A POEM - THE WORD HUNGRY MIND

THE WORD HUNGRY MIND
The words are too tired
tonight
to pick themselves up
of their own accord
and find their way
onto the page.
And like the words,
I am also too tired
to try and force them out.
Instead I sit
hunched over the keys,
that same hunch I use at the bar.
But instead of a drink in my hand,
I grasp for the smallest poem,
a line even,
to satisfy the word hungry mind.

A POEM - THE BOSS AND THE POLITICS

THE BOSS AND THE POLITICS
The ten hour days
sun burning my flesh
paint in my eyes with aching back.
Those days I didn’t enjoy.
But neither did I enjoy
the rides home from the job site with the boss.
He was one of those people
who liked to tell you his opinion about things,
despite you never having asked.
He’d spout off about the problem
of illegal immigration,
then move onto
the left-of-liberal-secret-commie-black
supremacist group
that was trying to gain control of
America.
I just stared out the window,
sometimes peeling paint from my skin.
I’d been to over forty countries
and not one of them bothered me.
Governments often pissed me off
but I felt small enough to go unnoticed,
or at least slide around their laws.
Everything to me was on a more local level,
a more personal basis.
If nobody was in my face,
fucking me around or anybody I cared for,
to hell with the rest of it.
I had more important things to consider,
like what I was gonna eat for dinner.

A POEM - GOOD TO LOSE

GOOD TO LOSE
I hadn’t seen John the Scrabbler
since I’d lived on that island five years before
but I rode my bicycle into town,
knowing he’d be there.
He was always sitting
inside or out front
of the coffee shop.
And he was always waiting for a game.
He had a long white beard
and a balding head of white hair
and when kids came in
they asked him things like,
“where are your deers, Santa Claus?”
John the Scrabbler
claimed he’d played close to
40,000 games of Scrabble.
He wasn’t bad.
This time he was inside.
I went up to him.
“John,” I said. “Scrabble?”
He nodded and unfolded the board
which was already on his table.
“how do I know you?” he asked me.
“five years ago I played you all summer
and only beat you once.”
He stared at me for a long time,
then asked quietly,
“you beat me?”
I smiled.
“yeah, once. We probably played a couple hundred games.” Another long time passed
and then he leaned back and said,
“oh, yes. I remember you. You did beat me.”
He finished setting up the board
and we drew letters to see who picked first.
It would be a long summer
and I knew I was in for quite a few
disappointments
with my Scrabble game.
John the Scrabbler was just too good,
but I liked to go over there,
each day if I could,
and take a beating on the board.
It was good to lose,
good in many ways.

A POEM - A MILLION BIRTHS AND DEATHS

A MILLION BIRTHS AND DEATHS
When I was eleven
I was already fed up with life,
very tired of living.
Friends would come over
and we’d sit around
and eventually I’d say,
“I’m bored. This is so boring.
Isn’t there anything to do?”
I was always bored
in those days.
It wasn’t the small town
with it’s one general store.
It wasn’t the friends I had because
they were fun kids.
It was something deeper,
something embedded in my brain,
or soul,
if you believe in such things.
It was a deep seeded exhaustion
from the feeling
that I’d already lived out
a million births and deaths.

A POEM - SORRY BABE, I REALLY AM

SORRY BABE, I REALLY AM
She called me up
on the phone one night.
It was late
and I didn’t answer
because I was asleep.
She sounded very drunk.
Mostly all my friends
got very drunk each night.
She kept saying into the phone
at long, slow intervals “you...you...YOU...you...you...YOU!”
Then there was a longer silence
which she finally broke by whispering,
“YOU did this to me...”
After a little heavy breathing
the phone clicked off.
In my head I had the thought,
“god, I fuckin’ love her!”

A POEM - EARNING OUR FUN

EARNING OUR FUN
In elementary school
we had this certain teacher
that wouldn’t let us out to recess
until each student had picked up
twenty tiny pieces of trash
from the floor.
Peanuts or pieces of dirt,
whatever. Just had to be trash.
After we’d picked them up,
we’d have to go up to her
and hold out our hand while she’d count,
“one, two, three” and on up to twenty.
But there was this one girl
who always had fewer than twenty.
She’d have maybe eighteen or nineteen.
I wondered,
each time she went up
to get her palmful of dirt inspected,
if she was trying to pull one over on the teacher
or if she just couldn’t count very well.

A POEM - ADVICE TO THE GREEN REGARDING UNEMPLOYMENT

ADVICE TO THE GREEN REGARDING UNEMPLOYMENT
He came to me for advice
about remaining unemployed.
I had a knack for it
and he knew I’d have something good.
“sir, I really don’t wanna get a job,” he complained.
“I mean, I need to work and make some money,
but I really don’t wanna work.”
I smiled back at him, said,
“I know what you mean.”
He looked around nervously,
then turned back to me.
“but I’ve got this interview. I already spoke
with the guy on the phone. I know
he’ll offer me the job. But I don’t know
what to do, to not get it.”
I thought for a few moments,
then grinned wisely.
“you could always use the old
shit on your hand shake.”
“the what?” he asked, curious.
“sure, when you go into the interview
to shake hands with the bastard,
have a noticeable smudge of
shit on your hands. It works every time.”
The young man shook his head.
“I don’t know where you learn your tricks, Mr. Tom,
but you certainly have them up your sleeve!”