#poetry - Between the Bushes

Haze-blue at high noon, in the park
We lay like roasting peanuts
On a smooth brown cotton blanket.

I, on my stomach with mouth
buried into my folded arms,
laughed at your clever jokes.

You on you back with legs bent,
one crossed over the other,
Form golden slides for golden rays.

We soak and slurp this lazy noon.
Oil lakes collect deep in your navel
And shallow at the small of my back.

The white gray city looms over us,
White haze, metal and stone,
Penetrates our green grass haven--

Back Bay fens, park and glade,
Of muddy pond and Muddy river,
Of dirt paths and idle grass.

Here we stake our claim.
On even cut grass we lay
And close our eyes and listen.

A regular clink of bat and ball,
da-dunk da-dunk of ball and court,
slurk-slurk of skate and walk.

Dog barks, dogs bark, dogs are playing.
Children talk, children laugh,
boys are laughing, one girl screams.

Lovers giggle and lovers giggle,
lovers make sound. Lovers and their baby,
Lovers and their children, they whisper secrets.

Feet drag on even cut grass,
Ploosh-slucking feet in swamp muck and
Plink-plinking pebbles in the pond.

I open my eyes, a world of green
Fights a world of blue, white haze mediating
we are baking as witnesses.

All colors, all warmed and golden flesh,
All Back Bay fens, all a sun loved day,
All sound and scent, all bodies, dance.

Clear clean cut grass, hazy smokey skyline,
Burning black path and ruddy mud pond,
Oh the stalky garden, and there between dark bushes

Colors dances, fight and mingle,
Like business on a trading day,
as floral bloom in this heat of spring.

My chest is heavy with my own weight,
I raise myself and sit on my feet
And laugh again at this comedy.

Bushes now twitter across the path
With a man between the bushes, twittering,
A gawker dark-loving everything he sees.

"Why do we come here?" I ask you,
"This place is full of freaks."
"Its warm" you say, "and quaint..."

Your eyes are closed but mine are not,
and yet you are right, it is warm.
So I and another man, clear out those bushes.
    ...and now it is quaint.

#fiction - On Pissing at the Girls Room

I was standing in line at the Druid, waiting for my turn in the men's room.

I wandered in thought.

Thinking about an Irish musician who said Paris is where he will be for St Patrick's day "Because that is where the money is."

It was taking the first gentleman extra long, so as I thought out things that had to do with the Irishman's proclamation, I drifted toward the door marked "Women"

I opened the door and moved to step in. But an arm extended in front of me. A women started talking.

"You cant go in there, its the ladies room."

I responded,

"I'd be rich if I had a dollar every-time a woman came out of the men's room."

"That's different," she said dismissively.

"Why? It may be true that I piss straighter than most women."

She waved her hand and responded, 

"I could piss any way I want as long as the seat is up and no one would notice."

I looked at the man standing next to this woman, he smiled. I looked back at her,

"That's great, but I'm still going in there."

She asked

"Do you like this place, yes or no?"

"Why?"

"Yes or no?"

"I don't have time for this."

"Because I like it, I live here. It's my favorite place.  And if you go in there, you'll violate them on the sanitary code."

"Sanitary code? What are you, Health Department?"

"Yes, I am."

"Here in Cambridge?"

"No, Boston."

"What's your name?"

"Kelly."

I took out and passed her my business card.

"Kelly, my name is Robert. I've been in ten thousand Boston apartments. You are doing a horrible job."

"Well that's residential. I'm commercial."

"Oh really. You know one time I made my entire class raise their hand without saying a word by just raising my hand and leaving it up."

She looked at the fella she was with and said

"You know, one time, in band camp--"

I cut her off---

"It has nothing to do with band camp. It has to do with black mold in bathrooms, bed bugs in the bedrooms, vegetation growing on the walls in the living room, and 16 people living in a 1 bedroom apartment. Among other things."

"But that's residential, I'm--"

"Set a proper example in one segment of the market, it affects the other segment. Do that. Now excuse me."

I stepped toward the woman 's bathroom again , and again Kelly's arm went up to block me. She said

"If you go in there, you will violate the Druid."

I looked at her arm then into her eyes. I pointed at the sign "Women."

"You see this sign? Well 'A Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose.' And that comes from Gertrude Stein, the most femi-nazi of all y'all. So, I'm cool. Good night."

Her arm dropped. I brushed past her, stepped into the Women's room, closed the door. I proceeded to piss straight into the bowl. My piss stream landed in the very center of the water and stayed on target. My piss never touched porcelain, only Cambridge City Water. I used a wad of toilet paper to flush the toilet and the same wad to open the door. I did not wash my hands because they only touched my clean dick.

Kelley was gone when I came out. The man she was with was still there. He shrugged. I finished my drink, paid my tab, walked home, ate peanut butter and fell asleep watching True Detective.

