Michael Cluff

The Saloon is saddened today to learn of the recent death of our friend and frequent contributor, Michael Cluff.

An article on his passing can be found here.

His Saloon poems can be found here.

His collection, Alphabet Wars, can be found here.

See you across the river, Michael.  Keep the light on for us.

Gusts 2

by Michael Cluff

The cheeky breezes
tap out my boredom
and boorishness
a battalion of possibilities
prance outward
to defeat
the draughts of ideas
that hold me under
a pool of pruned promises.

The wild winds grab
the released me
carry it into
the corona
of the solar balloon
that tints the inviting
indigo and iris of the
liberating dusk
sliced off
peacefully
from the numbing
nimbuses
of noon.

Wildcatting

by Michael Cluff

N went on the prowl
at TGIF
hoping to sneak
a glimpse of Z
who was at the Double U
a result of a RSVP
the unknown X
factored in
to take over
A PDQ
before Z had a chance
to reattach itself
to a new HMO
that N also belonged to
and they could become
24/7 all over again.

Letter Codes

by Michael Cluff

M believes C does not exist
as indicated at meetings
they both attend.
But if A, G and S even burp,
the ground they walk
is defied by M,
who just happens to be
her BFFs.
And when N turned
in his report a bit late,
M wanted to place "L"
on his brow a la
"The Scarlet Letter."
T turns away from it all
while E goes silent
since R and U refuse to ask
Y
D whittles his toothpick
into the shape of Idaho
and K is special
as always.
Which reminds I,
O and U
fees are due
but J and O
as a team
refuse the slimy
strong- arm tactics
of WXY
and the terminator
Z
M in the middle
employs to reinforce
to keep and M and H
and P
in line.

Re-Initials

by Michael Cluff

C feels L is dissing her
that AEIOU is supporting him
the five always a unit
apart of the other twenty-one.
S is a proponent of C
which D cannot balance
even when M defected from D's influence.

C wants to xxx with J,
not I
but B and G,
off-putting all involved.
L recently ditched MNOP-
too much of a polysyllabic crew
until O became her own entity
before Y was to replace her
making a new quintet
While Q watches U
and never questions Y.

Z ends the row before F
fails to fulfill his potential
to lead P back to C
as their society
holds they all should be
excepting B, T, E and V
and DMZs
will evermore remain
at the back end
of sequential rows.

Alphabet Wars

by Michael Cluff

I is mad at A
and all those
who took
their vows, even Y
and sometimes X
but most especially U
for taking A to C
to decide if R and U
were splitting her off from Q
her constant love since the
Gothic 8 replaced 2 as a couple
with W
the double U
that upset I in the first place.

Yet trying to
split LMNOP up
is the hardest task of all
as I and U
had fought over for many centuries
especially  since Z
is always the laggard
A or even B
and D, G, T and V,
(well V maybe V) will never be.

Gusts 6

by Michael Cluff

Mina rode the wild winds
into an oasis
mottled by cheeky breezes
and fern-ringed kangaroo paws
dipped in leaves a sculptor
would envy.

Roscoe waited
for her at the entrance
to the pottery shop
next to the hot dog stand
in the third rate outdoor mall
on a clipped back street
near the faltering freeways.

He grew just for her
and she just caroms and drifts
from one tienda
to the other.

Prancer

by Michael Cluff

I am only this way
because I have a bladder problem
and flying in the cold
Arctic air
even once a year
does not help it
at all

Excuse me
but I must go
now.

Pinion

by Michael Cluff                 

"You will lose your eyesight, Neal"
and never see the moon again,"
the opthalmologist tells me,"

I smile and say
"It does not hurt me
to know, acknowledge that ,
I can feel it on my skin
and also,"

I paused long,

"it will see me."

Stephanie Jane Norwood

by Michael Cluff

Conserative to a failpoint
where she wishes
she was born male
to oppress herself
more than she does now

When she met
Griffin Ayers
nearly the same
as her
except he let her
do it to him
much more
than her dreams
would allow
her
and him
to revere
and desire
she was happy
for a little bit
no longer than that.

New Initials

by Michael Cluff

F is peeved
N would name the pet
in such a way.
J listens and wonders why Y
and B or no longer his or her BFFs
which
of course
upsets the F found
at the start of this piece
who is not in the quotient at all,
he or she still can't understand
why Y, L and M
did not invite F
to S's surprise bash
at an AT&T outlet
which C saw as a spy spot
for the old USSR.
I will go to
V's house to see
how A and P are
getting along now
with U in the long run
when they exchanged
their X factored pet
for N"s
and renamed
QT.
How WTF
is that
thought LMNOP
cojoined
in both soul
and spirit
if not in body.

Earthquake After Shocks--- The New Nuclear Family July 30, 2008

by Michael Cluff

"I bet it was
ths sky kissing
the earth," said Trudy
giggling just a little too much
for someone her age.

