John Pollock is Professor of English at San Jose State University in California,
where he has taught for 34 years.  He is the author of a book of fiction for
young adults and editor of two books on Medieval and Renaissance literature.
His critical essays, short stories, translations, and poems have appeared in a
number of literary journals in the United States and Europe.

Link for John Pollock

Poetry by John Pollock

Assisi Revisited

So I've become, in my dotage, a feeder
of cats--when the price paid
by back and knees and hips just to stoop
enough to collect from the floor the empty
dish of food and water is, at times,
shall we say, considerable.

I shuffle from screen door to pantry,
from pantry to screen door, in my frayed robe
and worn slippers, opening cans
and toting bags of Kibble.
I mutter nonsense to feral beasts
as I swat away the yellow jackets,
mosquitoes, and blue-tailed flies
that infest the half-rancid horsemeat
I serve my mangy guests.

What must the neightbors think
of this lunatic St. Francis
with his highball in hand,
cursing the fleas and ticks, old age,
fate, and God?  What must
the neighbors think?

---

Spider

I reach down, meaning to pick up
a piece of lint off the bathroom floor,
only to find a dead spider
disintegrating in my fingers:
legs, legs, legs, and what is left
of its crusty old body.

For a moment I almost want
to tell him that I'm sorry
he had to die alone, unnoticed
on the cold, hard floor of the only world
he probably ever knew--sorry
I'd thought he was just a piece of dirt.
I almost want to tell him
that I almost loved him.

Had he been alive, of course,
I'd have squashed him
in a wad of Kleenex
and flushed him down the john
without a thought.

---

Fording the Creek