Poetry by Tim Peeler

Carl Wycoff CC




Long View Jesus
 

He stopped at the sub station

That powered all the window

Unit air conditioners,

Fifty-five inch TVs,

He listened to the tight hum,

The whole note of throbbing, dense

Propriety, herding the

Zombies in the last deaf mills.

Then he pedaled past drug stores

Full of pain pills and Zoloft,

Abandoned, leaking brown fields,

An empty water tower.

He saw a woman pushing

A stroller, talking on a

Cell phone, and she reminded

Him of his mother, the glow

Of her smile as she scattered

The seeds of her happiness

In the face of everything.

​




Night Man
 

330, the books balanced

For motel and restaurant,

He locked the double glass doors,

Scotch taped the be back in ten

Minutes sign, stepped across the

Astro turf covered front stoop

And drove his pickup two miles

To a Waffle House where the

Last drunks were slumped with coffee

On stools by the register.

He drove back like hell itself

With bacon and egg on toast,

Paranoia grinding

The gears in his head. He parked

Where he could see the moon in

The swimming pool, hear water

Slurf against the brick edging.

His sign lifted in the breeze.

He snatched it, thinking thank you,

Jesus, the bile in his gut

Subsiding as he gnawed the

Sandwich, till he was full as

The motel, the early morn

A kind of perfect darkness.

He’d leave the door locked for now,

Surely, goodness and mercy.

​




The Scrap Dog carried orange


Gatorade bottles mostly

Filled with Popov, splash enough

Of the sports drink left to make

It taste like Orange Driver.

Stadium security

Never stopped his cool egress.

Halfway through the Saturday

Game, in the right field seats, he

Offered Thomas a raw swig.

App State had just beaten the

Wolverines in the Big House.

In the ninth inning Wagner

Would register one hundred

On the gun but the Scrapdog

Would swear it was a big lie.

He was bellowing college

Songs by then, cursing the Mets

And telling pitching stories.

Holding his three fingered hand

Up to throw a vodka curve.

​



Tim Peeler is a retired educator from Western North Carolina who has written twenty-one books of poetry, short stories, and regional histories. Most recently he has collaborated with the Appalachian photographer Clayton Young on books that combine verse narratives and rural images.