A POEM - THE LUCKY ONE SO FAR

THE LUCKY ONE SO FAR
We’d been driving through the desert
me and Kiwi.
He was the only
real
living
contemporary
big time
criminal I’d ever met.
The list of his offenses was long and vile,
and I was sure he’d only spoken to me
of the nicer ones,
as I was a hitch hiker
he’d picked me up only a half hour back.
Finally out there in
the dark
I asked him,
“so, what do you like best about
being a criminal?
The easy money?
the rush?
getting back at the Man?”
He kept his eyes on the road
but I could tell he was doing
some serious thinking.
After a few long minutes he said to me,
“everything.
I like the easy money,
the rush of pulling something off,
the chicks.
Man, I like it all.”
We rode on in silence for a while
and then I offered,
“well, that’s cool.
That you’ve actually found something
you enjoy doing.
That doesn’t seem to happen for most people.”
He smiled and steered on into the night.

A POEM - I WOULD HAVE HATED WORKING FOR HER ANYWAY

I WOULD HAVE HATED WORKING FOR HER ANYWAY
I was back on that island,
back in the USA.
And beyond broke.
There were a few job leads
I was following up.
One was for a reporter with the local newspaper.
An ad read,
GET YOUR START IN JOURNALISM
I sent over my resume
and made a follow up call the next morning.
The editor wasn’t in
and the secretary
transferred me to her voicemail.
I left a message
and then called back a few hours later.
I was on this kick
where I really wanted to give reporting a whirl.
“hello?” said the editor,
when I called back a third time,
late in the afternoon.
“hey, this is Jack Tom.
I sent my resume and-“
“yes,” she said, cutting me off.
(I knew right then she was a bitch)
A typical editor.
“I received your resume,
and I got your voicemail.
But your experience is mostly
in the service industry, right?”
“well, yeah. But the ad said
you were looking for people who wanted
to get their start in journalism.”
“well, we’re looking for people with prior experience.”
I held the phone to my face for another moment.
“but get your start would imply-“
“I’ll keep your resume on file,
and get back to you if we could use you. Bye bye.”
The phone clicked off
before I could respond.
“well,” I said to myself,
snapping my phone shut.
“fuck that bitch.
I’m glad I’m not working for her.”

A POEM - YOU COULD NEVER WIN

YOU COULD NEVER WIN
I was living in that big house alone,
but not completely alone.
I was also living with smoke detectors.
For some outrageous
and godforsaken reason,
the jokers who manufactured
these particular smoke detectors
thought it would be a big funny joke
to build them
so that every minute
they made a shrill chirping sound,
like an electric cricket inside your brain.
So there was a constant chorus
of these fuckers going off,
chirping.
Every single time I heard a chirp,
I had the thought,
“oh, those fuckin’ things!
I’ll smash them apart with my fists!”
But then I’d look at the ceiling,
some thirty feet up,
and think, “jesus, I can’t get up there.”
But finally one day I got fed up.
A man can only tolerate so much bullshit.
Like a monkey,
I began climbing on ledges
and hoisting myself up on and around beams.
I climbed to the highest detector
and shut off the sound option.
then I nailed another one in the next room.
But the chirping continued.
Floor by floor I scoured the ceilings.
Five, six, seven, eight,
how many of these fucking things do you need,
I wondered.
After each one I silenced
I’d stand and wait and listen,
hear the next
and go find it
and put it out of commission.
I began to feel like I was winning
and it felt good.
At last there was silence
and I listened to it and loved it.
I went back into my bedroom
and was about to start in with the words again,
but then another chirp.
“oh, god! What the FUCK IS GOING ON?”
I began to roam around again,
looking for that final bastard
who had the audacity to shatter the silence
that I so yearned for,
and felt I deserved.
But as I searched,
another chirp was heard,
then another.
From all over the house.
The goddamn things were coming back to life,
as though they had minds of their own.
I swung from beams
and ran up and down stairs,
but the chirps started coming from all over,
louder and more frequent than before.
I shook with rage.
“oh! You motherfuckers! I’ll burn you down!”
I was seething and grinding my teeth,
breathing hard.
It was always something.
If it wasn’t one thing
it was a-goddamn-nother.
There was never any peace in the world.
I wondered where those fools got the idea
that there ever could be.
If all the wars ended,
all the thieves stopped thieving
and the rapists stopped raping,
even if all the hunger was fed,
all the thirst quenched,
all the wrongs made right,
there would still be these asshole smoke detectors, chirping away
and ruining my peace,
ruining my life.

