Wednesday, August 24, 2016

poem of the day 08.24.16

ode to the loud guy on the B4 bus

eighteen months
i haven’t had to take this bus home

now, i don’t want to suggest
that things should get better over time

life is cyclical

some mornings i get the feeling
that we’re slipping slowly back
into some new kind of dark age

but do you really have to shout to your friend
about going to dinner at buffalo wild wings?

i don’t want to get into your cuisine choices
but the man is sitting right next to you

at best you need only talk above a whisper

why do we all have to know how much you enjoyed
your screamin’ nacho burger and buffalo chips?

i’m not trying to suggest
that what i’m doing on here is better
than what you are trying to do

though i am reading chuck kinder
poems about richard brautigan

by the looks of us we’re both trying to go home
from our fucking jobs

i just don’t care that target has all their star wars shit on sale
and how cheap the batman/superman blu-ray combo is

even if i did like the film

or that the target is right next door to buffalo wild wings

which was good because you really
needed the bathroom after that meal

i’m sure the other two dozen people on the B4 bus
don’t give a shit either

but it doesn’t matter to you, does it?

doesn’t matter that the bus driver had
to make an announcement telling you to shut the hell up

you didn’t even hear him

just went right on babbling about bowel movements
and stars wars and batman and target
and screamin’ nacho burgers and buffalo chips

i don’t want to say that there was a genuine sigh of relief
when you got off at thirteenth avenue

i’ll just say the bus got a ton quieter
and the driver no longer looked like 
he wanted to careen the bus into a wall

that is, at least until sixth avenue
when some asshole teenage girl got on the bus
blasting taylor swift songs from her smartphone

singing off-key for everyone

like she thought she was
going to be america’s next big shit.


                                                                       

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