poem of the day 01.30.15

bad luck spot

one guy is drawing a flower

crushing green and yellow chalk on the pavement

watching him

we walk through a chalk sign that says

bad luck spot

we have to go back, i tell me wife

you have to walk through it backwards

why? she asks

to undo the curse, of course

she says, when did you become so superstitious?

when they found cancer

in my thirty-seven year old wife’s breast, i tell her

we stop walking

we watch as the man crushes more chalk for his flower

in the most basic sense he’s destroying something

in order to create beauty

in my way i’m trying to take a nightmare back

i didn’t believe that could happen, i continue

who in the hell knows what else i’m wrong about?

jesus? unicorns? ghosts?

compassionate conservatism?  american exceptionalism?

you really want me

to walk backwards through that? my wife says

we’ve enough bad luck for one lifetime, i say

it’s time for the tides to turn

my wife looks around

union square is packed

with the assorted mix of everyone

who make me want to move away

from new york city every day

this is stupid, she says

so is cancer, i tell her

we walk back to the spot on the pavement

some people are walking right through the bad luck spot

and others are walking around it

the guy drawing the flower takes a break

to wipe the crushed chalk from off of his hands

he’s watching everyone

i wonder if he wrote this sign too

i’m only doing this for you, my wife says

then she starts walking backward through the bad luck spot

laughing like a child with the sun behind her

and i can feel the magic working

as i stand there smiling

counting all of our old blessings

delivered by the alchemy at work

                                    06.23.14

poem of the day 01.29.15

last year’s rose

she caught me

with my head in my hands

covering my face

on the verge of tears

she caught me red-handed

and she asked me, are you all right?

i told her that i was fine

it was just an itch, i said

my forehead burned from too much sun

i had enough

bad lies to get by

but what was i going to really tell her?

how broken i felt?

how desolate and scared and alone?

that i no longer knew how to help

you or me or anyone

or how just before she came in

i’d found the rose that you sent me last year

on our ninth anniversary

dried and peeling in my drawer

but still smelling almost as sweet

as the day that it arrived

from your heart to mine.

                                                06.24.14

poem of the day 01.28.15

watching ally sleep

it’s sunday afternoon

i am watching ally sleep

on the small couch in the living room

the one that’s hard as a rock

the one she’s always stuck with

because i’m too big for anything in this place

she looks peaceful

her back facing me

her snores coming light and calm

the book that she was reading

set on the floor instead of haphazardly dropped

an intentional weekend afternoon nap

i was going for my water

i was going to go back to my novel

but i decided instead to watch her sleep

how long has it been

since i did this?  i wondered

maybe years into us

just sat there while ally slept

watching her eyes, her mouth

the way her chest rose up and down

in my mind

compiling the dozens of things

to share with her the next day

my wife

my love

my very best friend

my peace

my solace

my quiet in this storm

                                                            06.24.14

poem of the day 01.27.15

the people behind us on the sidewalk

the people behind us on the sidewalk

are getting on my fucking nerves

it happens a lot in this city

you’re never alone

there’s always someone behind you day or night

i’ve learned to deal with it

as part of the charm of living here in sodom and gomorrah

but not this morning

these people behind us on the sidewalk

are working my last bit of patience

i’m trying to calm my wife about her MRI

i’m trying to quell my own fears with confidence

normally we’d walk faster

but neither of us want to go where we’re headed

the people behind us on the sidewalk

are making it so hard

talking about their goddamned cell phones

some fucking television show

they spent all day yesterday streaming

in between world cup soccer matches

what luck they must have to have it so fucking easy

i can’t even think with their chatter

and my wife can tell that i’m in a mood

she doesn’t need this from me or from them

she’s got enough to worry about this morning

would it be impolite to turn around

and tell the people behind us on the sidewalk

to maybe shut the fuck up about whether or not

they want mexican or thai for lunch?

finally my wife makes the move

she says, i have something in my shoe

so we stop to let the people behind us on the sidewalk go

but they are in no hurry too

her in her stupid, floppy summer hat

and him in some fucking disney hoodie in the heat

what grown man wears walt disney shit? i ask

we end up overtaking them at the street light

thankfully we go one way and they go the other

off to iced coffee daydreams and red velvet cupcake heaven

the people behind us on the sidewalk

finally out of our lives forever

until we see them again in the waiting room

of the MRI office

where she goes up to the desk to fill out paperwork

as he keeps his eyes planted on her

his look one that i’ve learned to recognize

in my own mirror

that of utter horror and astounding disbelief.

