EMERGENCY ROW

after I boarded the plane
and sat down in my assigned seat
the flight attendant lady
came up to me
and said with an eager smile,
“do you speak English?”
I blinked and nodded
and she said, “are you willing
and able to assist
in the event of an emergency?”
I looked away for a minute
organized the words in my head
deciphered the meaning
and said, “yes.”
because that is what you do
in those situations.
but in reality
I was just very excited
and pleased
that, unlike how I felt
and unlike
how I imagined I looked
everything was apparently normal
and in fact my body
was not even on fire

POST SHITTY POEM

what happens after writing
another
shitty poem?
do you go back out to the bars?
call an ex girlfriend
and tell her you still love her?
get a haircut
from a bald man?
run into the woods?
try again?
who knows?
anything can happen
after writing another shitty poem.
it’s the good poems
you need to worry about.

ALL RELATIVE

it had been cold
so fucking cold
that when the sun returned
from a two week
unpaid vacation
and the temp reached 25 F
we were all walking around
with big smiles
instead of face masks
and scarves
and when we passed one another
on the streets
the only thing we could say
through our toothy grins
was, “feels like summer, huh?”
(or for the retired Massachusetts couple
who I often ran into during the week
“feels like summah!”)

THE CHIEF

if you go outside the bar
for a smoke
around 8 pm
you can see him approaching
like a giant bowling ball
pushing through mud
down the cigarette littered sidewalk.
depending on the time of year
it’ll be day or night
but all year round
his eyes will be great slits
above a steam-rolled brown nose
and slobbering purple lips
that smile with more meaning
than Mona Lisa’s cunt.
as he passes by you’ll notice his shiny black hair
pulled back in a pony tail
and after he babbles something to you
always indecipherable
he’ll ease on by
and one or two people
also outside the bar
will mutter, “there goes the chief.”

THE YOUNG SOBER

they are there at the coffee shop
all the time
if they are not at a table
talking about their past addictions
to drugs or alcohol
they are just outside the door
sucking the life
from one cigarette after another.
they talk about how many
days sober they are
or months
or years
and they talk about it
as though it is the only thing
that means anything
to them.
as though they are great warriors
in an epic battle and
for all I know
they probably are.
but every time I see these kids
I wonder which of us
has a harder road ahead

LIKE THIS

to live like this
sometimes just making it
day to day
or drink to drink
but still maintain efforts
however small
of making something of yourself
becoming somehow great
or even just doing something significant
with your life
you have to be very good
incredible, even
at being ready to buck up
hunker down
and fully utilize
the rare moments of sanity
when they pop up
like dandelions
from muddy snow banks
on a cold, sunny day in January

HOW DO THEY DO IT?

there are people out there
who can tolerate
a tremendous amount of bullshit.
they can wake in the morning
and go off to some job they despise
get told what to do
by some boss who they hate
go home to a place
they’re stuck
to the company of a partner
who they feel
is ruining their life
stunting their growth
or otherwise driving them
towards madness
and they can do this all
over and over again
day after day.
while for some other people out there
waking up in the morning
is bad enough