"Maybe
it was
the devil farting
really loud," added Hector
grossing the rest out
as was his wont.

"Or  a signal
of the impending
end of an evil universal", dolefully declared Krystal
the good minister's step-daughter
that she was.

"I don't care
what is was," added Ron
"it was way too scary for me."
His grandfather had just died
a minute beforehand

cancer caused
by fallout
in Utah
around 1956

Unexpected Surprise Bay St. Louis June 1991

by Michael Cluff

 "Salt water and hemorrhoids
 do not go gentle together,"
 Uncle Tim declared
 from the couch
 in his old man Bermuda shorts
 and brown loafers
 while Auntie Mary tsked tsked
 that the current beach wear
 made the girls look too tender and easy.
 Cousin Clarence agreed intensely
 from behind the fish tank
 containing guppies, mollies
 and tetras of a neon sort.

 Sister Teri and Stepbrother Dennis and I
 would not listen at all
 but returned too sunburned
 later that coiled early vacation day
 to tell about the baby
 about  an eighth or so our ages
 found slightly mildewed
 on the midway
 towards the east long side
 of the bay.

Under Summer's Spell

by Michael Cluff       

The dryness ends patience
quixotically and the queerness
of the air entitles the id
to run abrupt and avariciously
afoul of serene bicameral  souls
waiting in quivers
for
a drop of precipitation
of any sort
coming  down or even up
from all types of clouds.

Nightmares of the Young

by Michael Cluff                  

Mom keeps showing up
in a fifties hair bob
and cigarette-clenching
Marilyn Monroed-lips
serving Swiss steak, pineapple upside
down cake and tomatoed-okra.
The movie progresses from bad
to worse when the wind
blows her back to Kansas
in a balloon from a state fair
carrying "Omaha" on its side
and our terrier
protects her in toto
and sepias then overwhelm
mauves and puses
and carnations are only found
in abandoned milk cans
sporting smiling cows
in pearls and longrettes.

Day 1

by Michael Cluff

Guilt cascades out in dreams
where the castrations of
day and work and need and hope
snip at one another---
shears pruning thought into
amplified and unfiltered reactions.

Sleep scares and supports me,
the unloosed conscience
reconglomerates the
waking
drone of routine---
new patterns and paradoxes
worked out by dawn.

Slumber, a friend
lures me away
from the light lately:
I do not mind---
I will find
it
soon enough again.

Halloween Poem 7 ( Dan Rivers)

by Michael Cluff

Back in 1982
during bank auditor days,
I have to wear
three piece vested suits
in dark, dull colors,
white, yellow or blue only
dress shirts
and heavy plain-toed businessman shoes;
however, since my hours were
usually from midnight to dawn,
I sometimes removed my feet from
my leather prison to air them out
or relieve the boring pressure of numbers
from my numbed skull.
On October 30 or so,
Mrs. Palatine saw my lilac socks
and crossed over from boss to ballistic
balance between a bewigged Norman Bates
and Leatherface with a tad bit of a banshee
on the side, and her voice tore paper off the desk,
pale notepads and the bathroom stalls sixty feet down the halls.
The next week, I started to celebrate Thanksgiving early.
I now worked at home
producing voodoo dolls
that I claimed always had singular minds
of their own.

Empty Nest

by Michael Cluff

Removing the wingtip dress shoes from 1975
a condom from the same year or so
still not used
a ticket stub from The Omega Man
although he slept or made up
for over more than sixty percent
of the movie
a clump of the basenji,
Joseph's, hair
who died from poison
tossed over the faux redwood fence
in 1977 plus
a breath mint
in a pocket of a green glen plaid pair
of suit pants
in total style for 1982,
all from the barricaded spare room closet,
Morris tried to blink
yet could not
since he was as dried
and frozen now
as the sea monkeys stolen
from a Safeway in Santa Maria
back before the Bicentennial
and placed in a leaky portable cooler
no longer holding anything
except stale and heavy styrofoam
and poppycake seeds.

Blistering Bliss

by Michael Cluff

The control I usually have
is lost in your arms
and mouth
it just gets better
each passing second.
I am now a nerve ending
that wishes to be blistered
blissful in your eyes, your body
your laughter
even your ever missing presence.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

by Michael Cluff                                

" I want to be the hostage,
I want to be the hostage
who helps crash the plane
for a change," lamented Jarrod
that unusually warm and
uncomfortable May 28th morning.

"You're better as the tower," said his twin Hugh,
"You don't move around
or whine as much
as Ashley."

" I want to be the stewardess
who calls her boss
and tells him about the jet plane
gonna to be hitting the building soon," Adrenne did whine.

At four, five ans seven
these kids
were reliving history
in their own steads
over and over and over and over again
in their backyards
in suburban Saginaw
or Selma or Savannah or Sacramento
or...

somewhere close
to home