WORKING ON A CHAPBOOK
Published by my friend Jacob Severn. It will hopefully come out in the spring. You want some tastes of what may or may not be in this chapbook? Oh, okay, here:
Published by my friend Jacob Severn. It will hopefully come out in the spring. You want some tastes of what may or may not be in this chapbook? Oh, okay, here:
I work for the parks department. I help manage their big state park parking lots, cruising around, sometimes telling people how to park their cars, picking up crumpled up paper. Right now I have my back to one large, black kidney-shaped parking lot and I am talking myself down from a panic attack. This is a tough thing to do. There is a lot going on right now for me to have a panic attack about. It is double hard because I also am feeling like there may be secret chaos going on behind me in the lot. Like because I’m turned around not looking, and there is no one to watch over the lot, that suddenly tons of cars are swarming, maybe the lines organizing the spaces have melted off or vaporized and there are so many cars now, ten times as many cars as normal, ten times more cars than the lot can hold and they are all swarming and there are people getting scared and honking and getting angry. And I’m failing because my back is turned to them and I’m not there to make the essential guiding hand gesture. But I’m trying to talk myself down from a panicky attack because I went to sleep too late and the sun is too hot and we have uncomfortable things to say to each other and it’s like that saying you can’t help others until you help yourself anyway, dammit! So I am talking my self down and I will not turn around unless I hear a CRASH or a SQUEAL or a YELL or someone PEELING OUT. I will not turn around until I feel like I can eat a sandwich again or shake someone’s hand and look them in the eye without crying.
Pop Song Poem
Ah come on now
You got to
Get along!
Yeah baby yeah
You know it
Yeah yeah
Oh girl
You make me crazy
Uh huh
Oooh
Doo wee dooo
Give it up to me
Go on now
Oh darling
Gee gah goo
Heyah!
Hoo!
Good gaw!
Peaches n cream
If I take off my glasses and look at my orange cat from far away, he looks like a weird fat spray-tanned infant with the face of Newt Gingrich or a pervert.
Instead of Cutting
If I keep my hair long it covers my neck zit. Which people will try politely not to look at but will inevitably still look at so it’s best to just keep it covered up. Another reason I should keep my hair long is that when I walk away from the sun, and the wind blows sideways just right, and I’m wearing a blouse with should pads or puffy sleeves, my shadow looks like James Hatfield from Metallica circa Ride the Lightning when they were really good and still really young and really hot. It’s like my shadow could kick someone’s ass and that’s important to me.
Baby You Make Me Cry
I’m looking on the internet for baby animals and I accidentally watch a “micro-mentary” about the killing of baby seals. Their fur is so so white and their eyes are so soft and wet and very eye-lashey like Disney character’s—and then all this gashing and red, dark red, almost black. I start to cry. “Oh. My. God!” I choke. In the next instant, I’m daydreaming that you are here seeing me here like this. You rush over to cradle my head. My nose gets caught in your belly button as I wipe my face on your shirt. Your shirt is maroon and now it is spotted dark maroon from me crying on it. I say “sorry” and hug your mid-section again. I snap out of it and stare at the monitor. I am able to faintly see my reflection in the white fur filling the screen and am horrified.
I DO DECLARE
I did not know that a poem could simply consist of a declarative statement but it can.
My Darling Nikki
There Are Two Types of People in This World:
Those who say Nick Cage
and
Those who say Nicolas Cage.
