like myself (‘the matador’, he laughed) made the rain bearable, the emptiness of his room bearable for another day. Simply to see someone through the blindness of that room with the loud neighborless hall. Each day he ‘delivered the mail’ as he called it. Delivered the mail of his spent day. ‘Pulled the cart’, ‘made the overnight deposit’- it was the nights that were unbearable, the endless train of them, the endless herd, the empties piled in toward him as he lay in a bed that died years ago though her imprint in the bed balanced by the slope of his remained and her small framed likeness on the Goodwill table a n d a sm ell he’d lived w ith like the rain in w in ter, stale beer, stale .sheets, stale air, the smell of when ‘ he realized that morning she had died during the night, its rain a drumming like the noise of indifferent or hostile neighbors, with their own prioritized pain. the cover of an old magazine, read over and over, the pictures absorbed for their journeys. he preferred to forget every damned bit of it, the drink had cheated him by now he couldn’t forget a bit of it, it was nailed into him what he wanted was so simple a pathway to it so easy: to have one single thing that wasn’t old and on its way out He was so swamped in what was old, he thought for once: he deserved it In his mind he was a bull again, a bull in Spring, head up, nostrils keen to what was waiting. A stranger with a red cape In the middle of his room, leaning against his bed indifferent to the window portraying rain he kicked the dirt and scuffed the floor and snorted hello to nothing, hello to all of it that remained with the air going out of his tube his voice gothic and remote to itself from that hole. Overhead, some geese heading north. Spring was in the air. 7 • I I Morning Frost By David Mair As you open the door What do you happen to gaze upon the floor It’s the spirit of a lover lost gone away with the morning frost Futility By Marian Drake I’m trying to write a poem called “Futility” or something like that. I feel like my ideas fall on deaf or stubborn ears and nothing ever changes. But all that comes to me is: I scratch my kitty’s head. She rolls it all around on my fingers. She chirps, and purrs aloud, pouring out her ecstasy. homeforward hope. access, poienibt Sign Up for Select Public Housing Waiting Lists Wednesday, July 11, 2012 through Friday, July 13, 2012 Home Forward is pleased to announce that select waiting lists for public housing apartment communities will be open to new applicants. Applicants must meet income guidelines. The head of the household or co-he.ad must be age 55 or older, or have a disability that a doctor can verify. Applications will be accepted in person or by mail at one of the site offices below or by fax to 503.802.8488. Mailed applications must be postmarked between July 11 and July 13. Faxes must be received between 9:00 AM on July 11 and 4:00 PM on July 13. Applicants must apply using the Home Forward application form available starting July 11,2012 on our website at www.homeforward.org or at the site offices. Call the public housing hotline at 503.280.3760 (TTY: 503.802.8554) or visit our website at www.homeforward.org for complete details on how to apply for these select waiting lists. STUDIO APARTMENTS Hollywood East 4400 NE Broadway St Williams Plaza 2041 NW Everett St Northwest Tower 335 NW 1 SE Ave 1-BEDROOM APARTMENTS Ruth Haefner Plaza 6005 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy
