The Man Who Made Clouds by David Gross

Went by once to visit my buddy, Ben.
It was a miserable January night in a past life.
Layers of sooty snow shivered on sidewalks
suggesting treachery and broken bones.

It was around two in the morning when I pulled into
the trailer court where the manager hid Ben's place
all the way back behind a hob-cobbled pole-barn.

As my pickup clunked into the drive his backdoor flew open.
First I thought the joint was on fire
then realized it was just steam billowing out
and after cautiously sliding through the front door
I called, Hey, what's going on?
                                          Making clouds, he answered
as he lifted lids off two huge soup-pots boiling to beat hell
on the stovetop and kicked open the door
as a cumulus drifted up out into the black, starry sky.

David Gross is a retired journeyman carpenter and poet living in the hills of southern Ilinois. He has published poems and reviews in scores of literary and small-press journals. His most recent collection is Little Egypt (Wyld Rose Press, 2017).

Johnny Campbell by David Gross

always wore black biker's garb, Brando-style,

except for once when he tied a dirty pink tutu

he'd found at the dump around his greasy jeans

and followed behind the Halloween parade

until the chief of police had to pull him from two

zealous Baptists who dragged him down an alley

to beat the shit out of the queer.

Our mothers warned us to avoid him.

Dirty, Brillo pads erupting from nostrils,

ears, Groucho eyebrows, Harpo behavior.

In the sixties, at a wild party 

near the graveyard where he was sexton,

someone gave him a dose of L.S.D.

and grinning from ear to ear he disappeared

into the woods for three days.

Years later, punks broke into his ramshackle hut,

ransacked it, and finding nothing of value

stabbed him, doused it with gasoline,

and burned it to the ground.

Unclaimed by family or friend,

too poor to leave many memories.

Only an unmarked grave

behind a nearly forgotten cemetery

where honeysuckle is taking over.





David Gross' most recent collection is Little Egypt (Flutter Press, 2017), recent work in Contemporary Haibun Online, Haibun Today, and Otata. He and his wife Linda, live near the center of the Big Muddy watershed in southern Illinois where they enjoy grandchildren, gardening, birding, and hiking.

Adams Street by David Gross

nothing good ever happened there

ratty row of shotgun shacks

backed up to Illinois Central tracks

wrong side of town

where locomotives groaned loads

through bituminous nights

dragging souls of the slowly dying

family and friends

down the same moonlit rails

we used to escape

David Gross' most recent collection is Little Egypt (Flutter Press, 2017), recent work in Contemporary Haibun Online, Haibun Today, and Otata. He and his wife Linda, live near the center of the Big Muddy watershed in southern Illinois where they enjoy grandchildren, gardening, birding, and hiking.

Swing-bed by David Gross

Blind, widowed for nine years, strokes had ravaged her

body. Sitting beside her, holding her hand, I asked how

her day had been. She turned her milky eyes toward me

and softly spoke, I saw your dad walk by the window

today... he looked so handsome... I waved... but I don't

think he saw me.

       black with coal-dust

       boys with holes in their shoes

       walk rails home







David Gross lives with his wife on a small farm in southern Illinois near the Shawnee National Forest, where they hike and bird as often as possible. His most recent collection is Little Egypt (Flutter Press, 2017). He has recent poems in Acorn, Common Ground Review, Front Porch Review, and Otata.

Snowstorm by David Gross

Fading fencerows.

All night into morning

pellets of ice and snow

crosshatch steely skies,

enameling earth,

disguising winter's poverty.

In the afternoon clouds part,

sunlight glosses porcelain pastures,

blackbirds and sparrows scratch snow

where a garden once grew.

But beside our porch steps

ragged spires of faded lavender

cast long shadows across a blank page,

portents of a poem

spring might bring.

David Gross lives with his wife on a small farm in southern Illinois near the Shawnee National Forest, where they hike and bird as often as possible. His most recent collection is Little Egypt (Woodhaven Press, 2017). He has recent poems in Acorn, Common Ground Review, Front Porch Review, and Otata.

Haiku by David Gross

morning mist

overgrown graveyard--

hovering stone angels

each spring

closer to the grave...

wild bergamot

heartwood

      the dark rings

a rainy season

abandoned pasture

          so full

     of moonlight

end of summer

       foxtail grown tall

              through bicycle spokes

barren wind

stirs dust-devils--

scent of distant rain






David Gross lives near the Shawnee National Forest in the hills of southern Illinois. He is the author of five chapbooks, the most recent, Little Egypt, was published by Flutter Press in 2017. He has poetry in Big Muddy, Blue Collar Review, Common Ground Review, Lilliput Review, The Cape Rock and Snowy Egret.

Moreau / Tamias Striatus by David Gross

Moreau

lost most of his family on the voyage

to Western La Hispaniola, the rest as they were

coffered upriver. One of 500 slaves bought

by a man named Renault in 1720.

Many Frenchmen along the Mississippi

feared the Africans possessed supernatural

powers. So when Renault died from an 

unknown fever, Moreau was accused of

"incantations and necromancy."

He was condemned to be burned at the stake,

but a colonel concerned with a lynch-mob snuck

him out of the fort and hung him in a nearby forest.

Only execution for witchcraft in Illinois' history.

Maybe he was a papa loas, a voodoo priest of

Bon Dieu or only a man whose proud eyes

and black, tattooed skin frightened most whites,

whose descendants toss and turn all night

still haunted by ghosts of guilt.

