Category: This; And also that

…2 Night

fried.
wiped.
but.
saw.
pelican.

Alameda’s own Red Hills Review was nice enough to recently publish a few of my poems in their issue #2. But wait: the editor of this journal has seemingly inexhaustible lit-related energy and will be putting on a few RHR-related readings over the summer. The first of these is coming up — this Thursday, June 30th, at 7:00 pm, at a stylin’ indepedent Alameda bookstore called Spell-Binding Tales.
I’ll be one of the folks reading that night (under my real name, no less). If you’re in the area, it would be swell to see ya there. In case we haven’t met afore, I’ll be the one who looks like the animation in the corner of the screen, only without the facial hair that magically grows before your very eyes. Which I’m sure comes as a relief to many if not all…

I knew you
when you didn’t
have a card with
Abe Vigoda’s signature on it.
And I was nice to you then.
So just you remember that.

“When the Fish People come,” the General said, “you’ll want to have ice nearby. Lots of it. In this heat, the Fish People can overpower you like that!” He snapped his fingers.
Suzie scribbled a quick note in her pad and circled it:
“Ice.”
* * *
“When you get to Earth, start decomposing right away,” David FishPeople told his class. “Your smell will reduce their ability to resist. The sooner you start to decompose, the easier it’ll be on our troops.”
The students nodded, and Daphne FishPeople spoke quietly into her digital recorder:
“Decompose.”

She’s a stay-at-home mom pulled back into the biz by circumstance.
“Who stole the binkie?”
“I’ll tell you who stole the binkie.”
“He stole the binkie!”

My four-year old daughter:
I thought it was under the couch and
I also tried to look for it everywhere, but
I was having so much fun that
I couldn’t find it.
So it was very sad that you lost your wallet.
My wife:
Well, I was perplexed that we couldn’t find the wallet anywhere in the house.
I was worried that you were so depressed about it.
I felt blue about having more paperwork. And then,
when Chris showed up with the wallet,
I was so happy, I gave him a hug.
Me:
I want to thank everyone.
This has been a wrenching experience.
And now, I’d like to take watch TV.
Catch the game.
Eat a big chocolate model of my brain.

Not so long ago, I was just like you —
sitting around, waiting for the scientists
to discover cheap and safe nuclear fusion.
So they could take us off to Mars.
In ships the size of Delaware.
Now all I want is
a machine that can make a
big chocolate model of my brain.
It’s true!
I want to watch
the game on
a plasma TV
and eat a
big chocolate model
of my brain.

I’ve been writing poems for a few years now, but it was just in the last little bit that I finally got my [insert obscure yiddish word here] together enough to start sending a few batches out for publication. And in a bit of a milestone, this very week, my very first poem got published. On paper even.
So if you happen to find yourself in SF over the next few weeks, keep an eye out for issue #7 of the San Francisco Reader, in finer coffee shops and bookstores throughout The City….

We got snapped at this weekend, asking for directions. We pulled up next to this pleasant seeming, elderly type lady, and we rolled down the window, and we said: “Hi! Excuse me! Can you tell us how to get to thusandsuch? Do we take this turn?” And she said, with a huge twinkly smile, “Yes, you take that right and go straight for 17 miles.” And then, still smiling, but now sinister and suddenly cold, the moisture on her eyes flash-freezing like a splash of water zapped to the far side of Planet X: “Why don’t you buy a map?”
What?!
For the next two miles we ran through different scenarios. What was her problem? I mean, I love to give directions around my hometown. Drive up beside me. Roll down the window. You’ll see how inappropriately pleased I can be, showing off my vast knowledge of the local grid — “Oh yeah, you’re almost there — just three more lights up!” or: “OK, so. Go down past the park with the climby train, take the first right and then the soft left at the high school — you can’t miss it. Hey, you have a nice day too!” Great stuff.
We swung around a wide curve in the road and a jagged stretch of coastline came floating into view. From our vantage point driving along the high cliffs, the beach looked a lot like a squiggle drawn by satellite sensors. And then of course. It was so obvious. What incredible bad luck! — an angry cartographer! We’d stopped an angry cartographer and asked her for directions. It all made sense. No wait, not angry. Just sad, really. In a bittersweet way.
“Why don’t you buy a map?” she’d said. And it echoed echoed echoed as we rolled along toward thusandsuch. “I’m so hungry. No one will hire me. I hate mapquest. Please. Friend. Why don’t you buy a map?”