Frank

Death of a colleague, student favorite
for playing the tough guy, liver gone,
dead at 50, much loved as a master
of youth-like brashness.

He drank to slur the skids on daring.
All his stained cups stand empty now.
Only sad laughter
echoes behind.

His stepson jokes at the funeral
how tense Frank grew preparing each stand-up
comic lecture: "Keep out of his way
near class time!"

For this you were chosen, Wildman Frank?
for the bawdy jokes, the cape, mad hair,
office hours
over pitchers of Bud?

We gather to praise the mask that killed you;
in dregs of your cups to offer a toast:
for even your corpse
our lethal applause.

A White Squirrel

A white squirrel scatters the fallen leaves
as hissing gray brothers run him off,
disturbed by albino strangeness.

Does he suffer like us from being the odd one,
white, white skittering creature,
pariah because of his rarity?

He practices squirrel-work just as they do,
claws up the oak to store away seeds,
shifts with their same jerked-fluidity.

No tribe, no justice for you, white flame—
a pain we take
as the way of things.

BARRY SPACKS, Professor of Humanities at M.I.T. from 1960 to 1981, continues teaching at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He's published two novels, many short stories, various essays, reviews, and journalism, plus seven poetry collections, the most extensive of which is SPACKS STREET: NEW & SELECTED POEMS, from Johns Hopkins.  His CD presentation of 42 selected poems, "A Private Reading," came out in October 2000.

Click here to read more poems by Barry Spacks in ForPoetry.com

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