                                                06.24.14

poem of the day 01.26.15

a cup of coffee

i’m watching the russian girl

behind the desk at the medical imaging center

she’s yelling at a frail woman

who’s head is wrapped in a turban or a towel

she’s saying

yeah, well i don’t speak spanish

i said, i don’t speak spanish

no one is getting their point across to anyone here

this place is a calamity and it’s hot

they have the televisions going full blast

it’s no wonder everyone has to shout

people are scattered

there are some sick and some who will be sick

most look scared shitless to be here

the receptionist in front of my wife and i

well, she hasn’t even acknowledged us yet

she’s too busy talking to the others

about last night’s variety show

apparently her favorite didn’t win

there’s a part of me that wants to grab her by the neck

turn her sharply toward us

give her a touch of the whiplash

tell her, hey, my wife’s hands and legs are shaking

so if you wouldn’t mind….

but i’ve been tamed by this world for too long

so we wait her out

finally my wife says, excuse me

the receptionist barks, wait a minute

before going back to her favorite television show

of course that’s when the delivery man arrives

and distractions abound anew

our receptionist gets off of her fat ass with a struggle

she yells at the poor mexican

where in the hell have you been?

he shrugs

there’s no point in talking to her over the televisions

she rips the bag out of his hand

it’s only a cup of coffee, for christ’s sake

it’s as simple as rain

she throws the delivery man a few bucks

then huddles the steaming cup under her desk

for sugar, milk, i don’t know

whatever she can do to keep my shivering wife waiting

another five minutes in this place

and i wonder if she’s ever had to have a biopsy

when the receptionist finally looks up

without a smile

with contempt for her station in life and ours

a look of smug, healthy satisfaction of her bloated face

and says, yeah?

as if we’re the ones being the burden

it dawns on me right then and there

how capable of murder i truly am.

                                                06.18.14

poem of the day 01.23.15

it was simple

it was simple

it was so simple

we went to pittsburgh for the weekend

and i did the poetry reading

in front of a bunch of old farts

we got drunk on beer with old friends

simple

so very simple

and when we got back to brooklyn

you did the mammogram again

sure, last time it came up dense

but they’ve come up dense before

that was back in february

it’s june now

that’s four months but who’s counting?

we had shit to do

family and drinking and london

poetry readings in pittsburgh

what’s a dense mammogram reading

when you’re under forty anyway?

it was simple

so goddamned simple

you go in

you do your bit

they do theirs

and then they send you on your way

with a clean bill of health

it’s was elementary i tell you

yet there you are on the phone

telling me that they found something

there you are telling me that there has to be a biopsy

and there i am

hanging on to the phone like a life vest

in the middle of the work office

surrounded by my same bullshit

when suddenly

everything seems so foreign

everything blurs

it’s my breath

the sound of your trembling voice

someone waiting to speak

simple, i said

this was supposed to be so simple.

                                                                        06.19.14

poem of the day 01.22.15

the news

right after you told me the news

that the biopsy tested positive

and we got off the phone

i didn’t know what to do

i just sort of pictured you there somewhere alone

sitting in a stairwell or in a bathroom stall crying

i felt helpless

all of those nights of making sure we ate right

of checking those doors and windows and the oven

over and over and over again

making sure that we were safe and secure

it was suddenly bullshit

none of it mattered

not in comparison to this

i started looking around that office of mine

what’s that cliché?  

it felt like the walls were closing in?

i’m sure they all heard me cursing

throwing chairs around and tossing books against the wall

what if i put a chair through a window?

punched a wall like i’m so famous for?

what if i took this computer monitor

and smashed it to its essential parts?

what would it solve?

that cancer would still be there the next day

instead i put my head on my desk

like they used to tell us to do in grade school

i imagined you back in april

picking up stones on the banks of the thames river

waving to me as i took pictures of london

i surrendered to the fate of the day

i cried like a baby

for the first time in a long time

                                                                        06.19.14/01.22.15

poem of the day 01.21.15

Where to begin?  Back in June of 2014 my wife, Ally Malinenko, was diagnosed with stage-one lobular cancer. I won’t go into a lot of the details….for that you can check out her wonderful blog. For familial reasons I was unable to post any knid of poem on the topic, which was pretty hard considering cancer consumed the bulk of my 2014. I guess I did the best I could on this blog. There were, however, some real low points. That said, we got sort of lucky, if there is a lucky where cancer is involved. Ally’s tumor was caught early. She didn’t need chemotherapy. Honestly, as I said above, for those interested in the details it’s best to check her blog.

