Crusty Lena (by Denise Janikowski-Krewal)

Crusty Lena from the Pizza joint

thought that all sailors were her heroes.

Not for obvious reasons

Didn't give a rat's patouti

about war games and politics;

didn't think that

their woven blues were hot.

Her desires leaned more to worn,

mussed up messes

A sailor once saved her day,

when she accidentally locked her purse

(and Ramone's tickets)

in her Dodge Omni.

While her girlfriends

swore at her in 15 languages

they they tried to learn at Berlitz,

the wholesome shore leave

picked her locks,

saving her face.

Another bluecoat danced

with her plain and shy friend

in a bar.

Even though he was flammable,

the anchor-tattooed arm

made her perpetually sad

girlfriend smile.

Lena remembered

her aunt telling her

to always treat a sailor

to a drink or a meal

because they were away from home

and lonesome.

So Lena gave the drunk sailors

a ride to their hotel and dropped them

into the hands of an understanding concierge

As she waited

her last table of the night

the boys in blue politely placed their order

with the middle-aged woman

who was weathered,

but still had a twinkle in her eye.

“2 pepperoni and one with everything...

on the house tonight, boys,” she said.

by Denise Janikowski-Krewal, February 2014

Denise Janikowski-Krewal, Poet. 1959-2014.

I can't write any poetry as of late, it seems.

Regular readers know that Denise died just two weeks ago today, and there has been a quite noticeable vacuum in my creative life.  I have every reason to believe that with time things will return to "normal."

Denise was my cousin, and as I said before, she was the sister that I never had.  In the last three years we had become so very close and our writing developed together.  We were on the phone every week, sometimes every day. We would email drafts of our work to each other and demand answers for what the other was trying to say, all the while helping to shape each other's poetry and fiction into something that we hoped was respectable and worthwhile.

My writing partner is gone, and I almost feel like I don't know how to put words on paper anymore.  I know it is just fear, though.

As soon as I post this, I am going to close the browser and find myself staring at a blank page of Libre Office on my desktop.

What I do with it might just well determine where I go from this point on in my writing.  I watched one of my favorite movies, "Slacker" on YouTube last night, and was reminded of one of my favorite themes - that with each of our thoughts, the universe splits into another universe that we chose not to inhabit, while we go on in the one we did choose.  Things from other universes sometimes pop up in our dreams, and so we might have contact with all the other things that might have been.

What a hoot.

If I could dream Denise alive again, it would be the first thing I would do.

On the paper is the memory of the choices we never made, perhaps.  Or maybe it is just a dream.

Memory eternal.

Goodbye, for Now...

It was with the heaviest heart that I had to bid farewell to Denise this past Friday.  My cousin, my dear friend, my poetry collaborator, and the sister I never had departed this earth in the early morning hours.

The world is a colder and darker place, suddenly.

I will be reposting some of Denise's work here for a while, and her husband Todd is going to try to get me some of her latest poems, and I will be sure to publish them as soon as we can.  She had a couple of notebooks full of new poetry, and was writing in the hospital right up to the end.

Please keep her dear, loving, and devoted husband Todd in your prayers.  Her funeral will be this Thursday in Racine, Wisconsin.  If you need information regarding time and place, please feel free to email me at martinipen@gmail.com  I will get back to you as soon as I can. You can read a bit about her life if you click on this sentence.

I am in agony over losing her.  I know that many of you loved her poetry, and more importantly, loved her. She was truly one of a kind, and one of the sweetest and most genuine human beings I have ever known.  Her poetry was wonderful, and as she told me just a short time ago, it seems, she had "not quite hit her stride yet" as a poet - it was only getting better.

I will have more information and reposts of her work here, as well as links to her soundcloud account, where you can listen to her reading her own works.  A true treasure.

Please keep our family in your prayers, and please keep reading.  That is what Denise would like, I think I am safe in saying.

May her memory be eternal.

Tom (Janikowski)

Denise and me at a tapas bar two summers ago.  She was fond of saying "I thought you said 'topless'..."

Barometric Drop

Watching the tornado
Swirling, whirling,
Around your fragile
Window
Hearing the sound,
The warning,
Out of my power
To pull back,
Change course,
Shuttering against
Winds
Rattling your spirit,
Releasing a siren,
Invoking a miracle
From benevolent clouds
For the phoenix
In you
To rise
Unscathed
From the debris



Based on We Write Poems Prompt 195, Weather Report

january freeze

Derek will die on the street tonight;

 in the end, it will most likely be the cold that gets him,

but Derek will die on the street tonight.

he gave the finger to the day shelter lady

"I ain't no one's problem - just my own."

and looking to score some H 

goes out into the cold

and Derek will die on the street tonight

slush-shuffled until slush was ice

and spittle-freeze river 

made a chin-glacier knife

but freezing to death 

while looking to score some H 

is better than your heart bursting open 

all over your plate.

so Derek will die on the street tonight

I watched him shuffle with frost-bit toes 

and shuffle ragged, shuffle slow.

going to sit down under the stairs by the levee

where Derek would die on the street tonight.

but I know you all have it hard

because your heating bill is high

and you got aches and pains and you don't know why,

and little Justin is getting a "C" in math

so we all have it hard.

and lots of folks make choices.

and that, my friends, is why

Derek will die on the street tonight.

