Category: Book o’ Verse

  • In my blue house

    …by guest poet Shonny Vortex.
    In my blue house
    Everyone is I, I
    Talking about themselves
    In my blue house
    Hearts bang on your head
    With drum sticks
    And stars twinkle
    In the daytime
    And fish swim into your mouth
    So you can eat them
    And flowers grow out
    Of your head
    And people have square heads
    And people love squares
    And a blue moon
    Floats at nighttime
    and a yellow moon
    Floats at daytime
    With the stars
    A purple oval-shaped moon
    Flies at daytime and nighttime.
    And there’s a butterfly-shaped moon too.
    May 18, 2003

  • A world of tears

    a moment to mourn.
    that’s all.

  • Stacks of digital photography books

    And a long line of
    enthusiastic
    neatly dressed
    retirees.
    They're pressing toward the front.
    And now they're strip-mining the table
    saying:
       tell me
    sell me
             how to stop time.
  • trash

    At every gas stop along the way, he pulls out trash with his wallet.
    A scrunched up sheet of off-white paper
    and a smaller one – a post-it.
    Out, up for air and then he
    bends over to close a hand on them
    and pull them back up
    off the shadow stained concrete where they fell.
    He straightens himself out a bit.
    He slaps his pants.
    And then he pushes them back down.
    Back down deep.
    Into place.

  • Doorway conversation

    Talking with her about her brother's death
    years back now. And it's the first time we talked.
    She just had a kid
    first kid
    last month
    my son's almost four
    good guy
    big boy.
    Their house looks the same
    even the table
    even the carpet
    and I tell her that.
    The house even smells the same.
    But you can't say the house smells the same.
    Or ask if the sofa's still covered in plastic.
    I think of him often. I tell her that instead.
    I tell her he meant a lot to me, which is true. She says thanks.
    And then I use the word "maudlin." I say: "Sorry to be maudlin."
    But it's the wrong word. And that's what sticks with me later.
    It's not maudlin.
    Her brother's dead.
  • Burble

    Tonight in his sleep, Sam said:
    “He wants a chocolate Gogurt
    and to fight bad guys.”
    He said it a couple of times.
    Always like that — in the third-person.
    And then he fell back asleep.
    And I say:
    Congratulations!
    Enemies of evil!
    Congratulations!
    Gogurt people!
    International chocolate conspiracy!
    You own part of my child’s brain.

  • Party time

    He wasn’t very smart,
    or very rich,
    or very successful.
    But he was six-foot-three.
    And at parties, he would
    slide up silent
    behind his smarter, richer,
    more successful,
    better-looking friends.
    Head to head.
    Back to back.
    And hang out for a while.

  • Driving around

    He said we're longing for a simpler time
    something easy
    refreshing
    familiar
    a malt shop.
    He said the polyester backlash
    is still
    in progress.
  • She played that harp like it was a three-piece band

    Last night I saw
    the best argument
    for 6 billion of us.
    A musician so talented.
    You don't get one so talented
    if there are 600 of us.
    Or 60 million.
    You need really big numbers.
    So maybe that''s why.
    Or at least that's why it's OK sometimes.
    For example:
    Last night.
  • Dropping off my daughter on the first day of school

    The hallways smell like paper and scissors and elmer's glue
    and parents
    roaming around
    inspecting the tile
    quietly comparing notes
    amid sneaker skid
    boom.
    This is America.
    We come here from different countries, from different cultures. 
    We speak different languages.
    But there are two words we all understand.
    And those words are:
    "multipurpose room."