On my end I’m going to be spending the next few weeks or so posting poems that were written during that time, about our situation, etc. So the poems about bad jobs, bad girlfriends, idiots on public transportation, beer shits and the like will cease for a small amount of time. For those of you hit with a disease as miserable as cancer I do empathize with you.

you stupid girls

you stupid girls

you stupid fucking girls

quit walking so slow to the train

quit stopping to grab each other and shout

OH MY GOD!

like you’re in a constant state of wonder and surprise

quit stopping to check your cell phones

this wretched world doesn’t revolve around you

but it’ll chew you up and spit you out without notice

and nothing is ever happening anyway

i’ve been listening to your conversation

it is enough to torture out lies from an honest man

you stupid girls

you miserable fucking girls

get out of my way or let me pass

or i swear i’ll toss you both down a flight of stairs

and leave you twitching on the concrete

you see, i have a wife newly of ten years

she’s waiting on me at home

and tonight we’re going to celebrate our anniversary

with italian food and red wine

we’re going to pretend

that we didn’t spend this morning in an oncology office

as some surgeon felt up her breasts

and checked her armpits for lymph node lumps

you stupid girls

you wouldn’t know anything about that now, huh?

cancer

what an arbitrary word to a couple of little hussies like you

stupid fucking girls

with your oversized headphones on your pinheads

with your shorts that don’t cover your boney, sexless asses

you’re just standing there impeding my progress

you don’t understand love

you can’t possibly

i hope that neither of you will experience

the kind of happiness that i have had for the last ten years

the kind that i want for another thirty or forty more

you stupid girls

you don’t deserve it

i can see the bleach stains on your yellowing teeth

you can’t hide your rot from the world

no one can

the best that any of us can do is get up

and go to bed and do it all over again

try to find a little bit of happiness in the middle

you stupid girls

like tonight

like anniversaries and italian food and red wine

toasting the past and anticipating the future

my wife

you stupid girls

you stupid fucking girls

give me an inch

just one simple inch

or be decent and carve me a pathway

stop looking at me and laughing

and then slowing down on purpose to dance

give me my freedom

give me release

give me my life tonight

you girls

you stupid girls

you stupid fucking girls

MOVE!

                                    06.13.14

poem of the day 01.20.15

peckerwood

there was already a line

to the back of the liquor store when he came in

the only black face in the entire place

we were somewhere in the upper middle

drunk from an afternoon in the grassroots tavern

but wanting more to kill the night

the wine store kept the smaller bottles of alcohol

behind the counter at the register

it was the store’s way

of teaching drunkards the value of patience

or to stop them from being so damned cheap

he found me right away

my wife claims that i have that kind of face

it’s welcoming and the antithesis to the fiber of my very being

he said, hey man, you know how it is

then started motioning up toward the register

of course i knew how it was

but something about him rubbed me

it was rare that i found a face in this world as welcoming as mine

most people were ugly without even trying

i said, i know how it is, man

that’s why i’m standing here with all of the other stiffs

i said, getting in front of me won’t help your cause any

he said, look, man

so i said, why don’t you go and ask each

and every person standing behind me

if they’re cool with you cutting then i’ll clear you a space

well, he just stood there with kind of a crooked grin

i wondered about the type of person

who found his face a soothing salve to come home to at night

he said, what if i just cut you in line

a man must do as he must, i answered

then he leaned in

he reeked of vodka as i reeked of beer

we were brethren of a sort

i thought to myself that i should’ve let him cut me

but then he called me a peckerwood

ain’t nothin’ but a peckerwood, he said

hear that honey, i said to my wife

now i’m the victim of racial intolerance

he went to the front of the line

cutting each and every one of us

the cashier sold him a pint of rum without hesitation

the hoi polloi held their bottles and gasped

their conceptions of law and order thrown to the dogs

someone called him an asshole

as he waved to the crowd on the way out

the woman behind me

threatened to get the manager

everyone else just stood there

checking their phones

a pack of peckerwoods

waiting on anarchy

waiting their turn in line.

