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here’s
a scene – walking my dog I
stop to
chat with a neighbor,
overwhelming
him no doubt
with a
strange and tangential
rapidly
spoken tale
of a
brief pause in my life
complete
w/ promises of total intoxication
as I
cruise Lark St a man walks past me
smoking
some kind of skunk
and he
looks at me
while
under my breath I think out loud
not if
he (or any man, laughing)
were
the last on earth
I stopped
to ask a crazy woman
(who
jumped at the chance)
to
watch my dog
while I
chatted up a clerk
and
paid for cat food,
contemplating
the
theft
of a Bic lighter and
thinking
about how
I ran
into my old boss today
the one
who set so neatly into place
my new
and exploratory life
the one
I find myself sharing
in
random one-night moments
driving
up Western Ave
in
search of cloves
and happy hour (just one?!)
I smoke
a cigarette
while
listening to First Tube
with
the windows rolled down
wishing
I had my sunglasses on
knowing
for all the world
that he
was just not good enough
new
adventures coming soon,
the
original plan having not panned out
and home
getting closer by the mile
I try
to reclaim that
former
feeling
the
sense that I’m alive
then
I’m in the living room reading Salvage
and
trying not to think
because
(I admit it)
I broke
down once or twice today
and
cried and missed last week’s feeling
noting
the possibility that
a rainy
day might have given
us a
chance to be
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remembering
vaguely other
Friday
nights
spent
focusing on getting
blown
glass just right
and I
begin to explore
the
words I sail upon
pausing
for a moment to grab the
CD I
had in the car
I must
have hit
some
button by mistake
True
Colors came on and I stopped –
thought
about the moment
while I
grabbed a notebook and pen
and
enjoyed the onset of a
special
warm feeling in my brain
as I
sit here now (and then)
shivering
(another week of winter
in
July) and a little bit high
I focus
on the complete lack
of
thoughtful contemplation
surrounding
this moment of
shakedown
in my life with
another
hour to kill before I go out
I never
should have let him keep
the
poem I never meant to write
the
words were forced and not as true
as they
could have been
or one
day might be
if in
this lifetime there exists
one who
can tolerate an artist
the cat
who lives with the girl
who is
going through a tough time
is
sitting behind me on the back
of a
chair while I rest my head on
her
body and thank her
(out
loud) for being
here
for me to lean on
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