Book o’ Verse

He sat down sobbing
into his hands.
50 cents
and he wanted them
to give him a dollar for it.
Retarded. “I hate math.”
And I just wanted to have lunch.
Then he stood, bearded
burly Thor
retarded.
“I hate … Read on Macduff...

She slept in the bed
while he slept on the couch
so he could hear their sick daughter
and her three-day-old cough.
And in the morning
while she moved around the kitchen
and the kids watched too-loud TV
and coughed … Read on Macduff...

Just because you turn
slowly slowly
to check her out
slowly
as she walks past
doesn’t mean
that she don’t notice.

“Snow!” he shouted
tossing clouds of
thin, white sand at the beach
making snowmen
out of sand
with their heads
lying down
and their arms are wet planks
and their toes knotted kelp
and they never melt
until the sun … Read on Macduff...

I must be someone very different to him
than I am to me.

Maybe I'm some fast-talking jack-ass
some know-it all jerkweed
some high-maintenance poindexter.

If he saw me in a bar
he would hate me in that bar.

I 

You could find us
by the smell of cheap wine
in open-air plastic cups.

See, we'd walked into this sunny summer party
unguarded booze
them all in college
us two in high school.
Strolling the lawn with our big red 

My son wants
bacon made out of coffee
for me and
bacon made out of orange juice
for him.

Leave those pigs alone!

But keep the bacon coming.

A thing a day a written
thing a thought a memory
a day it's not
too much to
ask too much to
do.

In Florida,
the land of the dead for me.
All those memories of bouncing on
airboats through swamps, and
wandering around exotic bird parks,
and listening to King Crimson
on the wide lawn
under the wide sky
by the reflecting 

I want to build a house
with Richard Brautigan
up on the third floor.

Looking out a large window
at open land
hands on the windowsill.

Wearing that old hat
that old vest
those old glasses.

He looks good.