poems of the day 08.13.08

new ones FINALLY! hopefully this'll satisfy you beasts while i vacation and pretend i live in an internet-less world.

photo of an eighteen year-old

my wife’s eighteen year-old friend
has a picture of herself on myspace
naked to the waist
pressed against a wall with her right arm
covering her nipple, but enough breast showing
to rile up the perverts.
she has a tattoo of stars going across her hip.
“that’s pretty provocative,” i said.
“that’s lannie,” my wife said. “she’s thin,
young, attractive, and she knows it.”
“hell, if i were young and looked like that
i’d take nude photos too,” i said. “and i would’ve
fucked tons of chicks. if i were a woman,
i’d would’ve had more cock than a
chicken coop.”
my wife looked at me. “that’s disgusting.”
“i’m just being honest.”
“really?”
“yes.”
“i don’t know,” she said. “i wouldn’t like
to get that intimate with so many people.”
“i’m not talking about intimacy,” i said.
“still.”
“i thing is,” i continued, “i never liked growing up
ugly and fat, and when i got older always
having to work some angle to meet women, you know,
being funny, being courteous. it was all such
artifice, all such bullshit, when all i wanted
was a piece of ass.”
my wife looked at me again. “even with me?”
“no. you were different.”
“but why worry about that now,” she said.
“isn’t it enough that i love you.”
i didn’t say anything. i mean she was right
to an extent.
it was good to be wanted by someone.
it was good to be loved.
but that’s just the way it is with humans
i guess.
we’re never satisfied.
we’re always bored and hungry.
we’re always thinking over what it was
what ir wasn’t, what
isn’t now, what it could’ve been.
it’s sad really.
and i guess that’s why eighteen year-olds
put up half-naked pictures
on the internet.
they are tasting that hunger for the first time.
they fill it that way.
they don’t know it’ll be there forever
even when all else is gone
and the rest is just a memory.
but who wants to tell them?
who wants to change it anyway,
a world where eighteen year-old girls take off
their clothes and lean against walls
ready for their photo-op
beautiful
and ignorant of the coming fall
of their own flesh
and immortality.


holy roller

i am trying to read a poem
about how bad other poets are
but then she gets on the train
and starts preaching jesus bullshit
as the rest of us sit there playing
with our watches and phones
and newspapers.
some of us get up and leave through
the illegal emergency exits.
she is so intrusive
i put down my book
and think about how bad that rotgut
scotch
has messed up my stomach,
but not nearly enough as this woman has.
and she keeps testifying to god,
praying, reading us the good word.
then the train gets stuck
in the tunnel
and the few of us left here groan.
finally she stops.
she thanks us and blesses jesus
and everything else.
a man picks up his paper.
there is a bus crash near dallas
it has killed 17
russia has invaded georgia
killing countless numbers
the u.s. is still in iraq
obliterating the place in the name of democracy
and the olympic fireworks were fakes.
then the train moves again.
at franklin avenue the holy roller sits down
and quietly reads the bible.
i pick up my book again
and forget about my rotten, scotch-soaked
stomach.
alleluia
amen.