#fiction - A Good Friday

well i was feeling pretty good. i had just had dinner with my brother, his treat. he also got me coffee and some cigarettes. the day had been very productive otherwise as well.

the start of it had its fair share of road blocks. i woke at 5 am. i took my coffee, after my shower. i suited up. had a small breakfast. read a few pages from ian mcellan's ENDURING LOVE. pulled my ipod from the charger and was out the door by 6. there was already 3 inches of snow and the start of a blizzard. so i had to walk through that to get to the bus terminal.

i'm staying these days in fall river, about sixty miles south east of boston, where i work. its an hour commute by bus each way. not a big deal normally. but today, the 6:40 bus was thirty minutes late. in that time, the counter salesperson traded stories with the regulars about the inefficiencies of the 6:40 driver. the first stop on the route to boston is in newport. its about 25 minutes normally between newport and fall river. this driver is known for taking fall river tickets, loading the bus, then disappearing into the fall river bathroom for 15 minutes everyday before launching on toward boston. so that's what we were talking about while he was running 30 minutes behind through the snow.

then the bus came. we loaded up. i took my shoes off to dry out my socks from the walk. thankfully the heat was on full blast and this would work out fine. the driver, 30 minute delay notwithstanding, maintained his fall river ritual and disappeared for 15 minutes in the fall river bus terminal bathroom. there were many groans about this. i didn't hear all of them because i put paul simon into my ears, reclined and fell asleep.

#fiction - Five Minutes with Sam

 what i said to sam

"well i don't know much about any of that or any of anything else, but i do know this i think---"

"oh yeah, what's that?"

"there are about 75 billion human souls begging for a chance to get back in this place, begging for as long as they are just souls for a thing that will never happen. because once its over, its over forever. and we in it are all just dancing round the same fire as best we can for as long as we can. so, good luck with that."

"thank you, man. you too."

"no problem."

i started to walk but turned and added

"and, you know now, that's just one way to look at it. here's another, you're an angel and this all around you is heaven and we're just reminder notes to each other about that because angels have no memory."

then i left.


what i was thinking right before the moment sam appeared:

i look the part. by the part i mean i look like a guy you might think your chances are pretty good with asking for and getting a cigarette or a dollar. or, maybe if you find me in a bar, i might look like a guy you could strike a forward leaning chat with whether you're a guy or a girl---you'd think your chances were pretty good.

the old man and the white duck

last week in the boston common,
during lunch time, while drinking coffee
and enjoying a smoke,
i noticed something absurd.

about thirty feet from me,
an elderly man was on his knees
attempting quite calmly
to place a paper hat he had made
from a sheet of the free newspaper
upon the head of a white duck.

the white duck held its ground
in a stubborn cocksure manner
and nipped at the old man's hand
with each and every attempt,
never turning to walk away,
making no noise at all for protest.

i drank two-thirds a cup of coffee
and finished off two cigarettes
as calmly and steadily
as that scene played out
before i realized i was late
for a meeting and had to go.

the old man and the white duck
continued on with their conversation,
and might even still be having it.
i don't know why but the absurd
turns a part of me on.
i wore a full smile the rest of the day.

Average Poet Salaries!

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poetry in Boston, MA	$50,000
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[Blogger won't let me use the html code to put in a fancy-schmancy graph, you can follow this link to see for  yourself at SimplyHired.com]

But anyway---Yeah Boston Poets---put those Iowa Workshop brats in the hole! Of course, I think the Simply Hired salary data is hocus-pocus, but it generates a laugh all the same.  I do often wonder about how I might someday "monetize" my poetry writing energy and output. There are two professions I can say I was born to partake in.  One, sales. Two, poetry.

The making of a sale, the manufacture of the sales process is not unlike the making of a poem or the poetic process.  Both require depth of "product" knowledge, control of execution, a palpable degree of entertaining ability, and an overall resonating meaning that elicits thought from the prospect/reader.

In sales, I can make 50K in a bad year and clear 100K in a banner year.  Poetry, on the other hand, well I've been at it for a while, albeit without much marketing effort thus far---with poetry I couldn't make the cost of a cup a tea.  There are 26,000 new fiction titles that come out every year.  Who knows how many new poetry titles come out. There are nearly 90,000 publishers in the U.S. and they put out collectively more than 100,000 new titles every year across every genre and subject area.  The publishing industry nets somewhere between $30 and $40 billion each year.  Some markets are still growing about 30% annually, but those are tied to education.

For poets to make money, well, they must first be good and deserving an audience.  This criteria is a lenient one, it seems, as almost any New Yorker magazine reveals.  And if your name is Galway Kinnell or Shel Silverstein, you have raked in a fortune via the poetic process.  But neither a lifetime achievement award or a widely popular trans-generational poetry series can be claimed by every poet out there, even the good ones.

The most a good poet can expect in terms of compensation, beside the contributor's copies, is an active