poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
after seeing The World’s End
everyone was replaced
by an exact replica
as we left the theater the lights
were off the halls were empty
the doors were locked the
parking lot was silent
we walked a little faster
to the car drove through
deserted streets toward our apart-
ments where nobody was home
23 August 2013
Auburn AL
adding to the list
you give away and you pack
and you pack and you give away
then after a while it’s just you
in an apartment with new echoes
wandering from room to room
opening drawers to ensure they’re empty
not long after, you turn in the keys
and that’s it, another place added to the list
of places about which you’ll say
“I lived there once a long time ago”
22 August 2013
Auburn AL
backpack ballad
(to Gretchen)
today I retired my old backpack
a gift from my younger sister
who found her footing earlier than I did
it was one of those backpacks
with one strap, the kind that slings
heroically across the chest
I always felt, when putting it on
as if an adventure were about to start
John Williams music in the background
that backpack carried so much music
hundreds, maybe thousands of CDs
stuffed in till the zipper asked for mercy
it held notebooks full of poems, too
the green one from Kate, the black ones
I bought even when I didn’t need them
now, though, there’s a hole in the bottom
if there’s one thing a backpack can’t tolerate
it’s a hole in the most important place
so I bought a new messenger bag
just in time to go back home where
an adventure is surely about to start
21 August 2013
Auburn AL
tweets
descending the stairs
I look toward where
the birds used to sit
remember they’re gone
they weren’t like dogs
or cats, no cuddling
but they would perch on my hands
happy and singing
it’s important to not
be the only living thing
in the place where you live
20 August 2013
Auburn AL
leaving Alabama
I’m going to buy a few boxes
even though there’s so little to pack
I’m giving away nearly everything
leaving like I came, backpack stuffed
new friends in my heart
eyes searching for distant tall buildings
19 August 2013
Auburn AL
oops
two hundred
twenty-
eight
and then one
day
missed
time to
take up
golf
18 August 2013
Auburn AL
dialogue with a fortune cookie
inside the cookie
a slip of paper
“there are big changes
ahead for you”
not sure where
the factory is
but I want to reply
“yes there are,
thanks for noticing”
16 August 2013
Auburn AL
one black family
there was one black family
in the town where I grew up
two kids, one in my grade
one a year or two older
both were smart, athletic
popular with everybody
back then I never thought
what it must be like for them
or for their parents to be
the only black family in town
about 45 minutes away was a city
where most of the people were black
although I didn’t know this at the time
for a child of my age in my town
black people were mostly on TV
I didn’t care about sports, but I grew up
watching The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son
then The Cosby Show and 227
my parents’ best friends were
a married couple; one black, one white
I’d known them since forever
and it never once occurred to me
in all those years that there was anything
strange about their being married
I still can’t decide, even now
if I was open-minded or just ignorant
and then today, out of nowhere
I exchanged a message with a star
from one of those TV shows I mentioned
she’s still out there, living life and making art
I wonder what the Jones kids thought
when they saw her on TV
16 August 2013
Auburn AL
American Life As Depicted In One Sentence From Sports Talk Radio
Do you anticipate
that the injury
will cause any kind
of setback in how
they’re developing
with Tom Brady?
15 August 2013
Auburn AL
Ray Charles is singing about Georgia
Ray Charles is singing about Georgia
while the rain pours down outside
I’m reading about the freedom struggle
drinking a tall glass of sweet tea
and thinking of you
traveling back to a dozen or so people
in folding chairs, listening intently to the music
I’d say “Who could have predicted?”
but even on that first night I knew
I didn’t see how it would all turn out
but if I had it would have been worth it
at least that’s how I feel now
as the radio switches to Dean Martin
and a burly woodsman with a big red beard
sings along to “Ain’t That A Kick In The Head”
while I wait for the rain to stop
14 August 2013
Auburn, AL
what the world needs now
more photos of you in a bathroom mirror
more TV shows about people arguing
more ways to eat chicken
more screens in the palms of our hands
more private contractors monitoring us
more long-distance shots of stars’ genitalia
more creative ways to drink sugar
more things to yell at women on the street
more unmanned aerial vehicles
more canvas bags of money on Capitol Hill
more places to connect on social media
more miles of tar sands pipeline
more food photos with 22,000 dead children daily
more front lawns and golf courses in Tuscon
more teaching to the test
more #hashtags
more laws written with the Bible in mind
more fuel made from dinosaurs
more people by themselves in cars
more self-help books
more corporate music
more shame about the wrong things
more images to make us feel inadequate
more bags and boxes for our stuff
more private insurance
more Google
more middle-of-the-road public radio news
more they said they said journalism
more false equivalence
more guns
more bullets
more words
less action
12 August 2013
Auburn AL
superheroes
well into my teenage years
I had Batman posters on my walls
and a painting of the Dark Knight
done by a friend (now departed)
after every heroic action movie
I emerged into daylight
imagining myself stronger, faster
ready to take on all comers
to defend what I thought was right
in later years I saw immigrant women
stand up against powerful rich men
on behalf of themselves
and their coworkers
I realized superheroes do exist
but we spend so much time looking
up into the sky for them
that we miss them all around us
down here on the ground
11 August 2012
Auburn AL
standing on the Edmund Pettus Bridge
what most worries me
is that for my sons
what happened here
is so far in the past
it won’t even be history
10 August 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
It’s my job to ensure that doesn’t happen.
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home
soon I’ll be where the people
press against you from all sides
where you can go hours without
hearing anyone speak English
where at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday night
if you decide you need a snack
there’ll be a place open on the block
where people know what bagels are
and the subway will take you anywhere
it’s the place where I know how I fit in
where I understand the rhythms
where pizza tastes like pizza
and there are flowers growing
on the High Line
9 August 2013
Auburn AL
a memory of fire
there was that one time
when the heat was so intense
that we couldn’t breathe
we were hunched over
under the pitiless sun
gasping like spent runners
8 August 2013
Auburn AL