Flash in the Hubble

Another portal gone
Unnoticed,
Rid of,
Relief from the dejected
Antediluvian
Time-dilation,
Alternate life
Staring across
Another universe
Beguiled
By the sparkling,
Red-hot
Nano-second
Begetting
Neoteric
Dimensional promises




Based on We Write Poems Prompt #194, Happy New Year

OTC, mostly

a bent-faced little daydream

and the old man snortin' cheese

bloody on the underside

muddy on the knees

“no one sells for less”

I seen it on TV

I seen it on the street

get behind me when I talk to you

don't make me repeat

take a box

and a can

and a smack-mouth treat

I seen it on TV

I seen it on the street

when a bent-faced daydream

gets all short

and the box

and the can

and a holy-water h-bomb

starter kit court

“no one sells for less”

I seen it on TV

I seen it on the street

get behind me when I talk to you

don't make me repeat

and the little ragged muffinman

hanging high on 6^th avenue

look at that

look at that

look at his eyes

he got that bleeding dreamsmell

going on inside

but its okay, little molly lady,

no one sells for less

and little molly lady

sweaty pilly-sweater shufflemouse

hanging sad behind the

mustache man

“no one sells for less”

I seen it on TV

I seen it on the street

get behind me when I talk to you

don't make me repeat

but now that bent-faced little daydream

and that old man snortin' cheese

bloody on the underside

bloody on his knees

the starter kit opened

the starter kit closed

and when a bent-faced daydream

gets all short

and it gets all of those

and the box

and the can

and the cheese

and the cheese

and a holy-water h-bomb

starter kit, please

bloody on the underside

bloody on his knees

bloody on the lips

and bloody on the cheese

“no one sells for less”

I seen it on TV

I seen it on the street

I seen it everywhere

don't make me repeat

hey Steve, you okay?

Steve?

Gimme Heels

We always wore them:

Red leather pumps,

Mirrored black patents,

Snakeskin toe crushers,

Four inch,

Pink ribboned

Giggly stompers

Trudging through

Midwestern blizzards,

Skating in parking lots

To a corner gin mill

Uppers splattered

With spillage from

Quarter tappers,

Cigarette singed soles

By sot-dropped embers

On a dance floor

Tacky from Jack and Coke

Snapped heel lifts

Crossing gravel laden alleys

Cursing the walk home,

Back for more

Every weekend

Never quite

Learning the lesson

Wooden Beads

Prayers
Trickling from eyes
Down cheeks
Sunken spirit
In a knightly ritual
Stinging orbs
Saline skin
Silently begging
With redundant words
Decade after decade
Pleading for
High resolutions
To daily lows
Under a pitch shadow
Indenting
A sopping pillow
Imploring
The evaporation
Of distress
By first light
In the clarity
Of aurora

And Now, a Word From Mr.Janikowski...

amy, liquid gold

skinny-trip huffer man hacks his lung

onto the sidewalk

with a backturned, halfass basketball cap

basketball, peach basket, orange basket

basket so big like a swollen huffer-head that he holds

holds in a huffer-haze

vox clamantis, said my starchwhite friend

vox clamantis hollering

hoop-de-holler highway hollers

to the highest of heaven

(not in the desert)

while the skinny-trip huffer man

swings a deal for a tube of something good

his dirty little fingernails

like a tiny little set of sheet metal brakes

dirty line of mulch for growing potatoes

(like my brother used to say)

scratch of skin

and scratch of hair

and scratch of mucous from his nose

(some call it snot, but it's not)

even tiny little bits of dried blood clinging right in there

mingled with the feces

from the stool

from the men's room

from the grocery store

right on the bus line

but skinny-trip huffer man

holds his crotch

so the girls will look at him and know

they will know he is more

more than just a skinny-trip huffer man

with a set of sheet metal brakes at hand

and a seventeen o-clock shadow

on the skinny upper lip

that waggles just a little bit

when the old lady screams

and the old man hits

and maybe he isn't more

than a skinny-trip huffer child

in a big-boy-bounding-bold

and balding basketball cap

and his bowels came loose

all over seventh avenue

and the man with the really big eye

(just the left one)

(he injects the paint into the right one)

(it's okay, sugar-poopsie)

(it stopped hurting months ago)

the man with the really big eye

laughed away the smell

on seventh avenue

when the skinny-trip huffer man

lost his bowels

but for just a minute

so now

skinny-trip huffer man wipes his hands

onto the sidewalk

with a backturned, halfass basketball cap

basketball, peach basket, orange basket

basket so big like a swollen huffer-head that he holds

holds in a huffer-haze

and it pounds

pounds

pounds

like a swollen huffer-head

ripe with

the sweetest,

ripest,

huffest,

hottest,

hopped-up hoop-de-huffer

holy hangman

amyl nitrite

I just love you,

sugar-poopsie.

Wake up now,

okay?

Red Wolf Anthology

Over the past year, some of my poetry appearing on the lost beat has been based on prompts through We Write Poems.  The fine people at We Write Poems have published Red Wolf Anthology covering poems inspired by their prompts over the past three years.

Download a free PDF copy of the Red Wolf Anthology here, read it, share it and join in on lots of poetic fun! 

http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/red-wolf-emerges-from-the-woods/

Through this site, I have not only been able to get inspired through the prompts, but also through the really fine poets who post their poems there.

Happy reading and writing!

-Denise

"worse than it looks"

"worse than it looks"

poetry by

Tom Janikowski

Available now on Lulu

electronic format ($1.99)

dead-tree format ($8.00)

Coming To...

He slept

With uneven train tracks

In his dreams

As his elderly black angel

Sat by his feet

With her ink tipped white wings

Tucked in close

I was

Trying to get

Her attention

Without words

She ignored me

I wasn’t her ward

She laid hands upon

His tortured mind

Covering him

With feathered

Dotted i’s ,

Crossed t’s

Her stern nod

Tilted my head

To my own angels

With their blue scrubs

In super HD clarity,

Florescent halos

Calling my name,

Bringing me back,

Uncertain of the truth