{"id":3683,"date":"2022-05-20T15:04:03","date_gmt":"2022-05-20T22:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=3683"},"modified":"2024-12-09T09:40:58","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T17:40:58","slug":"two-poems-by-joseph-millar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/two-poems-by-joseph-millar\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems by Joseph Millar"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"issue73\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in\u00a0Willow Springs 73<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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Two Poems by Joseph Millar<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Next to Godliness<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\nI like to sit with the door wide open
\nlistening to March rain gush down on my street wearing a blue hat
\nfrom the Outer Banks
\nand pondering the cleanliness of porn stars,
\nJohn Holmes and Traci Lords,
\ntheir pale bodies hairless as sea creatures
\nglistening with K-Y or Astroglide
\nunder the render lights.
\nSometimes the storm drains
\njam up with leaves
\nand the blonde neighbor
\nwho lives by herself, whose                                                                        too old to be a porn star,
\nwades forth in galoshes
\nand a silver slicker
\nbrandishing a steel rake.
\nThis time of year you can leave
\nthe door open.
\nThe mosquitos haven’t come out
\nthough the cherry trees bloom, the red                                                camellias and the pure white pears.
\nThis time of year it’s good to swallow
\nblack tea with honey and split the pink
\nshells of the salted hallucinatory pistachios.                                  Watching the young mother in sweatshirts and jeans,
\nwho is just the right age to be a porn star, bundle her                  children into the green van and drive away through the rain.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1972<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\nThere’s nowhere to go
\non Mondays now
\nlike O’Brien’s on Lancaster Pike.
\nWith its smoke-stained booths
\nand cracked naugahyde seats,
\nits dartboard and single TV
\nshowing Eagles-Redskins
\nor Pittsburgh-Houston.
\nThe dark wood of its phone booth
\nwhere you could call in bets and drafts were a dime,
\nshots were sixty cents, Four Roses, Calvert, Seagram’s.
\nGuys coming back from Vietnam brought reefer so strong
\nyou had to go outside. Where you could stop and think,
\nwhere you could hear the pavement rumble under the buses and trucks, where you could lean against the back fence and watch the oak trees breathe.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":25234,"featured_media":644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3683"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37549,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683\/revisions\/37549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}