by john | Aug 15, 2009 | Poems, Poetry
I’m sitting on a 3.99 plastic Wal-Mart chair
on a concrete balcony
on the third floor of a Courtyard motel
in Eastern North Carolina
watching rainbows smear the asphalt
across the parking lot
as oil and water play stubborn
through the summer thunderstorm.
I’m drinking a lukewarm Miller Lite trying not to notice
the fat woman testing the superstructure of her halter top
and the suspension of her ’93 Yellow Geo Tracker.
Her flip-flops thwack-splish thwack-splish
across the parking lot looking for a vacancy
and maybe a little shelter from the storm.
I put a little Jessica Lea Mayfield on the in-room iPod rig
and prop my bare feet up on the wet wrought iron railing,
letting the dog-daily 4 o’clock shower
wash 300 miles off my tired feet.
A dragonfly wanders by for a sip of my beer.
I share.
He doesn’t drink much, but it looks like enough
’cause he flies off in a meandering besotted path
beating his wings in time to the music
and dancing between the raindrops.
That’s kinda what the last half of my week was like. I put in somewhere around 1,500 miles from Sunday to Friday, and had more than one project crisis to deal with along the way. All in all it was the kind of week that you’re really happy to see the back side of. So now that I’m looking at the back side of it, we’ll see if there’s any ammunition for stories or poems in there.
by john | Jun 22, 2009 | Poetry
What’s going on in Iraq right now is fucked up. This isn’t finished, just a draft, but it kinda had to come out. Right Now.
Neda
I just watched you die
on YouTube.
While your father’s screams
tore through the streets of Tehran
I sat at my safe desk
eating my safe breakfast
while you bled out
the last seconds of your sixteen years
in the middle of a street
thousands of miles away
because you wanted
what I’ve never been without.
While I shoved a Twix bar down my throat
the last flicker of light
went out
of your eyes
on my monitor.
While I slept
thousands marched
into the jaws of a machine
hell-bent on status quo
that chewed you up
and spit you out
onto the internets
where your story
can live on
even as they wash your blood
from the streets.
by john | Jun 14, 2009 | Poetry
Drinking Philosophical
I’m drinking beer and waxing philosophical
while I look across another empty dinner table
and stare out the window
at an empty spot in the driveway.
I’m sitting here drinking
watching MASH reruns on the TV
wondering where she went
and if she’s coming back.
The letter on the fridge bets on “No”
but the seventh beer says “Maybe”
and the ninth says “Yes”
so I keep right on drinking
all the way to “Of course.”
I fall asleep in my chair again
while the cat stares disapprovingly
from the top of the TV set
and the dog drinks beer from his water dish
and eats microwave popcorn
from a half-melted Tupperware bowl on the floor.
by john | Jun 14, 2009 | Poetry
Moonlight
You wrap the night around me like a blanket
and we fall in love again
while the honeysuckle blooms
explode in my nose.
The rushing water in the distance
beats out a rhythm disjointed
from your even-uneven panting.
I can hear the sweat falling from your lips
when you kiss me
your hair falling over my face like a curtain
hiding us from prying lightning-bug eyes.
The grass beneath my back smells sweet as we
crush it into verdant Rorshach patterns
while we dance conjoined under the light
of a new moon and a hundred thousand stars.
by john | Jun 14, 2009 | Poetry
Pecan Pie
Sitting at a bare table
In a sunny kitchen
While the weather contradicts everything.
I’m crying in my pecan pie
While I taste you in every bite
As the blue-haired women murmur appropriate nothings
In the parlor
And run their slightly disapproving white-gloved fingertips
Along the tops of the picture frames on the mantel.
All I want to do is scream
But all I do is sit there smelling your cooking
While I eat the last pie you baked for me.
I can almost hear the shuffle of your bedroom slippers
On the cracked linoleum,
Almost taste your pork chops and gravy
While I try to be nice
And not notice them
eyeballing your grandaddy’s clock on the mantel.
by john | May 31, 2009 | Poetry
Little girl standing by the railroad tracks
brown pigtails sticking out akimbo from her head
blue gingham dress
checked
with an apron that started life as white
before it went through three cousins
and one older sister.
Little girl standing all alone,
looking down the track and
wondering
When’s Daddy comin’ home?
Little girl sitting on the porch
gingham dress too short and threadbare,
knobby knees poking out
the first beginnings of bumps under her apron
just starting to swell and show.
still enough of a little girl to sit cross-legged on the porch swing
waiting for big sister to come home
off her date with the Swain boy
who drives the fast car and smells like whiskey,
looks at her behind while she walks up the steps
telling little girl to go to bed
“you wouldn’t act like this if Daddy was here.”
Little girl walking across a stage,
flat cap on her head
hot June afternoon in a blue gown
grabs that piece of paper and
Looks
up in the stands
where sits a proud mama
big sister and her baby girl
and that Swain boy
who made a decent husband after all
but still a Daddy-shaped hole
in the air next to Mama.
Little girl sits on a porch
in a black dress
as aunts and uncles
and more cousins than you can shake a stick at
sit in the living room swapping memories and telling lies
knees drawn up cross-legged under her on the porch swing
again
sweet tea glass sweats untouched on the porch rail
with a slice of lemon on the rim
drawing flies
as she looks down the driveway
until at last an old man
looking uncomfortable in a shiny new suit
and never broken in shoes
limps past the rusted mailbox into view.
He stops at the gate,
takes off his hat,
looks at the little girl
and she looks back.
He nods,
she waves a shy little girl wave with half her hand
like she was six instead of twenty-six
and goes back inside the house
leaving the old man
at the end of the driveway
watching the tea glass sweat in the August dusk.
