Meeting Women

There is something about you. 

I thought I would just come over and say Hello. 

I don’t know. 

I can’t say exactly.

You have a sadness about you that is surprisingly attractive.

You remind me of Kermit the Frog.

Yes. 

I have a thing for male gendered puppets from my childhood.

Can I buy you a drink?

I’m pretty sure Kermit drank.

Antique Lamps

I worked at a lamp shop off Fullerton and Southport in Chicago, trafficked mostly by college student s and the princessly stay-at-home mothers of Lincoln Park.  We didn’t do a lot of business, creating an atmosphere that afforded me the luxury of reading all day.  I read mostly shit, genre fiction—courtroom dramas, and mysteries.  I’d throw some horror into the mix or the occasional epic Sci-Fi novel that had a half dozen prequels and sequels that I was never going to read.

Building a Fire

Broken picture frames

used for kindling,

this house is not the same

I Hope to Feel it When You Die

If you die before me, I will feel it;

I hope not in some new-age, transcendental

horseshit way: your soul passing through my body like

electricity, or in some haunting macabre way: the image of a pigeon’s  

skeleton coming to mind.

Better

John from Oklahoma goes Bankrupt. Pat apologizes for his misfortune.  Michael thinks it would be funny if Sajack has a little button he presses like a bank alarm when someone is pushing their luck; they know the answer to the puzzle but keep guessing consonants to rack up more dough.  Susan from Baton Rouge is up next.  She chants “Big money” and claps her hands. She has lipstick shellacked all over her mug and one of those hairdos from the 80‘s with built in buttresses.  The 80’s must be the decade she had her first child, Michael thinks, robbing her of her youth, now she’s stuck there, stagnant, submerged in a swamp of  primary colors, Aqua Net, banana clips, and rayon.  Michael is glad he and Michelle waited to have children.

If You Could Be Any Animal, What Would You Be?

A deer is lost in the desert licking Lot’s Wife, wondering her name.

A gray horse grazes among rose bushes (fuchsia) that grow wild on a foothill in Sorrento, his tail swinging towards the sea making waves.

A goose loafs on some old man’s farm off a road called Bliss with his head bowed. A thin layer of snow covers the ground and the manila stalks of last year’s corn crop poke through, aslant and at discordant lengths. He eats thawing kernels and locust shells. But memory doesn’t serve, perhaps, he thinks, there is a lake there, forgotten, frozen, and he stops eating to exhale his small, hot breath against the ice in some insane effort to regain normality.

The Myth of You

Joseph Campbell’s ghost is dressed in a three piece suit,
            a Windsor knot butts tightly against his neck.
He floats with a Dickensian transparency and a grayish-blue tint.

How To Waste A Day (Male Specific)

Wake up at Noon, urinate into a cup
you keep at your beside. If it’s almost
full dump it out the window onto the drive
(the splat is fun to listen to). Do not brush
your teeth. Do breathe in the funk of your pits
at random intervals, or when the mood strikes.

Wooing

Two sets
            of footsteps
                        in medias res
            arms swing
at sides
            like cow tails

Never Think of Oranges

One winter, I awoke from a dream I can’t remember.
Still with a foot in it, I watched snowflakes drift
past your window, and for a moment
I thought it was us falling
past the snow
And then I wanted it to be so.