A POEM - THE STRANGE FELLOW

THE STRANGE FELLOW
He came into the bar
sat down next to me.
Right next to me.
I tried to ignore him
but after he’d tapped me on the arm
several times
I turned to him and said,
“WHAT?”
He licked his thin lips
and his eyes were fierce and desperate,
embedded deep into his pale green face.
“you don’t know what it’s like, do you?” he asked.
“You don’t know what it’s like
to be haunted by your frantic, murderous self!”
I studied his eyes
so fierce
so desperate.
“I’ve moved past pain and fear,” I said.
“I’m a complete human being now.”
He swallowed hard and hissed,
“you’ve never known god’s wrath,
but you will.”
“maybe I will,” I smiled,
“but it can be no worse
than what life has to offer.”
“oh!” he shouted. “oh!”
He jumped off his barstool
ran back out the door,
clenching his head in his hands.
The barmaid finally made it down
to where I was sitting.
“what was that all about?” she asked.
I took a sip from my glass
and muttered,
“I don’t know, dear.
I guess he didn’t want a drink after all.”

A POEM - SO MUCH WITH SO LITTLE

SO MUCH WITH SO LITTLE
I’ve realized
these past few years,
while tapping at the keys,
that there aren’t many writers
out there
whose words are worth a damn.
And so many times
I put a book back down
faster than I picked it up.
I’ve also discovered
that many of the books
sold in the bookstores
can also be found in the bins
at your local dump.

A POEM - MORE THAN ONE SITTING

MORE THAN ONE SITTING
Every time
I’d write a story
which I didn’t finish
in the same sitting,
I’d go back to it another day,
read over what I had
and then think to myself,
“oh, shit. how the hell
will I get out of this one?”

A Poem - Hard to Find

HARD TO FIND
It’s hard
to find
a sense of belonging
when you live in a house
where you’re constantly
walking through spider webs.
and I like that.
walking through spider webs
that is.

A POEM - HOLIDAYS

HOLIDAYS
When I was running my little painting biz
during my first stint in college
I booked this porch job.
It was a tiny contract
and I mainly decided to do it
to help out the old geezer
who couldn’t bend his back anymore.
Well, when summer came
I sent over a couple yahoos I’d hired.
They banged the job out
and complained the whole time
about how there was too much scraping
and not enough time budgeted.
I shrugged ‘em off
and soon fired the bigger one,
this bigtime loser named Will.
His buddy who was a nice kid then quit too
and I soon forgot about the pair.
But one time maybe a month later
I was driving through
That neighborhood,
and then I was coasting by that house.
The old man and his old lady
were on the porch.
They noticed my truck
and began to wave as I approached.
I waved back and smiled this pathetic smile,
but as I got closer
and then passed them
I realized they weren’t waving to me,
they were waving for me to stop.
But I didn’t have time to stop
so I kept rolling by
and as I did I heard the old man yell,
“you’re goddamn painters leave holidays!”
It took me a moment
to figure out who’d painted the thing,
as I had maybe fifteen people working for me
and they were constantly getting
hired
or fired
or quitting of their own accord.
Then I remembered that bigtime loser Will
and I smiled and realized that
everybody in the world was just out here
trying to fuck everybody else.
And we were all doing a pretty good job of it.

A POEM - THE ELUSIVE ONE

THE ELUSIVE ONE
Every day I woke up
to an alarm
and began the process of
getting my aching body out of bed.
Food,
a shit,
put on my filthy clothes
and pack my things for work.
At the jobsite I’d hate my life.
Back breaking,
knee grinding,
mind numbing work.
The only thing I liked was
listening to the Jamaicans jive
or the Dominicans sing.
A few times a day
a certain idea for a poem
would come into my head,
it’d bring smile to my face
I’d make a point to remember it
to write it down
when I got home.
But each night when I got home,
for the life of me,
I couldn’t remember that poem.
I’d sit and stare tiredly at the screen,
my body always aching
and I’d wonder,
“now just where the fuck did that little poem go?”