Last Gulp Poetry: The Pope of Pottsville by Mark Tulin

A grandpa who lived a life of death and inebriation.

The Pope of Pottsville by Mark Tulin

Grandpa Ike 
was an old school junkman
during his early non-dementia years

Born on a Chinese boat
He was always a white Russian to me
At his funeral, 
he fell face down into the grave
No flowers
No tears
Cold cuts afterward
'
One crazy sonovabitch,' said my father
'An evil and cantankerous man 
with few redeeming qualities'
A semi-conscious boozer
with a Zorba the Greek spirit
and a Marciano right hook

I want to be just like him, I thought
But Grandma said that senility
isn't something to strive for
Said he drank shots with Clark Gable
Said he saw Washington crossing the Delaware
Said he wrote novels like Appointment in Samarra
by his old friend, John O'Hara

Grandpa was drunk in so many ways
He died a thousand deaths in one night
It was a wonder he got up from the floor
He had questionable luck since the day
he was born

He wandered the planet hungover 
with swollen ankles
and water on the brain
Kept his shoes in his drawer
and his boxers under the bed

He was the Pope of Pottsville
A humdinger of non-civility
A head the size of a Crenshaw melon
Inflated like a regulation-sized basketball 
A sweet tooth for catastrophe
A passion for spitting cherry stones 
into the wind

He held onto his cane like Moses
and shook it with a vengeance
causing a pestilence of bloody noses
and missing teeth

A bottle of cheap whiskey
was his death and salvation
A semi-conscious drifter
wearing khaki work pants
Draining his snot-locker into
a red paisley hanky

His breath could have immobilized a cobra
His body odor could have killed a dog 
His last gulp of Seagram's could have choked a buzzard
and knocked Jesus off his throne

His passing was a six-car pileup on St. Patty's Day
He tumbled down the stairs of the Davis Hotel
Hit his head and broke his neck
And there he lay on the bottom step
A lit stogie burning between his two fat lips
The sneer of death with no regrets.

© 2025 Mark Tulin