Some Free-Verse Poetry for You High Brows

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Alcorn.
jonathanalcorn.blogspot.com

I am Himmelhoch's Son

I was Werner Himmelhoch’s illegitimate son,

and I also loved a woman in a housing project in Pacoima.

Decades later, I remember one hot and smoggy

afternoon: We lay coated in a sheen, smoking Marlboros, exhaling clouds

that drifted across her peace sign poster before

getting sucked out the window by the

traffic on Interstate 5.

Even then, in 1979, it roared.

She, Weewish, told me that day,

“You’re not illegitimate. Your last

name is Himmelhoch.”

“Whatever I do is not

good enough for him,”

I replied.  Simultaneously

a pack of Hells Angels thundered

south toward Gardena.

Eventually Weewish dumped me,

moving back to the Morongo Reservation

two hours east on the San Bernardino Fwy.

Secretly I was relieved, as was, of course, my Father.

Oh, I missed the steady supply of sex,

but seldom thought about her three sons

who’d cry or scowl when I'd enter.

“You are better off without her,” my father noted.

Words erupting from his core, carrying all the Germany

he had left. Pop never spoke much,

but he spent hours teaching me how

to swing a golf club

before I disappointed him

and he walked back into the only house I knew, shaking

his head. The wanted man, who with

slide ruler and T-square routed 8-lane freeways across

mountains, marshes and a million razed bungalows

while I was flunking schoolboy math

and earning the name

Hamhead.

Today Weewish lives in a mansion paid for by money lost.

One son is a pit boss, another a Council Man.

The oldest fell asleep behind the wheel

New Years Day 2000.

Someone had to chisel

W E R N E R

O T T O

H I M M E L H O C H

1 9 1 5  -  1 9 9 2

across a marble slab.

I teach your children how to write if I’m not breaking

par at Chester Washington County Golf Course.

Mark J. Blocker