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Town Drunkard
His name, Jim Paige; occupation, painter-
of house walls, not stretched canvases. He had
the finest muscled body in the town
which he displayed, top-stripped, through summertime.
When he was sober or half-sober, none
could climb a higher tower/steeple, none
could paint with half his skill. For all of that,
he was the town's prime drunkard, and he drank
beer, whisky, wine, canned heat, and God-knows-what,
buying when he could, begging when he must.
One stormy winter night, he came into
the local diner, staggered, turned to me,
said, "There's a tall wind blowing. Not a branch
is shaking anywhere." Then he went back
into the storm to sleep in some deep ditch
beneath the piling snow. He'd slept that way
many a time before.
                  Up to a point,
he was the pure survivor, or he was
a Whitman/Man, Whitman/American-
or Whitman-Failure, should a failure be
a theme that rose among the leaving grass.
His mind turned into mush before he died,
and few among his townsmen marked his death.
None graced his funeral. The county paid.
He's still back there in time, solving his thirst-
and sleeping snug, deep in snowy ditches.
Great sailing ears, small chin, and high cheek bones-
exactly like an elf but six feet tall,
Tom Payson wore a greening overcoat
on August days, stopped at the school playground
to swing on swings an hour, then drove home
behind a horse ramshackle at all points.
Out in the country, his failed farm became
endless despair and scandal to those folk
who prized their gestures to propriety.
One burning summer day, Tom Payson died
inside his closed farmhouse, surrounded by
a dozen cats. At least a week went past
before a neighbor broached his kitchen door.
The town selectmen had to go and get
the body carted in for burial.
And one selectman, after that grim day,
carried a loaded shotgun in his truck
to kill whatever cat he came upon
along the road, in fields, or at wood edge.
Poems by John Bennett
16/Wisconsin Academy Review/June 1983
Town Idiot