Vox Populi
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Mike Schneider: Elvis Night at Johnny’s
A Supermarket in Pittsburgh
i. m. Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)
The big yellow “P” on the front
of my Pirates baseball hat stands
today for petulant, pissed-off poet —
me, in mirror-tinted dark glasses,
skulking up & down the numbered
aisles in search of seltzer water
& extra-firm tofu. Artfully I dodge
each familiar face — my neighbor,
the amiable racist, my ex-wife’s best
friend, our lady of the benevolent
smile. Where have you gone,
Walt Whitman I mutter
to myself, graybeard word-monger,
made of only-in-America grit
& green fiber, distributor of always
fresh, wild & gentle freedom? Today
I’m a pair of ragged claws scuttling
toward the take-a-number-please
dispenser, where I’ll make my stand
for chipped ham with grease spots
on butcher’s paper. Soon I’ll be ready
for checkout & want my last rites to be
a taste of these strawberries & the tomatoes,
vine-ripened, says the sign, actually smell
like tomatoes, like my mother’s garden,
August, fiery red, fat slices on fresh bread
with pepper, black flakes from a grinder,
acrid, pungent aroma of the Earth, sweet
tarragon mustard, a smear of horseradish.
Life — you have your moments, I’ll give
you that as I savor this imaginary sandwich.
But please don’t ask me to talk with anyone
until I’ve chewed & swallowed every bite.
~~~
Elvis Night at Johnny’s
for Shirley Anne Detwiler
Here we are, 14-billion years or so
down the road inside an expanding gas
bubble from some kind of cosmic
burp & it doesn’t even smell like bad
breath. We exist, hieroglyphic bird
tracks, a parade of scratch marks
on sheets of pulped cellulose
& rag, that signify what? —
Howdy Doody, duty to be
a friendly face in the firmament,
as my mother, bless her, would
say. Or unfriendly as a jukebox
that takes your quarter & won’t
play. If only there were still a jukebox
in the corner diner that served hot
roast-beef sandwiches with gluey-brown
gravy when I was stuck on Physics
101. Mass times velocity squared.
You wanted anything by Elvis, large
as kinetic energy, like the wiggle-waggle
of ocean breeze through palm fronds.
Hosanna. Jesus cruising down
the Avenue on his ass, soon to be served
to him by priests & centurions, no
platter. A gladiator he wasn’t, but glad
he was, they say, to be wracked with
suffering we have been taught by ancient,
cryptic texts & seriously holy people
to think of as sacrifice, for us — everlasting
salvation. Wow. Unfathomable, the need
for Elvis, ghostly white with cowboy
fringe on his white-white shirt.
~~~~
Copyright 2025 Mike Schneider. From Friday’s Dance (Ragged Sky, 2025).
Mike Schneider began writing in 1969 in the US Air Force when he published an anti-war newspaper. His poems have appeared in many journals and received multiple awards. His collection Spring Mills (2023) & chapbook Many Hats (2025) have recently preceded his new collection Friday’s Dance.
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Let me try again: my previous comment went “wiggle-waggle” and seemingly disappeared. Thank you Michaels, thank you both! I loved both poems — such intelligence, such energy and craft and noisiness and “joie d’écrire”! I just came home from a very exhausting day and needed the brightness & heart in these poems. YAY!
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Thank you for “joie d’écrire” . . . I had to look it up. So thanks especially. Laure-Anne, now that I know what it means.
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Thanks, Laure-Anne. Your comments are always a joy to read.
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These are wonderful poems! I’m glad to go with this poet, catch a ride to town with him, wherever he’s headed! Thankyou so much, Michael for this post!
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Yeah, he’s great, isn’t he?
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Bowled over. Kneeling at the end of these two poems. Smiling.
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Man, that Ginsberg/Whitman/*et al *knockoff is a masterpiece! Thanks for showing it, Mike and Mike!
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Thanks, Syd. I’m a big fan of Mike Schneider’s work.
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Some will notice the borrowing from T.S. Eliot . . .
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Sorry?
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“I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.”
— from Prufrock
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Oh yeah! I saw ol’ Tommy Stearns that moment just before J-AL wakened and drowned….
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“Tommy Stearns” I get, but I’m missing on “J-AL wakened and drowned . . . .”
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Here ya go Mike:
“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”
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One of the great poem endings.
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Ragged claws a scuttlin’, a la J. Alfred Prufrock, though your poem does not wear the bottoms of its trousers rolled.
And the cosmic burp seems an allusion to Whitman’s barbaric yawp.
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Not only is Mike Schneider a word-monger, but also a brilliant image-monger. And the other Pittsburgh Mike, Mike Simms has done his usual wonders with pairing the two poems “honoring” Ginsburg and Elvis, each with a tasty repast.
I once had a friendly tussle with someone named Alice, using two shopping carts in a Pittsburgh grocery store. I wonder if the two Pittsburgh Mikes have ever collided in such a place? Home of the cosmic burp. haha
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Mike Schneider and I are friends, so yes, we sometimes collide. HA!
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Two Mike S poets in the same town. Collide we do.
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Thanks Jim. Good to hear from the land of Bob. Michael is a champion of many people for what he’s made with Vox Populi. It’s good to have a place to meet with poets. I think there’s more of us than most of us think.
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Luminous Walt Whitmans are now hovering around everyone.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman?
Thanks for that insight, Friends.
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Thanks, Owen!
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These are a delight, as I wake too early in the winter darkness, full of energy and image and flavor! They are spots of light and pictures of times in cultural and poetic history. Best of all, they are good sandwiches. Thank you Mike Schneider and Michael.
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Thanks, Mary.
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Thanks mjucho & season’s greetings, Michael. I’m riding out the snow in sunny South Carolina. Always nice to know Elvis is with us.
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You’re missing a blizzard in Pittsburgh, Mike. We need you to come back soon and start shoveling.
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Believe me, I get to do my share of shoveling down here. Thanks for running these poems from my brand-new collection Friday’s Dance (Ragged Sky, 2025). For many of these poems there’s a sigh, as if to say “Finally.” Some are 20, 30 maybe even 40 years old in their first-draft form (many published in journals) . . . and I’m grateful to have them together with each other in book form, with thanks to Ellen Foos at Ragged Sky Press.
https://raggedsky.com/fridays-dance.html
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