as if reality were the property of fools

a birthday poem

and here I am typing
these words
with yet another
year gone by
with yet another
woman at my side
as if reality
were the property of fools

knuckles coarse from
banging out the minutes
saying forget the night

whose shadows
are only strangers
casing the dawn

waking to do laundry
make eggs
change
the litter box
mop floors
drink water
drink beer
cut toenails
scrub toilets
read poems
write poems
reject world
receive phone
calls
count pennies
sit in sunshine
dream Quixote’s dream

and listen to old
toothless
howl
against the
mountains
rising over arcadia

the only thing that lasts

            for Tim Armentrout

through thunderstorms, through heat waves, stubbed toes, traffic signals, eggs and bacon
burning on the stove, cars stalling, dogs barking, women screaming, pleading,
loving, babies wailing, refrigerators dying, washing machines washing, throats gulping
down water and booze, through rotting fruit and
exercise, lawn mowing,
clogged gutters, toilet brushes, cats scratching, through television shows, dreams
rotting, supermarket lines, parking lots, dumpsters, post offices, bowling alleys,
customer service, higher education, life expectation, through roommate laughter,
through blocks, through stale bread, through isolation, through empty apartments,
through wives and pregnancy and brown bag lunches, cheap beer, broken pencils
and keyboards, carpel tunnel, through dirty rugs and dirty tubs, through good
sex and bad sex, sunshine, moonshine, through fast food and fine dining, death,
rejection letters, breakups, divorces, arguments and happy endings is the poem strong and true    

a poetry lesson

to be a poet, he said, you have to be
comfortable with a microphone
to get up there
and really lay it down

that creating poetry
was only 15
percent
of the process

the other 85 belonging
to research and
submissions

and that the only
way you’d
make it
if at all
was to be
able to wallpaper
your walls with rejections

well, I’ve wrestled
the microphone
have created
have processed
have wallpapered
the walls of my house
and of my mind

and the only way
I’m making it
these days
is with
a handful of
Vaseline and a kind view

it’s not so bad
when you consider
all the artists out there
still retaining hope
that someday
they’ll be discovered
as a rare and precious
thing

meanwhile
those of us
who write because
we must
will simply
go on doing
just that

frying eggs
pumping gasoline
battling women

imagining still-life
if for only
a moment       moving

legend

                        they say he was once a doctor or
                        a lawyer, some big time honcho
                        who one day decided he’d
                        had enough of his wife
                        and children, bills, the white
                        fence, the American flag, fine
                                    dining, neighbors, friends, traffic,
                        library cards, eggs over easy, Sunday
                        mass and the world at large

so he left
he left everything behind
everything that matters
to those still living
a life that begins
with the pledge of allegiance
and ends on knees
thanking god
for days waking
and healthy
and bountiful

for a life of wandering
of internal dialogue
for the infernal
eyes of judgment
for 5 cent can
exchange for
showers of rain
water for timelessness
pure and sound
for the shadows
of crows
picking carcasses
from freeways
for angels
for demons
for a closer look
at all things immortal

and there

stands the old boy
fishing nickels
from soda machines
and telephone booths
a beard mugging his face
a thick matted dread
the length of his frame
eyes of defunct
traffic signals
frightening mothers
and their children
from fast food lines

and there stands
the old boy
sun burned and
frozen stoned
against the firm
pillows of democracy

there stands the old boy
who gave everything
for nothing

which I think
in terms most sincerely
means everything

         a poetry reading

I was parked down on Mercer Street

listening to a poetry reading

over the speakers.

a disc so old it skips now

but I have all the words

memorized anyway.  in my rear view

I could see a young prostitute,

maybe 19 in a tube top

and blue jeans

propositioning an

octogenarian to meet

her on the playground.

dozens of children

poured

out of the venue

where I was to read

at an open mic.

the promoter charged

$2 for performers

and $3 to sit in the audience.

in exchange we were

offered stale cookies

soda and burnt coffee.

it felt moderately like a support group.

“hi, I’m joe and I’m a poet.”

“hi joe.”

reading at an open mic

is much like farting

in the supermarket

while you’re bending

over to retrieve an avocado.

everyone hears

something

but they never

make eye contact

or attempt to locate

the source.

a couple poets read to

a bare audience

to children running

and texting

and twatting

and fingering the

future of their own idiocy

and then an all female

children’s musical

group is announced. 

they are all 13 and they sing

songs by Led Zeppelin

and The Velvet Underground

and flick their tongues

at all of us as they

crash their instruments.

it is all highly

inappropriate

and slightly

discomforting.

one of the mothers

records them

from the front row

the crack of her

fat ass slicing

through the back

of her lawn chair.

I leave before

I’m called

to the stage

saving my poetry

about fat people

farting

nervous pissing

and critical judgment

for a bar, a bedroom

or an old cardboard box.

outside the hooker

and the old man

are missing.

