A HOUSE TO BE MOVED
TO MAKE WAY FOR A FREEWAY
The shades are pulled down
In the two front windows,
Casting a deep-yellow light
Into the otherwise dreary rooms
Of the small wooden-house On San Benito and “N” Streets.
Steps lead up to the small porch
Where I forced the door open Into stale and unmoving air.
One bedroom, a bedframe, mattress. The dresser drawers drawn
Lined with old-newspapers and empty.
The worn wooden-floor protested Under cover of shabby linoleum.
No pictures on the walls
Or personal effects on the dresser,
A hair-brush, coins, Souvenirs, or a broken tea-cup.
Instead, thick sheets of wallpaper Peel from the walls of the bare And somber living-room.
One wooden chair at the table,
A folded newspaper, a fork And spoon with plated half-shells.
The initials HF on the handles,
Purloined from the Hotel Fresno Washed repeatedly every day.
Now rests after a final use
Under a patina of Fresno dust Gathered slowly over time.
An Armenian Bible, a leather-cover, Pages of undecipherable symbols Abandoned and allowed open.
Rain-water defiled the ceiling
Proof that a deluge fell In this desert of writhing life.
On the dirt-floor of the cellar
Under the house, a grinding-wheel
With a large white-stone
For honing knives, pruning-shears,
Scissors and grinding sharp-edges
As a means to earn an income,
Deserted and left behind.
Someone hastened to leave this place,
A broken-down house
Where the off-ramp of a six-lane Interstate-freeway will be located.
And fog-obscured days
Sorted through the front-door Panels of colored glass Red, blue, and green.
A vacant-house waits to be moved,
To be raised up by jacks
Over beams and wheels
And hauled by a solitary-truck Down the middle-of-the street To somewhere, elsewhere.
A WEED-COVERED FIELD
Field-hands wrap chain around
A brawny and broad-shouldered remnant
Of a 40-year-old grapevine,
Signal the seated tractor-driver
To let out the clutch, Pull the vine and roots away.
An effortless display
By a machine that yanks-out vines
Faster than the workers Can affix the rusted-chains.
Vines are stacked in a mound Near the county road.
The Thompson-seedless grapes
Gave the shrewd farmer options
Of going where the money was.
If the winery paid more
Than the raisin-packer, Grapes went to market for wine.
When the price of wine-grapes
Fell, farmers made raisins, Until both markets crashed.
Ten-acres were conceded, Grapes left on the vine twisted To shriveled-raisins unpicked.
Irrigation company water no longer
Shimmered within the banks Of the weed covered side-ditch.
The ditch-tender, in his beat-up truck Disappeared from the terrain.
There was no money to be made
Picking small acreages,
Tending to the vines, The tractor-work and pruning.
Vines had to be torn out To make room for nothing.
Maybe a strip-mall and gas-station From here to where the roads cross.
For thirty harvest-seasons
The weeds have taken-over,
Slipping in clandestine at night When the dogs are sleeping Lying dormant in their shadows.
The side-ditch on Polk Avenue
Is gone, covered over with dirt
From both banks pushed inward.
A berm that held back and kept
The ever-encroaching city away,
That now reaches this direction
And lately across the road Sidewalks, curbs, and gutters, And a block fence 8-feet high.
The irrigation-pump stands
Like a defunct android
In the center of the field,
Hasn’t dampened this ground
Since the barn fell over And the farmer tore the house down For cut and stacked firewood.
The vineyard-trailer
Used to haul the vine-stakes,
And stacks of wooden grape trays
In late September harvest time,
Left in packed earth where it’s been Unused, tires flat, since then.
Before daybreak, the farmer
Sets fire to the pile with a match, As the wind bellows the flames,
Dispersing cremation ash and smoke
From the north-end to the south, Over the new housing development.
CHERRY AVENUE AUCTION
A city of yard sales, Crayon and cardboard signs Taped to splintering wood poles.
A city of bargains, Where everything is cheap And second hand.
Cars from decades past converge
From a two-lane country road.
Traffic guides in orange-vests Funnel vehicles to parking stalls On a field of weeds pounded to dust.
Happy couples, trios, quartets,
Children, baby carriages,
Cross the road to the outdoor market,
A farm-worker mall of merchandise
Without a roof for protection
Against this day’s cold drizzle.
Norteno music playing in the morning,
Conjunto of the accordion, A deep-throated Mariachi yell.
A heavy cadence for the march
To the tables and booths
Bearing all manner of cut-rate treasures:
C.D.’s, videos, shoes, vinyl jackets, headgear.
Snakes, chickens, cocks,
Pigs, sheep and lambs,
Feed, tires, butter, tools, barber-shears.
II.
At an intersection of galvanized buckets,
And hydraulic jacks,
Pipe wrenches and used post-hole diggers,
Near the corner of Carnival Boulevard
And Midway Concourse,
Is the side-show trailer
Playing in its 83rd town of the year.
Only 50 cents to have a look At The Circus of the Fantastic.
A TWO-HEADED BABY,
Pregnant Mothers Beware: Don’t take drugs, Drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes.
The barker,
An ex-con making one-eyed contact,
Spitting on the ground,
Travelling with a dwarf
In a car specially fitted For its miniature driver.
He’s Melvin, the human blockhead,
A graduate of the Chavez School
Of Manual Dexterity
And Prestidigitation, Under the G.I. Bill.
In a glass jar,
In the window, pickled in brine,
Stillborn with two separate necks,
One thorax,
Two identical squinting small faces,
Tongues protruding, rubbery blue
With thick folds, Two legs rising weightless.
A birth event
Considered evil Like a two-headed Anaconda, The devil incarnate.
And in another cloudy vessel Betty Lou, With her partially formed twin Growing out of her side.
And in her small tent the armless lady Performs miracles with her feet.
III.
A fight,
A merchant beats a thief In long looping haymakers With a steel pipe.
A frozen crowd watches
The administration of justice
For knocking over a table,
Then a limping escape through the crowd.
IV.
In the Avenue of Used Tools,
At a tent made of nylon tarps
Glowing with blue light,
There is a folding card table
With a votive candle
Bearing the Virgin Mary’s painted image,
Incense and oil lamps burning,
Sending soot skyward,
A crucifix with Jesus lying on his back,
Buddha, made of red plastic,
His edges chipped and worn,
A Vishnu with one arm missing, A folded matchbook cover holding him level. No advertising, no prices.
A woman with curly, tinted hair,
Dark eyes deep set in her head
Like tarnished coins
Moves beside a Mexican man
In white lizard boots
Speaks softly in the man’s ear.
She pulls back a tarp like bedcovers, They enter, letting the cover fall loose.
Facing each other
Their feet and ankles exposed
As she tenders the private-service he seeks.
A man with no legs on a cart
With gloved hands like feet
Pulls himself up to the edge
Of the garbage can Draws food scraps out, carefully unfolds plastic-wrap and lays it in for later.
V.
Then another distant sound of music. There’s a Cantina on the northside Beyond the shade trees.
Thudding bass and whining electric guitar
Coming from the Blocklite Bunker, behind a chain-link fence.
Corona, Corona, Corona,
Concrete floors, metal tables
A four-piece band plays—- Whirling and dipping, Jumping up and down.
The curtain of dust swallows brake lights
Of cars bearing the fading glow,
The purchase of treasures
On their way to being junk.
The Mariachis sing their last chorus Of a plaintive lover of bargain’s farewell.
Stephen Barile, a Fresno, California native, was educated in the public schools and attended Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. He is a long-time member of the Fresno Poet’s Association. Stephen Barile taught writing at Madera Center Community College, lives and writes in Fresno.
