Silly Poems Monday...

Give me back
My 212 number
I'll give you my 646 in return
And a cordless olive branch
Think about all those people who now have or had our numbers
Like old lovers
Passing through eastern standard for a time together

Transits

Bermuda

This is a story about unhealthy love. In the end she quits smoking. In the end she dials him and hangs up. In the middle she makes her mother cry. In the middle her mother makes her cry. A scene takes place in Baja. She has a headache. Moody in Bermuda shorts. He asks her how bad it is on a scale of 1-10. She says its an 8. He wonders what she’s like at 9 or 10. She has lied, its only a 5. She calls her family collect on a pay phone. The steel phone chord is tightly wound against her hand. The hand is in a fist. The fist is drained of its tan. Her knuckles have gone white. Her father picks up. “Yes, we accept.” She says, “We have arrived. Everything is fine. Really, everything is fine.” He says, “The Late Show is on. We’re having popcorn.” In the beginning, which is told as a dream remembered at the end, she is little, tucked in bed, fighting sleep with the fear that all the gown ups are having a party downstairs. In the dream, she sneaks out of bed and sees them in clusters around a punch bowl and a record player, laughing and naked.

For August

Even then when we could not look yet
We found a room and hung up our coats to dry a while

Candles flicker with the window shutters
The muted howl

In sorrow stencil a menagerie
Even if you only add a squawking penguin
It is something

Newish

When you least expect it, a reprieve
Life is still and cold as steel
Yet supple It
Coils and meets your shape
Heavy-lidded with sleep and relief
No longer having to steel oneself

NEC

riding on the northeast corridor
watching the graceful burlesque of the anheuser-busch eagle
sleepy eyed down the line


Trifecta

One is what you are,
One is your mask,
One is the tug of your body,
Grounding, leveling
Stomach intuition
The cowgirl lassoing in your girth

Slumdog Millionaire Meets My Parents

My parents and I watched it together this past New Years. It was a really memorable and funny moment in time for me. They hadn't been to a movie theater since Grease was released. In general, my family is not big on outings. Why go out in the cold of a theater or a sports stadium when you can watch all in HD on DVR? is our motto. But my father's best friend told my father that when he saw the movie, the whole audience gave it a standing ovation at the end. This tipped my father and mother's interest and halfway through dinner, we decided to go for it. I know it was going to be a tender moment when my father insisted on the popcorn. "I wish we hadn't eaten so much," he said. "Why?" I said. Because a movie means we eat popcorn." "It doesn't have to." I said. I thought I was looking out, my father has a heart condition and so I didn't think it would be good idea. We ended up getting a large and with a lot of butter pressed on top, as per his request. As tender for me--him trying to tip the cash register person, him passing gas in the lobby without shame, my mother and father having a point by point running commentary about what was happening. They were still at home. Why is it this way with them always?

Boaed

Last night feather boas flung out of my mouth, hideous magentas, frightening electric neon blues, patterns that match the interior of some ancient party purses

Last Night I Finally Saw Neil Young In Concert

In the middle of his set, Jeff Tweedy stops and says, "Every day on this tour felt like Christmas Day, not only because Neil Young is a mythical figure on par with Santa Claus but because of the people you meet along the way." I tend to agree. I didn't do tour, just a show, but I met some cool people and it really was that surreal. Claus is a good standard bearer because as godlike as NY is, he’s always a tender-hearted, benevolent presence--comments like, "If I play any longer, I might run out of hits" or his extended love letter to the American automobile in the wake of one of the most turbulent times it has ever faced, went right to the heart.