I’m sure he got

his money’s

worth.  

maybe some day

we all will.

the fat and the furious

                       

she stood there in the checkout line pouring Skittles into her gaping hole.  her face was covered in acne and scars and her belly fell from a shirt too short to support her needs.  it hung there white and veiny and I kept waiting for it to somehow drop off her sides, for her arm fat to slump down like a heavy sweatshirt kicked to the floor and for her face to peel away into a beautiful woman.  at least the woman she might have been before this moment, arguing with the cashier over the price of Diet Pepsi as flecks of red and yellow, orange and green leapt from her open mouth onto the conveyer belt where I had already begun unloading my groceries. 

house call

here at the kitchen table where I’ve always done my writing.  wherever I have lived I’ve always been here.  right here feeling the industrial breeze, the sulfur well breeze, the suburban breeze. 

it’s all the same.  and each comes with venerable urgency.  a desire to make it.  to see through it.  to feel the university of all ages through the blandness of leaves. 

as she sits in the other room studying for Boards.  our torments both consist of form and content.  but when so much depends upon a vast curriculum of knowledge I feel foolish beside the white pines eating nectarines and debating the next line.

henry zane

          to my unborn son 

when we found out we were going to have a baby we went to the Oakvale graveyard in search of names.  it was on a hill and the road to get there was a single lane that tested your courage all the way up. 

we parked and were alone.  I was simultaneously horny and slightly afraid.  I wanted to have sex and get interrupted by zombies.              

we stepped out of the car and began walking.  my grandmother is buried here, she said.  there’s a lot of history here.  can’t you just feel it.  it’s like a slow motion wave, she said. 

it’s true.  I could feel the wave.  I could feel it coming on.  as if all souls buried there pushed a calm and subtle breeze against the living. 

she wrote down possible names on the back of a receipt.  I had purchased toilet paper, tennis balls, cantaloupe and paper clips. 

I told her I wanted the name to be tough whether it was a boy or a girl I wanted the name to take no shit from anyone. 


as long as we love it, she said, everything will be just fine. 
but sometimes love isn’t enough, I thought.  sometimes you need a cold stone name to say, fuck with me again and I’ll drag you out of here by your eye sockets.   

          

yard art

                        for Mike, who belongs to this story

driving south on route 20 you see all kinds of things: a two-story tall chicken, Christ from blow-up to porcelain, even one black and proud.  fountains.  planters.  statues of gnomes, gargoyles, dragonflies, pink flamingos.  old tires, pieces of wood, toilets, eroded cars, outhouses and couches.  there are silhouettes of women bending over and farmers smoking pipes, cows, fences, Christian reminders, all artificial, all seemingly purposeless. 

sometimes you even see the owners perched on stoops drinking cans of Natural Lite waving, or very kindly rocking back and forth on porch swings older than they are and they all sit there with nowhere to go and no one to meet.

but the other day I saw the best one what must have been thousands of bell jars stacked on the porch each one full of earth and worms, a mixture of Halloween and Christmas decorations covering the double-wide.  twinkling colored lights in all their glory here in May.  and a three-legged Doberman panting in the sun its two front paws holding down the remains of a goat skull.  while a man fat, glorious, and stinking hunched shirtless in a kiddy pool gazed at the road smoking a cheap cigar.  his arms held up high revealed heavy black curls.  and a woman behind him, too fat for a two-piece scrubbed him with the broken head of a deck brush.

this is love, I thought.  as broken and damaged as it is.  this is love.  we should all be so lucky, to have our undercarriages wiped clean of life’s little inanities.   

9 to 5

            to all my coworkers then and now

“…there is nothing
that will put a person
more in touch
with the realities
than
an 8 hour job.”  

-Charles Bukowski

I grew up in the service industry.  waiting on everyone else. 

there is nothing worse than waiting on everyone else.  no matter who you are and how much money you make there comes this unequivocal sense of entitlement when approached by someone in an apron and a nametag.  especially if you’ve never experienced firsthand the misfortunes of service.  and to be the recipient of such unadulterated privilege is perhaps the greatest provocation for madness. 

I’ve often contemplated the ruin of certain customers in my tenure.  some more subtle than others.  a few drops of mop water in your diet soda.  steam a scab into your latte.  even play with my ass a little before handing you your breakfast sandwich.  the cornerstone of any nutritious beginning. 

while others would receive a more gratifying convolution.  I would leap through the drive-thru window strangling the cigarette from your lips as your children route me on.  I would tackle you in the lobby after you refused to tip noting a minute imperfection in your experience and beat you to near-death with your walker. 

but my personal favorite is to arrive at work happier than I’ve ever been.  coworkers and customers commenting on my uncustomary joyousness.  then I would quietly lock the door and slowly remove the revolver in my apron pocket along with lighter fluid and a match.