Now, what the fuck is it with hotel beds? You go into your room, remove sixteen pillows and then begin the straining process of trying to actually get under the sheets which are tucked so tightly under the mattress that you need a catbar and a chisel to pry up the bedding. What's the point? Getting into bed is supposed to be a pleasant thing, not a fucking chore!

A POEM - TURN IT OFF!

TURN IT OFF!
I hadn’t been home much
in about a decade.
A birthday here,
a Christmas dinner there.
So when I went to visit after a long trip
around the world,
I’d forgotten about
my father’s ridiculously stingy stance
towards water consumption.
He’d snap on the faucet
for a split second
to rinse a dish
or wash his hands,
and when he gave water
to the three dogs
he’d fill the bowl just enough
so that the bottom had gotten wet.
Then I remembered when I was younger,
how I’d get into the shower,
spin the knob
and before the water had adjusted
to a suitable temperature,
before a minute was up,
he’d be wrapping on the door,
“hey, that’s enough!”
or “you’ll drain the well!”
Now sitting there one night,
this was the springtime,
I asked regarding the water,
“didn’t you guys get
eleven feet of snow this winter?
Hasn’t that snow made plenty water?”

A POEM - A BRIEF LOSS OF HIS IDENTITY

A BRIEF LOSS OF HIS IDENTITY
There was a stretch,
in the twelfth grade,
when our friend Chris wasn’t human.
We couldn’t understand why,
but he’d somehow devolved
into this sick, obnoxious
Frankenstein-type monster.
He’d lurch around,
half walk and half run,
making the guttural sounds
of a wordless baby.
Now and then he’d come up
and kick or punch at us,
then fall away,
leaning or jogging
in circles around us.
At first me and my friend Micah
looked at each other wondering,
“now what the hell is this?”
but very soon it got on our nerves.
When we saw him coming
up for an attack
we’d clench our fists
and sock him good
on the side of the head
or in the stomach,
and send him off for a while,
buzzing and whining
in his great leaning circles.
This went on for a few months,
then one day he came in to school
and was back to normal.
None of us spoke
about the incident then.
But now and then we run into him,
and ask him
what the hell it was,
that had happened to him,
during those months,
and all he can do is gasp
and laugh and ask us what
we’re talking about.

A POEM - STRIDES OF THE TALL AFRICAN

STRIDES OF THE TALL AFRICAN
The thing about Nigerian Frank
was that he had these
long fuckin’ legs.
And when walking up stairs,
he’d use those long legs
to skip two steps to one he touched.
So we’d be going along,
talking about some subject,
then we’d reach a staircase,
and suddenly he’d be at the top
while I was only a third the way up.
When I’d finally catch up to him,
he’d say, “my mon, you must
learn to climb stairs foster.”
I’d look back at him,
his long fuckin’ legs,
and I’d say, “shit, Frank. What’s the rush?”
He’d give me this huge,
all-knowing Nigerian smile
and reply, “ah, no mind. We walk.”
And we’d be off again,
walking and talking where we left off,
until the next flight of stairs.

A POEM - THE GAME ISAAC PLAYED

THE GAME ISAAC PLAYED
I had a good friend
in high school, named Isaac.
He had this little trick
that he played.
We’d all be sitting
on a bench at lunchtime,
eating our sandwiches
and drinking our drinks.
Then, at some clutch moment,
when the kid next to him
had a mouthful of soda,
Isaac would turn to him
and scream as loud as he could,
“GGGAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
right into the kid’s ear.
Nearly every time
the victim would spit his drink
all over the floor,
and the rest of us
would laugh wildly
at the spectacle.
And all of us
Would secretly be thinking,
“shit, I’m so glad it wasn’t me.”

