poem of the day 02.16.16

duncan

duncan is running around the kettle bar

with his sister olive

screaming and yelling

while people are eating bar food

or starting in early on the day’s drunk

duncan is maybe three but still looks vacant

olive is pushing two at best

and has a set of pipes on her

that could raise the damned

there are no other children in the bar

because it’s a bar

duncan’s old man is your garden variety domestic asshole

with his receding hairline and dad gut

his sculpted man boobs

under an ugly maroon v-neck sweater

with tufts of chest hair coming out

he apologies to my wife and i

when duncan and olive repeatedly smack into our table

but he doesn’t mean it

because we reek of childlessness and other malaises

because his america counts more than mine

dad is enjoying his stolen afternoon beer too much

to worry about duncan and olive

killing other people’s time

he’s too caught up in the entitlement of being a parent

at the turn of the twenty-first century

praising his children

for what used to garner an ass whooping

duncan’s mom is a beast of a woman too

who wears the wounds of a war

of knocking out two kids in under four years

on her soulless stomach

i think she has diamonds

embedded into her glasses frame

for that extra douche bag oomph

and somewhere on her fat dego ass

i’m willing to bet

is a faded tattoo of a beloved cartoon character

she got at the beach

before duncan and olive were a drunken mistake

in the gleam of her eye

she thinks naming her children

duncan and olive

makes them more than the common

screaming creeps they are

mom had been carrying olive’s dirty diaper for fifteen minutes

until she set it down on the table next to us

blue and white and brown ball

of non-biodegradable plastic

a table someone else will eventually eat/drink on

she doesn’t care

because duncan and olive are so precious

their shit doesn’t stink

they’re the zenith of what she’ll accomplish in this world

ignorance that she’ll pass on

like family jewels and disease

boutique named monsters free to run around a bar

screaming and yelling

and raising hell on a monday afternoon

where we are all captives to this mundane madness

that gets passed around these days

under the guise of precocious ingenuity

duncan in his rookie-of-the-year t-shirt

olive in her plaid dress

smacking their heads off the worn bar and laughing

the little philistine prince and princess of bay ridge

with ketchup stained faces

from french fries flung on the bar floor

like nut shells and sawdust

little landmines we’ll try not to slide in

as we forgo another beer

and get up to leave

to duncan screaming bloody murder

to an old hootie and the blowfish song

as olive prat falls and farts

and our proud patriotic parents

order another round.