Two poems by Constance Stadler

Two poems
by Constance Stadler

Breakfast at the Big G*

at 7:25 A.M. ¾ 16 degrees ¾
in yellow Kleenex dress
we converge in the parking lot
a stiff legged relay
to the Last Danish.

There is a science to speculation
12 oj, 3 tj, 2 gr fr j,
one stewed prunes
If Bill is on a rampage
perhaps not even that
I am ashamed
polished

plates burnished silver
iced butter cradles
adorn nearby tables
a busbox has gorged its refuse on my station
I did not set up
I am not worthy of my
seniority
I am a blight on the Ritz

my sugar bowl is gone
the only one that wasn’t glass
the only one with two handles
I prowl
not caring it is 8:15

I walk with those who balance
linen and bucket with grace of
Zulu maiden lolling to river
with wash bundle
and I, with Walter Brennan gait,
scatter napkins like bread crumbs.

A thousand eavesdroppers stumble through the opened doors.

tucked in my hairnet
(an extra plate of danish in my server)
I have done Jenny proud
I am schlock-free.

* Grossinger’s Hotel was one of the largest, oldest and most renowned resorts in the Catskill Mountains

++++++++++++++++++++

Chat

Shall it be
gas or weather?
The price of rain
is going up
they say
Looks like
torrential high-test
is heading this way
Quotidian effluence
has washed
my mouth out.
and damned up
my (f)ears.
Bereft of platitudes
and most meager
of suspensions
most timid
of disbeliefs.
Solipsistic soliloquies
pulverize ‘thought’
into dustbin of inconsequence
and fictions
of communication.
Axiomatic
Hermetic
Non-referential
Circus
Acrobatics
of deluded
jesters…
…and
in Lacanian reflection
I adjust
my motley matted
cockscomb
in sanctifying maharoof
aplomb.
O! How I jingle
in response.

Author bio:

Constance Stadler is the co-editor of the e-zine "Eviscerator Heaven". With numerous publications in various print journals and anthologies, her most recent work appears in Ditch, ken*again, Fissure, and Gloom Cupboard. As a political anthropologist specializing in North Africa, and classically trained violinist, her influences are multiform. Work in formative years with the late poet Gwendolyn Brooks was a seminal influence, but no less so than Sufi Dervish dancers, and the challenges of mastering Bruch's first concerto.