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.