Dad Calls

One day, my dad calls me up, at work. This rarely happens.

"Son, are you alright?" he asks, very seriously.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I reply, mystified on why he'd be asking me this question.

"Are you really alright?" my father asks.

"Absolutely fine." I reply truthfully.

"Are you sure you are okay?" my father says, obviously not convinced.

"Yes. I am perfectly fine. Why are you asking me this over and over again?"

"Christopher - is there anything you want to tell me about?" says Dad, trying another tack.

"Tell you about what?"

"Has anything happened that you want to tell me about?"

"No. What are you talking about?"

"Are you SURE there's nothing you need to tell us about?"

"No. I'm fine. I have no idea what you are talking about. What is going on?"

My father says that my grandma was called by me, and that I told her I was in Jail, in Mexico. She wired about $600.00 to a Western-Union in San Diego, to bail me out.

"Are you SURE you are not in trouble?" asks Dad.

"Dad, I'm not in trouble. I am not/ was not in Mexican jail. I have no idea who did this."

We conclude the conversation. I call my grandmother, who is very upset, but is also happy I was never in Mexican jail.

"I answered the phone, and I heard a faint voice. It said 'Grandma!' and the first thing I though was you were in trouble. So I said 'Christopher?', and the voice said, 'Yes!'"

Poem - let him go at dawn

i get with this because bob isn't around
he'd be saying "what do you mean?"
i miss him

bob worked 30 years
and he hated his job
and he retired immediately

then his life started
it is an amazing concept
but he waited that long

while he waited for his life
he'd walk the streets of san carlos
in the middle of the night

the cops got used to him
the solitary wanderer with a beard
who wouldn't show an ID

bob wore them down
even when they'd arrest him
let him go at dawn

Poem - to jack

i'll read your letters
and then i'll write to you new letters
that hopefully won't be
as old dead letters can become

i'll read your signals
and return to them new signals
because i can't write to your eyes
or your mind 30 years after the fact

pretending to write to a receptive past body
is what you enjoyed doing and this joke
within a joke is seriously taken as funny
and at the same time heartbreaking

at first mind tries confidently to circle it
weigh and codify the narration but you
sly devil you knew mind could not solve in the end
but at least a reader tried to do it

you knew all of this and it keeps going
now the jest has a life of it's own
born out of play gambling that the spark struck
might keep and catch in the darkness

Poem - two

two fragments:

everything was new
and then things got old
and old was funny

all of my possessions
i covered in gold
for a 24k lifestyle

two observations:

i hear a truck in the alley
grind bang grind bang
whhiip! grrrruuunnnn

and the fan on the floor
continued all along narrating
whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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Written in Oak Park at
11:11 AM

Revenge

He wants revenge on the meal he ate.

He wants revenge on the meal he ate, because he didn't like it.

He wants revenge on the meal he ate, because he didn't like it, and because he did not realize he was unsatisfied with his meal until the day after.

This was the day he was walking down the sidewalk, and he heard a lovely part of an opera, out a second story window. He was taken by the music, his heart lifted unexpectedly then he turned and saw someone eating in a restaurant window.

They were eating what HE WANTED -- what he really wanted LAST NIGHT. When he couldn't MAKE UP his own MIND.

REVENGE!! REVENGE!!! REVENGE!!!

He manages to keep this internal. Back to the cold water flat, 5 flights up. He has a suspicious landlord who acts like the rent is never paid. Under a bare bulb, he finds a few novels and collections of poetry by authors who died poorer and led more miserable lives than he. But this is cold comfort.

Minutes later he cuts his lip on a broken glass he didn't notice was chipped, and can't help but laughing.

Poem - never to be seen/ again

dreaming of people who are
gone

some of them dead others just
missing

we go through a garden then to a
bar

all the same stuff like we are
awake

funny and bizarre to see two
people

a man who i know has been dead
15 years

making out with one of my girlfriends from
college

when i awake both of them lost never to be seen
again

Poem - upside down a miniature/ frog

jack you'd be proud
of me

amazement pain & bloody
hemorrhoids

while look up there on
the ceiling

upside down a miniature
frog

rides a bicycle and we know
then

for sure what has gone in &
what

has gone out all of it accounted
for

Poem - but i can't complain

i was born a long time ago it seems
i worked like i was working on the railroad
all the live long day while people came & departed
i built out to many places and now i've been
working for the railroad drilling this dark tunnel
through the heart of a mountain of solid granite
said would end by now but it goes
on and on and on

but i can't complain

Poem - (no title)

i leave a message saying
i'd like to have the chance to start new again

when i hang up there is no starting over
again

just by me doing this leaving a message
confirms my cowardice

but now i can live with it because i will
not give up one thing

Buying a Watch

I spent five minutes, thirty-seven seconds buying a watch.

Another Goddamn Poem

i wrote something back in
1984 about a coated-
plastic lullaby

but i didn't finish the poem
and i'm reading it now
i wish i understood

me then

Poem - i love her (said by every guy here 1,000 times)

inform the bricks on that wall
i am tired and should go home

tell that waitress who is attractive
i love her (said by every guy here 1,000 times)

A Story About Death

Death smokes double-menthols. No filter.

Poem - did i really have anything/ to learn

did i really have anything
to learn

or just some things
to lose

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