Michael Maul
Germantown
for Walter Reis
Women, shaped like pigeons,
dressed in black cotton calico,
clop the sidewalk on legs swollen
into Old World shoes.
Pragmatic, boar bristle
bearded men austere,
sit straight to eat
then scrape the crumbs beside their plates
into geometric shapes.
They live where there is no greater sin
than to suffer foolishness.
At night they write by candlelight
the names of those who come and go,
on a ledger they keep Bible sewn
between the Testaments Old and New,
bound in leather and near at hand.
But there,
among these farriers,
carpenters and breakers of land,
was my German grandfather
who instead taught his kids
to tap and sing.
He was a virtuoso, who labored in an orchestra pit,
playing gastric tuba sounds for vaudeville skits,
and, for silent film,
wrote notes that defined a kiss.
Of all of them in Germantown
I am from this:
a weaver of sound
into melody.
And coming home with lamplights lit,
in his pockets broken chocolate bits,
he sat on our beds and held our hands
then sang us back to sleep, one-by-one,
with lullabies he wrote for each.
This man, less valuable than bumper crops
or fine shaped wood, but more rare:
a man, beautiful like music.
Michael Maul resides in Bradenton, Florida, near Sarasota Bay. In recent years his poems have appeared in numerous literary publications and anthologies, both in and outside the U.S. He is also a past winner of the Mercantile Library Prize for Fiction. Michael is a graduate of the Ohio University creative writing program, where he earned both Bachelors and Masters degrees. He later taught creative writing as a full-time faculty member at The Columbus College of Art and Design, in Columbus Ohio.
Germantown
for Walter Reis
Women, shaped like pigeons,
dressed in black cotton calico,
clop the sidewalk on legs swollen
into Old World shoes.
Pragmatic, boar bristle
bearded men austere,
sit straight to eat
then scrape the crumbs beside their plates
into geometric shapes.
They live where there is no greater sin
than to suffer foolishness.
At night they write by candlelight
the names of those who come and go,
on a ledger they keep Bible sewn
between the Testaments Old and New,
bound in leather and near at hand.
But there,
among these farriers,
carpenters and breakers of land,
was my German grandfather
who instead taught his kids
to tap and sing.
He was a virtuoso, who labored in an orchestra pit,
playing gastric tuba sounds for vaudeville skits,
and, for silent film,
wrote notes that defined a kiss.
Of all of them in Germantown
I am from this:
a weaver of sound
into melody.
And coming home with lamplights lit,
in his pockets broken chocolate bits,
he sat on our beds and held our hands
then sang us back to sleep, one-by-one,
with lullabies he wrote for each.
This man, less valuable than bumper crops
or fine shaped wood, but more rare:
a man, beautiful like music.
Michael Maul resides in Bradenton, Florida, near Sarasota Bay. In recent years his poems have appeared in numerous literary publications and anthologies, both in and outside the U.S. He is also a past winner of the Mercantile Library Prize for Fiction. Michael is a graduate of the Ohio University creative writing program, where he earned both Bachelors and Masters degrees. He later taught creative writing as a full-time faculty member at The Columbus College of Art and Design, in Columbus Ohio.