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Ladies with big south side hair
Spin like tops in polyester pairs.
Fans overhead slowly turn the hot summer air.
Conversations lite as baseball, recipes and Tupperware.
Widowed mothers dance with daughters, turning gently round,
The corner bar dance floor with the south side sound.
5 p.m. Saturday mass is long since past
As the congregation says “amen,” and the pitcher is passed.
Accordion maestro with the greased back hair
Sends sweethearts and old hipsters moving - as if floating on air.
Eighty year old charmer in a bowling shirt
Spins his girl friend wearing a poodle skirt.
Who surrender Medicare worries beneath a disco ball.
Milwaukee’s first dance lives again at Sue’s Dance Hall.
This poem won first place in the Rhyming Category of the 2003 Mississippi Valley Poetry Contest.
Used here with the author's permission.
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Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews, and poetry reviews have appeared in more than 200 print and electronic publications. Charles is the author of a memoir, The Fathers We Find, and six books of poetry. Most recently, he was awarded the Wisconsin Regional Writers Association “Jade Ring” Award for humorous poetry. A founding member of the Lake Shore Surf Club, the oldest freshwater surfing club on the Great Lakes, Charles is the former poetry editor for Word Riot and a former member of the board at the Woodland Pattern Book Center. His work is archived at Marquette University and can be found at http://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/Mss/CPR/CPR-main.shtml). Charles is also the lyricist and voice for the art band, Charles P. Ries & The Minktronics; you can listen to them here.
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Buckner14:
Oh, this takes me back!!!
Posted 09/02/2010 07:18 AM
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