Category: Book o’ Verse

I pardon myself for burping.
I don’t ask for your pardon.
I burp. I repent.
Case closed.

He can see
in her eyes
that she can see
in his eyes
the crazy.

As I walk out into the street
somebody's shouting at me
shouting in my face
with his teeth near my face.

He asks me if I'm scared of him
I say no
he says I should be. He shouts I should be.
I say I'm harmless.

He shouts some more and then
someone else shouts over at him
-- someone somewhere -- I don't know -- across the street
not at me this time more like for me.

And it sort of pulls me out pulls me into my car.
And I don't lock the door cuz I don't lock the door
and now I'm speeding away
curving away
sliding out into
the shouty night
and I'm twisting back
over my tight right shoulder thinking:

  if I have to
if I have to
if I really really have to

I can always run him over.

As I walk out onto the street
just the very second I leave the coffe shop
somebody’s shouting at me
shouting in my face
with his teeth
near my face.
He asks me if I’m scared of him
and I say no and he says I should be.
He shouts I should be. I say I’m harmless.
He shouts at me some more
and then from across the street
someone else shouts over at him
not at me this time
more like for me
and I’m grateful.
It sort of pulls me out pulls me into my car
and I don’t lock the door cuz I don’t lock the door
and now I’m speeding out into the shouty night
thinking if I have to, if I really have to
I guess I can run him over.

Great-great-grandparents Googling me
just checking in
cork thick-thumbed after
After Life.
Pop.
And every time they’d Google me
a bell would go off.
Some bright blue bell,
that would hover right behind my head.
It’d be like “g,” and then they’d go to the bathroom.
The After Life bathroom.
And then “o” and they’d go to the bathroom again.
So for the whole thing
there’d be three weeks maybe even four weeks
in between bright blue bells.
And that’s how it all went down from start to finish.
Only with some work stuff thrown in that I left out here
and a biplane explosion with my uncle on the plane.
He walked away unscathed, heroic smile
and the flames still ripping at the tarmac.
He gave me a heroic hug
but that’s not the crazy thing.
That’s not even close to being the crazy thing.
The crazy thing is: I don’t even have an uncle.

Is it too much
to want to be
the John Wayne
of poetry?

We were so lucky
to be kids
right there
in the sticky sweet center of
the golden age
of t-shirts

Mall-store walls plastered to the sky
with receding rows of iron-ons --
too many to pick just five

And when one of my older brothers
wore that shirt that said:
"I'm so happy I could just shit."

  Well I was that happy too.

We were so lucky
to be kids
right there
in the sticky sweet center of
the golden age
of t-shirts.
Mall-store walls plastered to the sky
with receding rows of iron-ons —
too many to pick just five.
And when one of my older brothers
wore that shirt that said:
“I’m so happy I could just shit,”
Well I was that happy too.

Don’t think of it
as me
eating your sandwich.
Think of it as
your sandwich
hiding inside me
for a day or two.

Rising to greet you.
Pulling out a chair.
Licking clean your plate.
Sanity bread crumbs sticking to the side of
your mouth your chin your shirt until
wiped away soft backhand skin.
Sanity letting you sit down first.
Beached and bleached into blue-white seashell fragments.
Crushed and sprinkled over a wide path.
Then sanity taking a nap.

There’s a bench by the Santa Cruz merry-go-round
where you can sit and watch the brass-ring jockies
as they spin past at high speeds
watch their faces shift from
crazed release last miss to
tight mad joy next shot
hook swinging into view
watch hands pull back
fingers snap from
loose, curved noodles to
crooked
ready
reach.