letting ann sleep in
it is seven twenty in the
rainy morning. just got home
from work where i made black parts
for general electric -- i don't know
what the hell they use the product for,
don't necessarily care. ran rate
without even one scrap.
done early, so i sat around
eating cheese crackers,
chewing gum,
chewing on a toothpick,
then went out the back dock door
where i noticed it was raining.
& the clouds of dawn, man, muscles of
turbulent gray masses.
stood around talking to adrian
about our kids, then
the buzzer ran & i punched out
& hurried thru wet grass to my
red jeep.
cell-phone'd my mom
to say good morning.
gabbed all the way home.
carefully opened our door
since ann doesn't work until 2 today
& i think she has the
flu -- carefully i closed
our bedroom door.
there is beer
& i've already gobbled
my prosom sleeping-pill,
but still have to
take a shower.
in fact, fuck this
poem -- i'm grabbing a beer
& getting clean.
if ann continues
sleeping in
i'll end up
on our couch
watching news
of the apocalypse, dozing...
vodka, saturday night
ann fixes me
ethiopian coffee,
french-roast'd,
with a good couple shots
of vodka,
& 2% milk,
& many ice-cubes
in a big glass
mug. i did 2 of the
drinks,
ann was doing
vegetable juice
with vodka &
she is now
asleep,
period'd,
drunk,
wildly dreaming
& somewhere else
than here
in this poem. let's
glorify
symbiosis
we are all
symbiotic
minds
feeding life,
feeding.
sufi meditation
at first thought
a six-pack remains from the fresh case
of rolling rock
no wonder i feel hungover
i say to the wall
as ann so lovingly massages my neck
in bed in 7 a.m. darkness.
she dropped at 9 in the evening
but i kept going. at least until
1:30 i notice according
to readings on my internet
security i was a-surfin'.
we are now quite interested
in sufism
tho sufi poetry is incredibly terrible.
it means something.
not that sufi poetry is so unreadable
but that sufi sounds so true.
beer
title this poem beer.
i am drinking beer.
green bottles & burping
great beer-gas burpings.
got a whole case.
$16.75 from elmwood beer.
the guys know my red jeep.
how about a case of rolling rock
bottles i say walking inside the open
garage-door sort of store with i imagine
vast walls of cases of beer, foggy
horizon-line of beer, cases reach thru
infinity like soul-image godness,
splash me sweet cunt.
teddy & lenny
outside in incredible
october afternoon sunlight
on the steps of saint peter's church,
huge roman catholic church
downtown erie, first time i've
been inside, my cousin jerod's wedding,
ann & i are trying to escape
after the wedding
when my cousin dave, jerod's older
brother, walks up from the bottom
of the steps like he's
herding fleeing cattle. "ron, ron,"
dave all raspy & smiling, goes,
"where ya goin'?"
i explain we'll meet everybody
at the reception, but by this time
dave is asking if i remember
HIS cousins -- 2 guys, familiar faces,
teddy & lenny,
30 years have passed,
we all shake hands on the steps
of saint peter's church.
much to ann's chagrin
we are herded back into the church
for a group
photograph. i stand under
christ nailed on a gold cross
trying to remember
specifics about
teddy & lenny. they know me,
but i can't
really
pin-point them.
ann is on her tip-toes.
three flashes go
off. thank you all, the photographer
thumbs up, & as i bend to whisper
into ann's ear "i can't recall much
about teddy & lenny," i hear my name.
it is,
it is,
i introduce ann, but forget
(now i remember)
aunt grace's
name -- aunt grace is not, wasn't ever,
my real aunt.
she's my uncle angelo's
sister -- mother of
teddy
&
lenny.
getting things right
well, for instance, the title of this poem shld be capitalized, & i'm not sure how right
right is as the word to use. correct?
then there's "johnson & flick automotive center" on peach street in erie where i took the
jeep
for inspection -- now the left turn-signal
won't correctly disengage & the back-up lights
did not need replaced, jiggling the gear-shift
is what it is. & the front-end now,
something doesn't feel right.
something doesn't feel tight.
something rubs or squeaks or something.
what a bunch of shit.
johnson & flick automotive center
on peach street in erie, pennsylvania:
kiss
my
fucking left ass-cheek. just phoned them
saying take
my name & information
out of yr computer system,
i ain't
ever coming
back.
same shit
happened when i took
the buick in,
& they forgot
to take the old
motor-mount out so it was
squished on
a ledge
under there -- took it back,
they apologized,
did a free oil
change. but not twice,
motherfuckers.
you fuck up twice
i take it personally.
i
write
poetry.
a
poetry
soldier, that's me.
uncle clem
keep in mind i haven't seen uncle clem
a good 30 years. he's dressed in a
light, blue suit & facially resembles
charles bukowski, but uncle clem is under
5 feet tall & can barely bend
his knees to walk. he must be 80, older.
after pissing i turn around
& uncle clem is standing there.
