STICKER


Now “they say”
our prehistoric ancestors
didn’t go to bed at sundown
but hung around the campfire
for hours.  Doing what?
I can’t imagine.  I myself
one night grew so bored
I slept with a woman
who looked like John Denver.
 
All kidding aside, imagine
yourself, beetle-browed,
prognathic, smelling of caribou fat,
the sun down & the darkness
lit by fireflies big as lanterns,
some guttural rendition
of “Kumbaya” rising in your throat.
 
Did you imagine the future,
your enemies on a spit, winds
strong enough to hammer bits
of straw into the tree trunks,
something brighter than the sun
boiling the lake below?
Or did you imagine a sticker
on your war club, exhorting you
& your sleepy tribesmen to be kind?





EAR


You want a Jesuit to help stop
your suffering, someone smarter 
than you.  But isn’t that the problem?

So what if your third wife bought
a bottle of perfume called Shake It,
Shake It, Señora?  Let those 
middle-aged ladies shake their 
money makers.  Let the world 

shake itself into its recurring patterns 
of class conflict, raging heterosexuality, 
& unsanctioned acts of milky kindness.   
​
Her therapist told my friend all 
she needed was a wall to talk to, 
a wall composed of ears.  You want a Jesuit 
but once you accept any ear will do, 
any ear will do.  I’m listening.

(from Diphtheria Festival, Main Street Rag Publishing, 2016)



THE NOTE I LEFT


I dreamed about Cher, not
about Sonny.  I dreamed about. . .
whatever.  I always dream & learn 
nothing, Freud notwithstanding.

I’m awake now, our cat
butting my legs, the furniture,
all four walls.  Does he know
I’m leaving?  I pick him up

& kiss him between the ears,
goodbye.  Someone said sentimentality
is the poor man’s poetry.  The note
I left for you?  A rich man’s prose.


(from Diphtheria Festival, Main Street Rag Publishing, 2016)