Two Poems

Tim Hunt

The Wolfman

Here is a photo from Woodstock:
Glossy, black & white, tie-dyed
And no mud or bleary eyes stinging
From lack of sleep. In the distance
You can almost see the stage. Someone
Is up there. Janis? Grace? Jimi?
It doesn’t matter. The photo tells us
That this moment was something called
The Sixties. We can see the colors
Even through the half-toned
Black & white pages of Life. We can
Imagine we are there, were there, never
Left there. We can pretend, for a moment,
There was no war, no draft, no children
Sailing from magic rooftops thinking
The flight was eternity.

Here is another photo. The dial
Of the car radio glows, a pale orange.
You are parked on the hill outside town
Listening to Wolfman Jack. He’s
Spinning the Rolling Stones, “Down
Home Girl.” They have never seen
The cotton fields in their song but
You imagine with them “velvet skin.”
The station, XERB, from Mexico
Reaches everywhere and the Wolfman’s
Voice—raspy, low—is speaking just
To you. He is the preacher of the night
And as you wander into his tiny
Church he places his hand on your
Shoulder and leads you to a special pew.
He is a sleazy uncle flashing dirty
Pictures that he almost lets you see.
He is a wild cousin, the one with
A fake ID. He is the one with all
The songs where the singers seem
To know something beneath the words,
But above all he is the voice, and in it
You hear cigarettes, beer, and back seat sex,
And as you watch the oak tree
Stroking the dark beyond the windshield
As if the fingers at the ends of its
Branches knew every sleek and shadowed
Mystery, you imagine you are at bat
Instead of sitting on the bench peering
Out from the dugout. You wish you
Really knew your way to first base
And to second and third. You give
Yourself to the Wolfman hoping
He will lead you home.


***


The Harlem Waiter

As he serves the drinks, the waiter’s quick eyes
Play the girl at my side, sensing the fingers
Of her rented hand playing the seam along my thigh,
Then he resumes his proper station and only lingers,
As if a cutout tree, another palm, upon the stage
Where the high brown sings as if the primal Eve,
is a dusky clarinet erasing the pages
Of that silly book—all rules, all belief.
In her song there is no Satan. She, the temptation
And His worshipful hand and captive eyes
Offer themselves up, praying for redemption—
The melody of her body erasing all lies.
Who cares what the servants see in this strange place.
Who cares about his falsely smiling face.

Tim Hunt’s publications include Fault Lines (The Backwaters Press) and the chapbooks Redneck Yoga (Finishing Line Press) and White Levis (Pudding House Chapbooks). He has also been awarded the Chester H. Jones National Poetry Prize and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He grew up in small towns in Northern California. He and his wife Susan live in Normal, Illinois.  

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