Monthly Archives: January 2016

February 2nd, 2016, on a Tuesday from 6pm to 8pm I will be participating in the New Poet Challenge at Pairings Wine Shop along with a new poet of my choosing.

I have challenged seasoned community theatrical performer Joey Cote.  He enthusiastic accepted the challenge, excited to be expanding the boundaries of his creative world.

Come see Joey and me, as well as the other challenger/new poet pairs, pair it with some wine, and donate to a great cause. 🙂

Walking home from work,

I pass a bonfire in a front yard.

Smoke coming out of the top

 

like the hands of a stadium crowd,

mid-celebration.  Five people surround

the fire like five fingers grasping

 

at a cheddar cheese popcorn ball.

The tabs on the beers pop and someone’s

head pops up from fire to say hello.

 

“Hello,” I say, “That sure looks warm.”

I walk on and I hear someone say,

“We’ve got plenty of fire.”

 

I’m half a block away when it

hits me like a launch from a t-shirt cannon

into the back of my head.

 

Plenty of fire and me with

cigarettes but no lighter. I walk back

and find someone has wandered

 

away, but everyone left looks over

at me like I am a pop up, soaring

and landing, just barely, in left field.

I’m finally getting around to polishing up these puppies I wrote on receipt paper while I was working in the bookstore last summer.

In the morning a man hunched over
in a recycling bin jerks his head around
in three different directions, snatching

three cans in quick succession as
he tosses them consecutively over
alternating shoulders into the garbage
bag in the cart behind him with the arc
of dirt clods scraped up by the dog.

A squirrel scampers by, his tail waving

toodle loo, with a fistful of leaves

clamped between his teeth. It stops,
tilts its head rapidly right, then left,
then right again like a jaywalker
crossing traffic and then darts up
the tree to his left, a convict going
up a fence.

After dark, a garage door opens to
reveal a light flicking on. A woman
stands outside the house door
inside of the garage in front of

a running car hands on her hips

she shouts “Where the fuck are you going?”
“Where the FUCK do you think
you’re going?” Her “fuck” rings
out like a bark in the night.

I’m on the curb looking
at my phone but I sit
straight up suddenly
like a startled raccoon
by the dumpster.

She punts the front bumper
of the car in her garage
then turns and jerks her arm
suddenly at the button
on the wall like a cat trapping
a mouse in her paw. The automatic

garage door slowly and mechanically
closes, before the car can pull out
safely, until even the light inside
stops escaping.

I pull my rolling tote behind me
with a gloved hand and walk on,
thinking about what groceries I will
purchase to put in my cabinets
for cold days like these.

At the store, the man with the cart

full of cans pushes them into a machine

outside in the dark

one at a time.