poem of the day 09.21.15

the college failure

i think marilyn is making eyes at me

i think all women adore me

two months of this torture

i gear myself pump myself tell myself

kid, this is the day

lunch or anything to push me past dumb stares

marilyn and her post-class routine

the pitt news and lunch at roy rogers

bottom floor of the cathedral of learning

i’d make my last bold custer move

flying down cathedral stairs

i get smacked in the head with a paper roll

kris in bearded flannel saint mode

we tumble steps talking our british tongue beatle talk

marilyn back in her gray navy clutching books

she always dresses so goddamned nice

whisper to kris secret words about her

my grand plan my last front in this war

and then i’m a done gone thomas merton monk saint

no more women no more heartache

we stand in roy rogers

examine the menu like a fine work of art

our own brown-bagged lunches waiting

poor kris who’s been through them all with me

wendykrissymelaniemarycassandraportia

now marilyn with her tray of junk food

christ, look at all of the ketchup, he says

but i’m sweating mad sick of the smell

of this food this notebook this pen in my hand

useless poem notebook full of blank pages

i make my bow-legged jingle-jangle way across

the weight of gravity this moment of truth

…………..and like that the magic is gone

the wind knocked

marilyn sits her dainty sit with some beast of a co-ed girl

a lion’s mane of hair loudest person in the place

yang to her yin to her yang

i turn to kris

oh, i’m not making a fool of myself in front of that

so we

back in the hallway

kris checking the glass doors of roy’s every minute

to see if the beast leaves our heroine alone for just a second

while i whine and pace and curse the gods

that things never go right

this women business never works the way it should

and soon marilyn and the beast

come rolling past us in girl laughs and giggles

down  the hall and fade to black

the chance gone

what would you have said anyway, kid?

dumbsainted kris and i stumble toward gray light

our stomachs growling for food

the dim promise of something else.