"is this the bathroom?" he asks,
tho i don't quite completely hear him.
yeah, the urinals are right there.
i point. "i can't shit in a urinal,"
uncle clem chuckles.
somebody else is in the stall, i explain,
you'll have to wait,
but instead of waiting uncle clem
follows me out of the bathroom
into the noise of my cousin's wedding
reception. he wants to know where
i live, what i do.
i shake his hand. i'll see you later,
i say, but i don't think i ever
will
again. uncle clem is not, or wasn't ever,
exactly, my uncle.
he's my uncle angelo's older brother.
a good 30 years pass
& he looks at me. "ron? ron?"
my daughter
i'm giving her money
since she had to have a tooth
pulled this morning,
& has five dollars & fifteen
cents in her account. mark is
a total shit & hasn't paid a penny
for child support.
he is a dead beat dad
with a warped mind. my daughter
works, but makes just a little
paycheck, & does not, of course,
have dental insurance.
neither do i.
neither does ann.
doug does, thru his mother's insurance.
in 2 years he won't.
will i be handing over
one hundred dollars for an extraction, too?
what about
my rapidly disappearing & disintegrating
gums.
we can't afford
anything but
an extraction, & that
is few
& far
between.
those under us
we are battle-weary rag-tag dancers
not dancing. shuffle paper-slipper'd feet
across talcum'd linoleum
listening to beepings fade, fade;
until our slippery, slow, shuffling
is the sound of very own breathing from the
front of one's head
envelope'd in fog of demerol;
& what is forward is
not achievable. maybe
we are all falling
this exact moment -- a great slow-motion
descent.
all art is gray ash.
a mission of this afternoon
one coffee thus far,
& i'm almost rising
from this poem to open
the fridge where the coffee-pot
& the last of the coffee
chills, slightly ices.
ann makes it in the morning
& what she doesn't finish she
sets in the fridge for
my awakening in the afternoon
when she's at work.
it's a good arrangement,
but what i must accomplish
soon is a long trek from this
end of the apartment-building
all the way over to the other end
where the dumpster is
where i need to dump a few
cases of empty bottles of
rolling rock & coors light.
i can hear crashing
& shattering of green glass already.
it's a sunny october afternoon.
plus, i still need to put on my jeans.
make sure i'm caffeine-high,
alert like a new amerikan
citizen of
zen. oh you sufi fuck,
oh you sick
sufi
buddhist
fuck.
dozens
& dozens
& dozens
& dozens of empty bottles:
just
call
me
angel of the morning, angel.
left,
right,
left,
right.
intimacy
i want to tell
everyone
you're on yr period.
little white
tampon string
girlishness.
man oh man i
really remember
yr 18 year old tits
we can figure
30 years later
i still love them.
i love
each portion
of yr body, yr toes...
yr funny nose,
yr crooked teeth,
yr llama eyes...
i love
everything
molecularly connected
to that
soul of
soul i
love
most
of all.
rolling rock james beam black pipe & thou
friday, & it snowed today.
there's me in a puffy brown plastic arctic jacket waving a snow-brush across the front of our jeep.
heavy wet big exclamation-points of snow
splattering like pristine...christ,
i just now envision anthrax spores in the
snow. a closer nightmare. i put
the jeep in 4-wheel drive,
feel the hug pull wet black parkinglot
& i gun it,
bounce up high,
i'm a poet gray-hair'd blue-collar dumb-fuck
cowboy in the afternoon.
grayness, shadows, & fat shits of snow,
horizon color of lake erie dry rhino skin.
fuck wet gravel slip
on thin-tread 4-wheel drive tires
i'm a dad picking up his teenage son from school
& i catch myself saying fuck
too much,
like my daughter does.
i tell her
rachel i'm yr father
stop saying fuck all the time
oh i'm fucking sorry
she
snaps.
ann
oh
ann
i'
m
drinking
& in-
haling
an hour
before
you
come home.
i do
love
you.
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