ThirtyEight

I would like to see

The year 1998

From where I am now

37:2

right in front of me

i watched a man pull pepsi;

half drank; from garbage.

 

 

and i thought how we think we’ve all been there.

to justify the sight of melancholy.

 

half smoked butts, or bowls,

or a pair of jeans all week:

for week on week on week.

or hoping things are better today.

walking to the store,

“for health”,

with no money for gas.

or preferring black coffee:

haven’t fit milk in the budget for months.

 

pretending you can

sympathize with other lives

that face true hardship.

 

or watching the birds of the balcony,

seeing things are better today.

 

 

Tanka: 25 – The Mechanic Thought

she spoke in cursive.

speaking softly. word to word.

she spoke in riddle.

he said, “she’s a Gemini.”

I’m a Cancerous old man.

haiku: 36 (unconventional haiku 1)

like a junkie

all my energy leaves me

3 hours after I wake.

I Saw a Hawk With a Broken Wing and Everyone Was Staring (another draft (pending review))

I’ve read the things you’ve written,

not to say I don’t like them,

just not what I usually read.

I ate 3 eggs for breakfast,

pie,

potatoes,

green beans,

12 oz steak twice in 12 hours.

and not to say I know what I’m doing,

but I’m finding I’m capable at quite a few things.

Gonna try and make it to San Diego in two years,

get on that house boat and float around a while.

Some say money is trouble,

do things to help others –

I only think of myself.

Save another hundred,

pay some loans ,

do what I want.

I use to read these poems.

I use to when I was 14,

give or take,

short syllables,

lots of punctuation,

real emotion.

I use to think someday things would just go as planned,

I use to plan,

I use to plan to much.

I use to write everyday,

Now I’m not even writing.

Just thinking,

penning,

prose,

improper,

Unimportant.

The Church Bell Hit The Wrong Note

I woke up and laid in bed,

writing in my head.

Sentences explaining love made and love lost,

girls who I knew and have forgotten and

explanations for the reasons I do the things I do,

(and the things I do not do anymore).

I woke and walked downstairs to get coffee and

to further expand the ideas in my head.

I had a smoke and the writings began to leave my head.

The ideas explaining my generation –

what I at least thought I knew of my generation.

I thought harder.

I remembered a girl who had thin lips and another who

had dark hair and thin hips.

I remember a kid who lit my shoes on fire and

a kid who’s eye I hit with a black walnut.

I showered and forgot more.

I grabbed my pad and headed to the library to try and

get these ideas out before they left.

and the church bell rang,

and the church bell hit the wrong note.

and I forgot.

haiku: 35

a semi-certain

sort of attitude only

results in question

Tiger

prose or poems.

o’holy find love!

move toward a goal.

what was that she said?

stop now.

maybe not.

continue.

rejoice.

drugs. drugs. drugs.

stop now.

what did I say to you?

I miss the mother and son who sat behind me, my seatmate, the comfort.

No one makes noise from Roc to Cuse. The Lady who took my seat eats

crackers quietly and rubs her finger tips in the aisle. She flips vanity fair reading

the ads and plows another cracker into her beaked face.

15 minutes till noon, when I’ll allow myself to start drinking the booze I brought along in my bag.

9-10 more hours until Boston. I bought the ticket, I’ll take the ride.

she refuses to

hold conversation. I hope

they sell bottled wine.

All stops went quick, hoping to get into Boston early. Slept from Albany to  Schenectady.

Too many hits of tequila in the bathroom. Just left Springfield, headed toward Wooster.

Had noodles and coffee to burn off some liquor. Both were terrible.

Dinner lady, forty something, black and from Chicago.

Hope to find a sandwich shop in Portsmouth and a good coffee and maybe flowers.

I want time to sit and enjoy a Marlboro.

Haiku: 34

I want to go to

Pennsylvania to find the

knowledge of truck stops.

I’ll sleep tonight and wake to her serious morning face of deep, blonde haired concentration

“dropping words like bombs,” that’s a classic cliche,

no, we’re tying meaning to verbs and forgetting

structure.

 

prose works best in conversation,

spontaneous if under the right influence.

the last thing on my to-do list was “write”,

the five things above it were “find a job”.

 

He’d say things like “groovy” and make me tell him what I’ve been up to

when all I wanted to know was the things he’d done in his life.

I saw him once in a suit, and he told me it would be the only time.

about 6’2″, or so, dark short hair, quick on the go but carefully slow,

I think of stopping over every time I pass his home.

 

I left for a day but came back the next morning,

a futon wasn’t going to cut it.

 

one step at a time, bud.

 

I know a girl who’ll travel 400 miles to see me,

and I’ve done the same. who told me I was her best friend,

and I’m beginning to think the same. She said to me once,

“you can stay home and write all day and I’ll go to work, that’ll

work just fine.” But I guess that’s the thing

with myth – you never know when it’s true.

 

I started this bit two years ago,

I’ll try again in another two.