Two Poems by John Patrick Venturella

Poem One:
Excavator

The picture is framed,
I’m on the mud-caked tracks
of a CAT excavator, smiling
like I just got a pet elephant.

Today I saw a Cat excavator
in a field where I used to play.
Weeds grew through the tracks.
The teeth on the rusted bucket
cried like ivory.

Poem Two:
Poor Norm

Easter mass was hot,
500 people in one church
melts stained glass.
The trumpets, usually a treat,
now just added to the noise
of the heat. I stood next to Grandpa,
my head waist high.

When Father Seville started
to turn bread to body
wine to blood
I heard a few pews back
Lord! Lord!
I thought that was awfully Pentecostal,
awfully inappropriate.

A man hurdled a pew
took off down the aisle.
My eyes followed the action
to an old man collapsed
on the floor, drenched in a black suit
and sweat with a nice tight red tie.
Turns out she yelled
Norm! Norm!

Father Seville didn’t miss a beat
and bread was body
wine was blood
and the trumpets sounded.

After mass I tugged Grandpa’s shirt,
asked why Father Seville didn’t stop
the mass, why we all went on.

He looked down, grinned
"The priest doesn’t stop

for anything,

neither do we."

John Patrick Venturella is currently pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at Chatham University. John is the Editor and founder of Asleep on the 4 Train Press. He is also an Assistant Poetry editor for the Fourth River Literary magazine. You can find him most Saturday nights scouring the city of Pittsburgh for dive bars with comfortable bar stools.