ALSO: I have a poem up over at Revolution John 

                                                

poem of the day 01.16.15

she was the girl that i liked

jamie hawn was a burnout

her brother was a burn-out

who got kicked out of catholic school

and used to chase younger kids

home to prove his worth

jamie smoked from time to time

but she had the most beautiful of blue eyes

they matched the color of her panties

under white denim in the rain

she was the girl that i liked

for about a month in the eighth grade

i tried making her laugh the whole school trip

to washington d.c.

even got the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier

to break his silence and call me disrespectful

it was a crapshoot

i was a fat kid and chances were good

some other boy was going to be putting it to her by summer

probably one of her brother’s friends

i asked jamie to go with me

from under abe lincoln’s big nose

and against ritual and understanding she said yes

then i didn’t know what to do with her

i couldn’t be funny anymore

at recess i stood there like a mute elephant

while jamie and her friends talked

about sneaking a smoke in the bathroom

one girl said to me, didn’t my brother used

to chase you home from school last year

that was some other kid, i said

jamie and i were sinking faster than a ship

she didn’t call me and i didn’t have the guts to call her

rumor had it her brother wanted

to pound my fat ass into dust

when i came early into class one day

i caught jamie talking to another girl

about how stupid and dull i was

when she saw me coming she winked

and said, what’s up cutie?

before shaking her ass out the door

a day later i was history

thrown back to my pack of wall-clinging losers

right where i belonged

by summer i heard that jamie

was dating one of her brother’s friends

his best friend

it was such a serious thing

that her brother wasn’t friends with the guy anymore

but jamie had quit smoking for him

and for her health too

although i’d heard

that the poor girl

had put on a few pounds

                                               

poem of the day 01.15.15

one million

they gather

by the thousands in paris

in new york we march

and tell the cops these streets are ours

there is always some bloodshed

before these great gatherings

somebody has to die

for the world to come together

i’m not looking for utopia

but it seems that this momentum

collects and then it dissipates just as quickly

we move on

insular and uninvolved

until the next great tragedy

pulls us back into a sense of temporary cohesion

we blame politics and we blame religion

we blame skin color and money

they are all good targets

yet never provide us with an answer as to why

tonight i sit here with my work-a-day ass kicked

full of vodka with a jury summons in my hand

thinking judge not lest ye be judged

and that i can throw stones like they’re made of air

that as long as there are jobs and jury summons

i need never fear international terrorism

tonight i have one million solutions

for what ails the world

shoved deep in my back pocket

but i’m so selfish and low

i’m not sharing them with anyone.                                  

poem of the day 01.14.15

a quick flash

there were a bunch of us

crowded around the small circular stage

at anthony’s gentlemen’s club

a bachelor party and a few old drunks

me and calvin as usual

it was half-price night

so people were getting loud and obnoxious

who in the hell knew where the bouncer was

on stage the girl dancing

she looked drunk and half-dead

greasy blonde hair and smeared lipstick

her eyes kept rolling around

at times she’d get a sloppy smile

but then her mouth would go slack

because she was in pasties and a thong

the boys were going wild over the mess

men from the bachelor party

kept chanting for her to take it off

calvin went along with it too

because he’d always been a follower

the dancer tried getting

into a reverse crab position

she kept falling on her ass and laughing

when she got back up a third time

someone shouted, show us your cunt!

the dancer looked around the club

like she was going to tell us a big secret

then she winked and did it

there was a quick flash

of hair and pink

before the thong went back over it

a chorus of noise and applause

echoed throughout the place

calvin shook me and screamed

did you see it!

did you see it!

as the dancer fell on her ass again

she sighed and got fetal

showing a big purple and yellow bruise on her hip

laughing and doing little else

until the song ended

and the bartender had to find the bouncer

to drag her off the stage

so that someone else could get up there

and try her best to entertain us

                                                           

poem of the day 01.13.15

tore her up

barry would always

complain about his younger wife

we’d be driving to deliver windows and doors

and he would just start out of the blue

she doesn’t understand me, man,

he’d tell me

i was a philosopher

i was into art history before i met her

i read and re-read all of those novels

i see you reading on your lunch

christ, barry, i’d say

then i’d look out onto the bleak

western new york landscape

wondering if this was the best i could do

i realize that she’s only twenty-two

and that i’m thirty-eight, barry would say

but i was a scholar

a man of letters

i could tell picasso’s just by looking at them

picasso isn’t that hard, i told him

you’d have better luck bragging about andre derain

you don’t understand

all she talks about is the baby

and rent and food and bills and how she had

to drop out of college to pay for the baby

and rent and food and bills

i have no intellectual stimulation

when it got too much

sometimes barry would park the truck

he’d turn to me

why did i do it, man?

