Poetry by Jack Phillips Lowe

APPLE-POLISHING RAG

It’s 1:30AM on Tuesday.

I have a job interview

scheduled for today.

But I don’t want to go.

The job is dull and dirty.

It will not offer me 

enough payroll hours,

a wage equal to

my years of experience

or satisfaction of any kind. 

It will offer me 

a weekly paycheck---

the dreamcatcher 

that I lack right now. 

Still, I resist. 

Why am I up

playing Bukowski,

sucking on a bottle 

of bone-dry red from 

Les Vineyards de Walmart

and zoning out to a rerun 

of Cannon from 1974? 

I’m tired; bed is calling. 

I don’t care for red wine

or fat-assed detectives 

wearing fat ties and fat lapels.

Yet here I sit,

drinking and staring.

My lone explanation?

It’s my way of telling them,

through clenched teeth:

“You don’t own me.

I’m my own man. 

Nobody. Owns. Me.”

Later that morning though,

my own man shows up

for the interview--- 

on time---in spite of 

a razor-edged hangover,

smiling and waving 

his apple-polishing rag.

SINCEREST REGRET

Kirby stands at the sink, 

looking out the kitchen window

of the house he’s lived in

for fifty-two years.

In days, necessity 

will lead him out of there,

by the nose, forever. 

“Assisted living,” his doctor says.

“The next exciting chapter of life,”

his daughter says. 

In addition to leaving, 

something else is troubling him.

Kirby flips through 

the pages of his memory

and there it is. 

“What,” he asks himself, 

“is my sincerest regret?”

The emotion and simplicity 

of the answer surprise him. 

“The birds, to whom I feed

bread and seed every day---

cardinals, blue jays,

sparrows and doves---

will never forgive me

for my disappearance.”

RICH & RARE

Tonight, I sit

in the kitchen,

running a race---

shots of caramel-

flavored Canadian whiskey

chased by 

Miller High Life.

I’ve been prescribed 

three different drugs

to treat depression 

and social anxiety---

state-of-the-art 

balms to soothe

ancient sores. 

None of those 

smooths me out

like this bottle

of Rich & Rare,

rescued from oblivion---

the clearance aisle

of my local grocery

for $7.19. 

What Big Pharma

carpet bomb can 

invoke childhood memories 

of sweet candy apples

eaten around a

flickering autumn bonfire,

as I perch here

baking in a 

southern Illinois summer?

  

Jack Phillips Lowe was born and raised in Chicago. Currently, he is tax-exiled to Edwardsville, IL, a suburb of St. Louis. Lowe has contributed poems to Poetry Super Highway, Cajun Mutt Press and Two Drops of Ink, among other outlets. His most recent book, Flashbulb Danger (Middle Island Press, 2018), is available on Amazon.