poem of the day 07.11.11

the day derek hit 3,000
(a parody made with love)

it is 5:20 in new york a saturday
five days days before bastille day,
i’m almost sure it is 2011 as i move toward to the bar
on st. marks place that i’ve been coming to since 2003
for a few beers and popcorn and then straight home to dinner
for chicken curry and red wine with the wife

we walk down the muggy streets drenched with sun and people
and drink overpriced bottled water and talk van gogh
and ugly video art at the moma and travels home
to see what the poets in pittsburgh
are doing these days
and my wife (first name ally short for allyson)
tells me the same story about work that she told me yesterday
and in st. marks books she gets the collected tim dlugos
for us with an introduction by dave trinidad although i do
worry about our bank account, the movies i want to see like
pedro almodovar’s new movie or godard or midnight in paris
by woody allen, because movies don’t stay too long in theaters
these days thanks to dvd an online piracy


and after that we just stroll into the grassroots
tavern and ask for two drafts of budweiser and
the popcorn and go back to talking about the moma
when i casually ask the bartender if derek jeter
got his 3,000th hit, and he tells me jeter went 5 for 5
and i dream of sunday morning’s new york times with his face on it


and i am smiling a lot by now and thinking of
sitting in right field in yankee stadium
watching as he chased a line drive into the stands
to save a run and everyone and i stopped breathing


to read the poem i so lovingly and blantanly ripped off
for this little parody, here is a link to Frank O'Hara's
The Day Lady Died