an underage piece of ass in a bar

a couple of stupid night in my apartment

and now it’s all this

let’s have a beer, i said to him

then we’d drive to a convenience store

and get a couple of tall boys

while snow fell all over western new york

usually about half-way through the beer

was the time barry would pull out his wallet

it was always the same picture

of his wife before she had their baby

she was a good looking woman

she probably still was

barry was batting way out of his league

look at her, he’d say to me

he’d press the picture closer to my face

look how beautiful she was, he’d say

then he’d take a big gulp on the beer and be quiet for a bit

for a moment i’d thank a god that i didn’t believe in

then check my watch to see if i could get in another beer

i ruined her too, he’d eventually say

she was so young

she had such a body and such a future

but i tore her up

i tore up her young body and we had that kid

barry would put the picture back in his wallet

i sat there drinking while he held that square of beaten leather

knowing that in a minute or two he’d pull a one-eighty

and out would come the pictures of the kid

the inevitable conversation about how grand his life really was.

                                                                        

poem of the day 01.12.15

exercise

tonight i am in the living room

doing this exercise dvd

sweating to the oldies like an asshole

while outside people are coming home from work

to walk dogs and watch television

they stand in front of my window to smoke

for their animal to take its evening shit

when i catch someone looking in

i want to tell them

hey, man, usually i’m drinking on the couch

but instead i’m reaching and bending

stretching muscles i no longer had use for

following the steps of some flamer

dressed in short shorts and pink socks

who keeps trying to prod me along

i’d strangle him with my bed sheet if i could

but i’m struggling for breath

and worried about a possible heart attack

really this is my doing

some forty year old kick in the ass

guilt from decades spent in the wasteland

of scotch and waters and books that i don’t remember

i tell myself i’m not going to drink tonight

even though i’ve been thinking about

that bottle of vodka since i got home

the four beers in the fridge

the single glass of wine left in the bottle

i tell myself that tonight is for self-improvement

a little exercise, a light dinner

some reading on the couch until bed

no headache and no hangover at five the next morning

straight and narrow and boring as all get out

i’ll keep the madness from creeping back in

through exhaustion

and if that doesn’t work

maybe i’ll have a few drinks after all

turn on the radio and say fuck it

think maybe next year

i’ll try yoga instead

                                                            

poem of the day 01.09.15

in transit

i am

always in transit

mostly going somewhere i don’t want to go

going back to somewhere

huddled on a subway or a bus

with the other fools

trapped in my own trivial malaise

or being held captive by some annoyance

tonight it is a pack of teenagers

who are screaming and running between trains

they are hitting each other…again

there is no poetry in the art of redundancy

mine or theirs

so do not think of this as a poem

maybe it is a cry for help

or it is life and life only

i have at least three to four people a day tell me

thank god the day is moving fast

or they complain about how slow it is going

and they have the softest march toward death

that i’ve ever seen punch the clock

soft people and their soft problems

most of them have never worked anywhere else

they take their cars and sit in traffic

playing on their cell phones

listening to sports and hate radio

the only victim in the scenario being their time wasted

on a planet that kills millions

offers death sentences to so many others

each and every day

i’ll put that on my bucket list, they say

we are masters at killing the moments that count

the ones that don’t but are still as valuable

in the end that stench you smell

might just be regret

that is to say, maybe i’m happy to be on this train tonight

healthy and blind, stinking sober

somewhat alive though assaulted by teen noise

while trying to read the poetry of nazim hikmet

beethoven’s missa solemnis

playing faintly in my headphones

here and fully vested in this moment

for as long as this life will let me.                                                                                                                                                                                                           

poem of the day 01.08.15

big asses and hot sauce

the writer is sixteen years old

he’s got three chapters done in a novel

while i spend most mornings simply staring at mine

he carries the pages in a big red binder

every time i see him he shakes it at me

i think maybe he’s doing it to mock me

but we’ve never had a conversation about my words

unless he’s googled me

like the other people who work here have done

if so, i hope he doesn’t send my shit

to the HR department like the last asshole did

the writer likes to give me his chapters when he’s done

he says he’s writing a novel

because he wants to have more to offer his audience

besides his singing and his acting

sixteen year old kids with twitter and facebook

must think the whole world is one big audience

his book is a science-fiction fantasy

about multiple earths light years away

and some federation of buff people who drink protein shakes

and always end up insulting each other

i don’t read genre

because the regular world is fucked up enough

i had to read a chapter twice just to figure out

what in the hell was going on

when i gave it back to him i told him what

i always tell people who give me their writing to read

i told him his novel was nice

that seemed to work for him

because he shook the binder at me

and got right to work

on the next scene

when the book is finished he’ll probably

get a literary agent and a major press right away

i’ve seen it happen before

he’ll think the world just works like that

it does for some people

for others we sit somewhere day in and day out

hoping for just a little something to get us through the hours

a good line

a passable existence

a lunch that doesn’t suck

the chance at another earth light years away

where one can start over again without any baggage

or the ladies in HR

knowing that you get drunk most nights

and that you have a fetish

for big asses

and hot sauce

for contemplative shits at five in the morning.

