Thursday, December 12, 2013

poem of the day 12.12.13


to catch a thief

who’s eighty years-old
and can barely see at this point
can be challenging

especially when he’s there first thing in the morning
to pilfer your paperback books and dvds

it means you can forget the saturday times
and the cup of coffee you so desperately wanted

the one that’s helping to quell the hangover

the sore feet that hurt from walking five miles
in shitty boots with holes on the bottom of each one

the freeze of the december air
that has you shivering right down to your bones

it means you can forgo dignity and pride
so that you can muscle up real close on the old man
while he’s scanning the goods
farting and wheezing when he bends

as you stand there like the long arm of the law
like a mall cop in a trinket store full of teenagers
protecting what isn’t even yours in the first place

a true centurion of american commerce

making like you are fixing rows of dvds
or selecting books for display

simply doing your job

all the while keeping an eye on this old man
as he takes dvd after dvd off the shelf
and puts them in tall piles like he’s building levees

this isn’t what you want to be doing on a saturday morning
this isn’t how the job was sold to you

you think you’d rather be in bed with the wife
post-coital from a morning quickie
with the newspaper spread over the sheets
and the whole day in front of you like a banquet

rather than hoping this old fart doesn’t steal
another bogart or paul newman film
and that you don’t have to tackle his ass and call 911

but life is what it is

some people have it much worse than you do
and you realize this

at the very least your holidays are paid for

which is why you stand there like a secret spy
trying to figure out what you want to eat for lunch
counting the stacked dvds over and over
wondering if the old man slipped one
in the back of his sweatpants

like he did last week
when you turned your back for a second

figuring a cool cup of coffee should be enough
to cancel out the headache

thinking that quick pull on donkey this morning
was kind of like making love

that there will still be a few hours left in the day
when this is all over

and that the new york times will still be there
after the old man takes what he wants and flees

because the world makes news every second of the day

and it’s always the same
nothing ever changes.

                                    


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