A POEM - THAT CRAZY BITCH NEARLY KILLED ME

THAT CRAZY BITCH NEARLY KILLED ME
“oh, you’ll be back here,” she said to me.
“in three, six or nine months.”
“oh, yeah?” I asked,
more concerned about how
she was trying to drive,
light a cigarette,
turn up and down the volume of the radio
and sip a Coke at the same time.
“yeah, it’s true.
I know it because
I get messages
from the arch angel Gabriel.”
“you do, huh?”
I thought she was soon likely
to get a message
from the Western Australian Highway Patrol.
“yeah, and I’m also very affected
by other people’s moods,
their thoughts.”
I was eyeing the passenger side airbag,
thinking that very soon
I’d probably be getting to know it
more intimately that I wanted to,
as we swerved between lanes,
while she dropped burning cigarettes
on the floor
and spilled Coke all over herself
while also trying to pretend
like none of it was happening.
“yeah, very affected by the moods
of the people around me.”
“oh, all right.”
She turned over to me and said,
“and I don’t feel good,”
Then kept staring into my eyes.
I noticed a truck coming
and nodded towards the road.
She looked over at the last second
and said, “oh!” and began to laugh.
I sighed and thought,
“christ, what hell
did I get myself into this time?”

A POEM - IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE

IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE
It brings a tear to my eye sometimes,
to think about my childhood,
and realize that all the time
my grandmother was living upstairs
in that in-law apartment
on the north wing of our house,
she was sitting around alone,
sipping bourbon
and having a hell of a good time
without any of us knowing.
But in hindsight,
it really surprises me,
that until after her death,
I never figured it out,
what with the brilliant,
steaming rages she’d fly into
over the most ridiculous things.

A POEM - THE DISTINGUISHED EMPTY PLATE CLUB

THE DISTINGUISHED EMPTY PLATE CLUB
(dedicated to Nathan Barry)
I’ve found that my favorite people
I’ve come across in life
are the ones who,
when young,
wouldn’t finish their food at dinner
when their parents told them to.
The ones who stubbornly refused
to become “members of the empty plate club,”
but instead chose
to sit there on their asses
all night long,
just to show their parents
and the rest of the world
that they were done being fucked with.

A POEM - YOUR OWN BIGGEST ENEMY

YOUR OWN BIGGEST ENEMY
We drove along,
talking about hitching,
and then she turned to me.
“you know who you’re most likely
to get killed by
in this entire world?”
I thought about it.
The guy who’d given me
my last long ride
was a car stealing,
drug pushing,
house burning,
sadistic, alcoholic killer.
And he’d been high
on rock at the time,
with a beer in his lap.
But he hadn’t killed me.
I was stumped.
Finally she said, “yourself.”
“oh, yeah,” I laughed.
It made sense.

A POEM - WAIT YOUR TURN

WAIT YOUR TURN
I never liked kindergarten
because I never liked to share.
I’d go there
and we’d all just sit around and play,
but the toys were mostly beat and
by the time you’d set something up
or figured out a good way
to have some fun with them,
some little turd would come up and say,
“hey, can I play with these too?”
I’d ask him to wait a bit,
because I was having some fun,
but then the teacher would come over
and tell me to share.
But what the hell ever happened
with waiting your turn?

A POEM - THEY WERE OUT TO GET US

THEY WERE OUT TO GET US
When we were young
we used to build
little bike trails in the woods.
Me, Raph and Abram.
The trails would cut around trees
and go over mounds
and around nicely molded burms.
We’d have one day,
or maybe two
if we were lucky,
to enjoy a trail.
Then the older brothers
of the neighborhood
would find the trail,
cut pits
in the back sides of the mounds
and fill them with broken glass.
They’d gouge ruts in the burms
so that at any speed you’d get stuck
and be sent over the edge
where they drove in sticks with sharpened ends.
And if we somehow navigated those first two,
we’d get clothes-lined
by fishing line near the end.
It was just one of those things in youth
that always pissed me off.

A POEM - GAMES RUINED BY PIECES OF SHIT

GAMES RUINED BY PIECES OF SHIT
When me and Abram used to play
around in his backyard,
our games were always ruined
when his older brother Nathan came out
and threw horse shit at us.
One day we figured
we’d just play far enough away,
way out in his field,
out of range of the horse shit.
We figured he wouldn’t actually
carry shit all that way,
just to throw it at us.
Well, he didn’t.
But the bastard still came out
and found a crab apple tree nearby,
and those hurt even more
than the pieces of shit.
Eventually we just gave it up
and hid out in the woods.