Tamias striatus

                      (for Linda)

We spent winter in a backwoods log cabin

beside Beaucoup Creek. When you live that way

you live by sunlight, so when the sky bruised blue

to the west we fed our stove split hickory.

One night, out of the wood-pile, there he was,

puffed up on hind legs like a cartoon

flashback out of Chip and Dale.

You tossed a bit of bread his way

and with a tiny grand jette' he chomped it

and blue-streaked off-stage.

For weeks he was a perfect houseguest;

respecting our space, eating little,

keeping quiet, retiring early.

But when snow started melting he bid us adieu.

We imagined to a cozy hole in a hollow oak,

but sensed that he was only searching

for something he'd lost, same as us.

David Gross lives near the Shawnee National Forest in the hills of southern Illinois. He is the author of five chapbooks, the most recent, Little Egypt, was published by Flutter Press in 2017. He has poetry in Big Muddy, Blue Collar Review, Common Ground Review, Lilliput Review, The Cape Rock and Snowy Egret.

Tangled in Briars by David Gross

Rusty, shuffling locomotive winter.

Killing cold mousing through cracks.

Snow smudged gray by end of day,

night starless as mine shafts.

Powdery coal-dust blown beneath doors,

settling in attics, baby beds.

Stovepipe blushing red before sleep.

Dreamt all winter of blackberries,

shivering windows icing overnight.

That spring my sister died.

Never went berry-picking again.

David Gross lives in the 'greater Appalachian' hills of southern Illinois. His most recent chapbook is Little Egypt (Flutter Press, 2017). He has recent work in, Algebra of Owls (U.K.), Lilliput Review, tiny words, and Wild Plum.

Black Lung by David Gross

Where I come from coal is king

or at least used to be. But since

they broke the union, sucking

ass is how men keep jobs.

Cheap bumperstickers holding

rusting pick-ups together

proclaiming Friends of Coal

that payroll staples to their

checks to justify a slow

suffocation for the old men in

front of the nursing home at the

edge of town, where a mine tipple

staggered thirty years ago.

Slumped in wheelchairs, gulping

breaths, nodding out in slowly

settling particles of night.

David Gross is the author of five chapbooks, Cup of Moon (Bull Thistle Press, 2000), What We Never Had (tel-let, 2004), Because It Is (tel-let 2005), Pilgrimage (Finishing Line Press, 2009), and Little Egypt (Flutter Press, 2017). His poems and essays have appeared in journals such as Big Muddy, Blue Collar Review, Cape Rock, Common Ground Review, Hummingbird, Kentucky Review, Modern Haiku, Naugatuck River Review and Snowy Egret. He lives with his wife on a small farm in the hills of southern Illinois.

Milky Way of Moths by David Gross

Her pale green eye-liner glowed in the dark.

A sargasso sea redhead with a black widow

tattooed on her pale neck, two silver hoops

looped through her left nostril, taking tickets,

righteously stoned, a carnival honeymoon of

maniacal clown laughter, sirens, buzzers,

blood-curdling screams, laser tracers, heavy

metal machine-gun fire litanies of gyp.

She'd been on the street since turning twelve,

landed a graveyard shift at Mickey D's where

she met this guy with a pink mohawk and two

black teardrops inked below his bloodshot eyes,

who operates GALACTIC BATTLEGROUND

hovering over humid midwest midways in

small-town fairgrounds that smell of stale beer

and livestock piss, with a clutch of small space

invaders, suspended in shiny fiber-glass saucers,

spinning in a Milky Way of moths, beetles,

and various species of winged insects. Then, on

Saturday night, they pack up their universe

and drive away.







David Gross is the author of five chapbooks, Cup of Moon (Bull Thistle Press, 2000), What We Never Had (tel-let, 2004), Because It Is (tel-let 2005), Pilgrimage (Finishing Line Press, 2009), and Little Egypt (Flutter Press, 2017). His poems and essays have appeared in journals such as Big Muddy, Blue Collar Review, Cape Rock, Common Ground Review, Hummingbird, Kentucky Review, Modern Haiku, Naugatuck River Review and Snowy Egret. He lives with his wife on a small farm in the hills of southern Illinois.

Topper by David Gross

I called him “Top Cat”

like the cartoon character, 

he liked it.

We were restoring 

Altgeld Hall 

at the university.

Drinking was his passion

and coupled with a 

finely honed black humor 

everything he said 

came out Shakespearian. 

Born in Liverpool

to an unknown mother, 

his father raised him. 

Gorged with ghosts from 

a childhood zig-zagging 

Europe, working circuses 

with his old man. 

Never said what they did.

One Monday he didn’t show,

no one thought much about it,

but by morning break 

someone tied the name 

nobody knew in the headlines 

to the “drunk little hippie”

that worked with us, 

who laid down 

on a railroad track

and fell asleep.

David Gross is the author of four chapbooks, Cup of Moon (Bull Thistle Press, 2000), What We Never Had (tel-let, 2004), Because It Is (tel-let 2005), and Pilgrimage (Finishing Line Press, 2009). His poems and essays have appeared in journals such as Big Muddy, Blue Collar Review, Cape Rock, Common Ground Review, Hummingbird, Kentucky Review, Modern Haiku, Naugatuck River Review and Snowy Egret. He lives with his wife on a small farm in the hills of southern Illinois.