Sure, you could say I’m in a slump lately. It’s the bump and grind of blue collar life and it ain’t getting prettier. Perhaps ill blame it on my age. This month spells out the completion of my quarter century.
Here’s the formula; maybe I have too much time to think. I’m in the truck, and within the first hour I’m spitting out stuff about how open and free the morning highway is, and all this imagery starts up with my dad and I in our early morning house moves. That was a long time ago, damn. We would get up at 6 and drink down some bitter Dunkin Donuts coffee and wreck our bodies for the rest of the day loading up our earthly belongings into that rented U-haul. It’s was always some shitty truck with gray tape across the faded vinyl and absolutely no horn. We must have done this together half a dozen times, and I don’t think he knows it, but those are some of my favorite memories of us. Sure, the moving was ball raking stuff, but at the end of the day we moved a goddamn mountain together, and that’s something to be proud of.
The creative phase can go on all day and I’m left at the end of the shift with nine pure hours of associative free form material about my life and relationships. It’s a daunting thing though, perhaps you don’t understand. It’s the mental effort of passing a grapefruit out your nostril. You need to do it in pieces, not just have one lump sum of citrus and mucous come popping out of you. It’s too much cathartic shit for one little day.
My notebook is something the cat likes to sleep on or paw at. I haven’t gone to a pub or taken a walk or kissed a girl in months. Wordplay is something used for little more than insulting obnoxious co-workers. On more than one occasion I have substituted the dizzy caress of bum wine for cuddling a lover to sleep.
Maybe it’s all just part of getting old, cranky and apathetic; but ill just call it a slump for now, until I break my hip. Maybe it’s the Feng-Shui of having a job you like and some goddamn town you can stand that evades me. Ah, fuck it, lets have some poetry!
Here’s to my readers, you know who you are. Daddy loves each and every one of ya…
Sunday, September 18, 2005
We can't live without an enemy...
It is a mere coincidence that her face resembles yours,
In the clefts and pitches of pearl skin,
From the distance even,
That of half a parking lot.
It was an illusion that her eyes,
That beamed with assumption and confidence,
Found me steady in my tracks,
And revealed me for who I am.
It was a toss up on what bus to take,
Yet I picked the one where your soft voice sat behind me,
Helping me smile aloofly all of a sudden,
In the ways I will myself to suffer heroically.
I scribble your name with deep black chalk,
On the hallways and in the elevator shaft,
Ill do it all while I’m sleeping,
So I can believe all the waking day in my stalker.
Ill shut tight my eyes,
And the old woman’s Spanish chatter,
Reminds me of your bedroom coo,
In the way it pitches like a sinking tugboat.
I will put on that old movie soundtrack,
That we used to hum to in the car,
But out of respect and fear of ourselves,
Remained silent for her long song about failed lovers.
It’s a matter of chance that your name appears,
More frequently than I might imagine,
In a novel or an article,
As I sob pitifully to myself.
My stage is a congress of torpid memories,
And I play them all like a one man band,
Wiping my egoists tears into the crook of my arm,
And dreaming that I’m waiting for the search party.
It was a conflict of interests,
Yet a well timed event,
That we each uttered ‘I love you’,
In something like unison.
I’m lucky that carrying your picture around,
Grants me so much self importance,
So that at any moment of the work day,
I can feel my gut plunge like a water slide.
I’m fortunate that I can recall every detail of those months,
Because it makes for good bait,
As I look for ways to bring you up in conversation,
The cancerous trophy.
See here? I might be overheard saying,
And it was me pointing back on my life,
And instead of now having a hope or a dream,
Just pointing an excited finger at a blank portrait of you.
In the clefts and pitches of pearl skin,
From the distance even,
That of half a parking lot.
It was an illusion that her eyes,
That beamed with assumption and confidence,
Found me steady in my tracks,
And revealed me for who I am.
It was a toss up on what bus to take,
Yet I picked the one where your soft voice sat behind me,
Helping me smile aloofly all of a sudden,
In the ways I will myself to suffer heroically.
I scribble your name with deep black chalk,
On the hallways and in the elevator shaft,
Ill do it all while I’m sleeping,
So I can believe all the waking day in my stalker.
Ill shut tight my eyes,
And the old woman’s Spanish chatter,
Reminds me of your bedroom coo,
In the way it pitches like a sinking tugboat.
I will put on that old movie soundtrack,
That we used to hum to in the car,
But out of respect and fear of ourselves,
Remained silent for her long song about failed lovers.
It’s a matter of chance that your name appears,
More frequently than I might imagine,
In a novel or an article,
As I sob pitifully to myself.
My stage is a congress of torpid memories,
And I play them all like a one man band,
Wiping my egoists tears into the crook of my arm,
And dreaming that I’m waiting for the search party.
It was a conflict of interests,
Yet a well timed event,
That we each uttered ‘I love you’,
In something like unison.
I’m lucky that carrying your picture around,
Grants me so much self importance,
So that at any moment of the work day,
I can feel my gut plunge like a water slide.
I’m fortunate that I can recall every detail of those months,
Because it makes for good bait,
As I look for ways to bring you up in conversation,
The cancerous trophy.
See here? I might be overheard saying,
And it was me pointing back on my life,
And instead of now having a hope or a dream,
Just pointing an excited finger at a blank portrait of you.
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