STEW

sometimes I tire of poetry's
veiled allusions
and half baked ambivalences

and then it is time for stew
the kitchen sink variety
or as Ed Abbey called it
slumgullion

for forty years mom had thought this word originated
from my dad so badly mangling her german phrase
suzamen gekochtes

and it was never discussed
that's just the way things were

until I pointed out that Abbey's book
Slumgullion Stew
could not have been independently invented
along the same lines

having the evidence of printed word
may have granted me license
at least this once
to rock the family boat
with this taste for reality
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Abbey was not a hero of mine
although it was good to learn there was someone
more ornery in the world
than I would admit to being
which has led to a grudging admiration
for the man's honesty

Abbey's slumgullion was the kind of stew
that could include some old shoe leather
the only other reference to which I have
are long-faced 1930's cartoon characters

I recall putting nine vegetables in tonight's version
including onions gifted from an Indiana farm,
two dried from the sea and lugged through years of moving,
and a root from a plant most people chop down as a weed,
along with the meat
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I learned of Abbey through another momentary mentor of mine
his buddy Jack who didn't let my initial wariness of him
stop him from laughing too loud at forgettable musical puns
thus teaching me that apparent content of any given moment
rarely has anything to do
with one's choice to celebrate the profound life within it

alas my emotional engagement with life is such a flooded barrage
that even my attempts to laugh loudly
have generally proven to be nothing less
than the final straw of some unintended insult
to a dignified sensitivity
untenable to a southern Italian hillbilly

so I have retreated to a saner mysticism
where like an old shoe
fished out of a big pot with a stick
I remain safe and limp

at least until the medicine runs out
at which point I sputter and smolder for three days
until the flames burst forth again

some crazed rabbit leaps out of the stew pot

and I must deal with the consequences
of a cartoon ego
the size of me