                                                                                   

poem of the day 01.07.15

shoes

i don’t know how

we got on the topic of shoes

i think scott mentioned them

because he was wearing white shoes

therapeutic shoes for what i don’t remember

we were listening to serge chaloff before

i think we still were

this was before or after scott put on

the version of miles davis’ birth of the cool

without darn that dream fucking it up at the end

i stopped drinking two hours ago

and came into the living room to listen to music

in lieu of making conversation with anyone

but talking about shoes is all right

for a saturday night

at least it’s not talking about cancer

i showed scott my shoes

a pair of beaten-to-death gray vans

that i typically walk five miles a day in

i tell him that one foot wears an eleven

but the other foot is almost in a ten and a half

the result of an accident that i had when i was a kid

and i ran through a glass window

i fucked up a lot of tendons, i tell scott

but i think maybe he’s listening to the serge chaloff

or he’s still talking about putting out broadsides next year

i look at my shoes

my feet look normal when i’m in them

when the shoes are off i have one man-sized foot

and one foot that could almost be a child’s

i probably need some kind of cushion or a custom fit

but like most things in my life

i never bothered to get this fixed

when i look up scott has an otis redding album

ready to go on

otis blue/otis redding sings soul

he says that he has a poem about it

then he goes to get the poem

while ole man trouble starts on the record player

and i can’t help but tap my feet on the floor.

                                              

poem of the day 01.06.15

little men

the place was

as big as a warehouse

but there was nowhere for me to hide from him

it seemed that he came looking specifically for me

any wine spill or any shit on the bathroom floor

they were mine by default

the piles of garbage and broken bottles

my glittering kingdom to clean up

there was always something wrong

with the way i looked

i was never shaved close enough for him

there was always some kind of stain on my pants

is that ketchup or blood? he was apt to ask me

sometimes it was both

he liked to sniff the air when i walked by

then shouted, i can smell the beer on you

said i needed to do something

about my red and bloodshot eyes

buy drops or something, he’d spit at me

i used to watch him come out of that stinking office of his

hands on his hips, surveying his empire

looking for me or someone else to bully

i wished that he was dumb enough

to cross against the light during his lunch

some days i wished

that i was brave enough to do the same

but usually i just went to the bar

he had his dashed dreams

tacked onto the wall in his office

pictures of all of the rock gods that he was never going to be

just like i had pictures of writers on mine

he looked like napoleon but with none of the flair

really he was just a little man

who’d wasted twenty-five years in retail

taking shit from customers and the store owner

who had to go home and live with himself

while i sat across from him

in a stiff chair that had lost half of its stuffing

waiting to be dressed down again

for some infraction

thinking, shit,

i’m an even smaller man

than he.

poem of the day 01.05.15

we built this city

            --for nathan kukulski

there is an unmistakable

stench of rot in the air

on this train it smells of garlic

i’m trying to kill the final days of the year

reading baldinger’s poems

but the guy two seats up from me

has his little magic machine playing 1980s music

we built this city on rock and roll

jesus christ, i think, is he serious?

i’ve got thirty years of animosity towards this song

long rides with my parents

while they fought about money and rent

overtop that sort of happy tripe

skating parties with perky-breasted girls

from wealthy, catholic families

who wouldn’t touch my fat and sweating hands

if it meant their life

i’ve got animosity bubbling anew

and i’ve read the same line at least four times now

because we built this city

we built this city….so that assholes like this guy

will always have their way

no matter how low down on the food chain we are

the working class will eat the working class first

i put the baldinger down for a moment

grab my own little magic machine

i put on erik satie but it doesn’t matter

satie isn’t enough to kill what grace slick

worked so hard to destroy on her own

so this is how another year winds down?

bad pop music, garlic and another crowded train

most likely it began like this too

i just sit there with the book of baldinger’s poems open

the satie flaccid and not of the moment

accidentally make eye contact with the guy sitting next to me

until he looks down and grabs his phone

calls one of his friends while tapping his feet to the music

his face only coming alive

when someone shows up to save him

on the other end

while i think there’s not even enough vodka at home

to shake them all off tonight