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Category: Poetry

POEM: Let Me Come In And Talk To You About Dire Straits

Let Me Come In And Talk To You About Dire Straits

Dan Bern said he was the Messiah.
Dire Straits said if two men say
they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong.

As far as I know, I’m not who you’re waiting for.
But come in anyway and have a cup of tea.

Life is both long and short,
and just when you’re tired as fuck of the whole thing,
you get a glimpse of the alternative
and cling to the now like a barnacle
on the hull of a ship.

I used to sail when I was a kid.
Now watching a movie set on a boat
makes me seasick. We change, at least a little.

If I ever get to London,
I’ll climb on a box at Speakers’ Corner
and proclaim myself the Lord
just to see what happens next.
Eventually somebody might be right.

Ah, there’s the kettle.

/ / /

13 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: Quantum Entanglement

Quantum Entanglement

We’re all trying to step
off the merry-go-round,
but we’re strapped to the horses,
whose grins are maniacal,
whose hooves never quite
touch the ground,
while the calliope plays
on and on and on.

/ / /

11 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: That’s It For Tonight

That’s It For Tonight

I couldn’t face leaving the house again
so I had groceries delivered
which meant they were twice as expensive
as if I’d just gone shopping
and then when the delivery person
dropped them off and I
stepped outside to get them
the kitten escaped and ran off
into the neighborhood
and it took two separate rounds
of chasing him with a flashlight
over the course of nearly two hours
until he was finally back in the house
and just as I got settled down
to write this poem describing it all
the neighbor knocked on the door
to let me know the kitten got out
but I told him the kitten was back
and that’s it for tonight.

/ / /

10 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: No Thanks, Professor

No Thanks, Professor

And in the end
they crowned a king
because his friend
destroyed a ring.

But we need neither
king nor steeple:
return all power
to the people.

/ / /

9 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: A Hole Where A Heart Had Been

A Hole Where A Heart Had Been

It can’t be stitched, patched or mended.
Time will not heal it.
You can see the sky through it.
And if you put your ear to it,
you can hear an ocean of tears.

/ / /

8 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

The title is a line from We Travel Econo,
a documentary about the band
The Minutemen.

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POEM: Ambience

Ambience

Music For Airports
fills the room like
incense smoke
as we take our pills,
perform our ablutions,
try to coax the cat into bed,
commiserate about the world,
then let sleep take us.

/ / /

7 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: All My Dreams Are Of Escape, Part 2

All My Dreams Are Of Escape, Part 2

Every day I fight the urge
to get in my car and drive
until I max out my credit cards
buying gas and roadside food,
leaving behind me a question
shaped like emptiness.

/ / /

6 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: All My Dreams Are Of Escape

All My Dreams Are Of Escape

All I’ve ever wanted to be
is half of an elderly couple
at the grocery store,
puttering from aisle to aisle,
oohing over the sales,
tsking at the price of bread,
then making small talk with the cashier
while a high school kid packs the bags,
never imagining they’ll ever be old.

/ / /

5 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

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I Am A 12-Foot Cheese!

I Am A 12-Foot Cheese!

Sovereign of fromage.
Monarch of Käse.
Regent of queso.

Fetch me a baguette!
Banish the lactose intolerant!
It is my destiny to rule!

/ / /

4 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: Listening To Live Rust On Sunday Morning

Listening To Live Rust On Sunday Morning

Voice like an angel
slowly drowning
in the shallow end.

Bright 12-string
shimmering
above the sing-along.

Canadians
are the best at being
Americans.

/ / /

2 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: Quaerens Domum

Quaerens Domum

An inherently rootless person,
always in search of home.
That’s the narrative I’ve written
for much of the past fifty years.

I cling to the imagined home
of my childhood in Lenox,
a few years weighted all
out of proportion to their duration.

Upstate NY, the place
where I spent half my life?
Cast into the memory hole,
entombed, until recently, in disdain.

*

I pull open the heavy oak doors,
take a tentative step up the carpeted aisle.
I sink into a pew, feeling my shoulders lower.
In front of me, candles flicker.

/ / /

1 February 2025
Charlottesville VA

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