Monday 27 May 2019

Memorial Day, 2019

Hottest memorial day on record,
okay, so I’m making that up, but could
still be true. The Marine who never
really talks about it sits at the bar
he makes jokes at and posts
a poem on insta; it’s how I know
he’s there, I’m not there.

My Grandfather and Uncle and several
cousins have all carried guns for
America and lost or seen things I
never want to, at least, I assume.
There’s a lot of not talking about it,
but if the things that they’ve seen
are like the bodies in the documentaries
I’d bury myself in science fiction
and whiskey, or never want either
ever again.

Hottest memorial day week to date, well
probably not, but I wonder if I ever
have a child, will they be sent to the same
war I avoided with essays about
Pacific Northwest  imagery in the works
of Raymond Carver. A bit like
the skit about the ice cream taster
and the heart surgeon. The soldiers
I know are always the first

to tell me what I do is necessary
and usually I believe that they
believe that, and try to write honestly.
I do not know what music to
play in the bar tonight, since most
people will be making jokes
about bar b ques or anticipating
returns to different types of
drudgery. All I know is that
it’s the

hottest day in the history of days
and there are machines and technological
advances that mean I may get
to fight in that war yet, and the music
here is a bit on point: the entire
empty coffeeshop just burst out
in a singalong to “Is there life on maars?”

Friday 28 December 2018

Don't talk much/too much to say

Haven't been posting here as much, haven't been saying as much here. Partly because I've been saying it elsewhere, and partly because I've not been saying it at all, or saying it too much, to too many people, in too many contexts.

Still, there'll be a year-end post, as there always is, in some fashion, because old habits die hard.

I really want there to be a Die-Hard/Sister Act crossover joke in there but I am too lazy to make it. Now the punchline is smirking in your brain.

Friday 7 December 2018

Piano Manatee Ball Championship

Fuck You, Billy Joel

Last time you were in the kind of bar you
sing about, it was still classy, and fun,
and you were there with your wife
and the drinks were free
and don’t try to tell me about lonely,
I will invent it for you
brand new and bloody
right before I break your fucking fingers.

Tuesday 13 November 2018

Cold Snap/Sunshine



Bill Withers on the stereo
a cold, dry November.
Just enough before work.
The coffee alcohol spectrum.
I miss everyone, but do not call.
It is okay for it to be okay
to be sad, I have convinced myself.

Time is running out before
I am legally required to smile.
It is dark inside and outside.
The lights are low because
brightness is ridiculous.
The song that played
over the credits of a fifteen
year old movie
about teenage awkwardness
makes its way before I do.
I can’t not care, and I’ve spent
so much of my life putting a premium
on detachment.

A stylized canoe hangs upside down
from the ceiling. I don’t even know
what this song
is  called.

Tuesday 13 March 2018

Threads.

Woke up and finished filling the trash bag. A few shirts I didn't like emblazoned with logos of bands I did and vice versa. Another stretched hoodie I'll not wear again ever. Got the bag full enough it started to fray, threw on pants, shoes and a hat and drug the bag to the 7, hopped off a few stops later. Walked across a long parking lot and tossed the bag in a big blue bin with wheels.

It's been more than a few years I've been meaning to do a clothing purge. But I've always meant to scour the various used clothing stores of the city-- get the most bang for my buck. I've hit Bon Voyage with mixed success, Madison's with none, Red Light with maybe one shirt offloaded? A few weeks ago I grabbed the most egregious of the clothing items and let them slide down the Addison trash chute.

But today's selections were different, nearly sentimental, nearly practical, all the reasons you keep things when you maybe shouldn't. Or should, if you were actually gonna hit every thrift shop. If you were really going to take those pants to a tailor, those shoes to a cobbler. Really going to cut all those logos out and make them into patches.

Anyway, after, with some of these items, years of equivocating and procrastinating, I got rid of them, freeing up a lot of shelf and drawer space.

But it's more the psychological weight. Over the weekend and start of the week there've been a few other things that, for privacy and practicality's sake, aren't worth detailing, except for them having similiarly been weighing on me, and now I feel. . . lighter? To a degree I hadn't anticipated.

Of course, it is dark and rainy and I'm drinking an Alaskan Porter, so there's a limit to Just How Light I'll feel.

But this has already been a year of upheaval, and it seems that's a trend that will continue, for better and worse, so making the best.

Monday 5 February 2018

We Know the Results (rough, new)

The Super Bowl is Over

and with it, speculation
as pros and amateurs alike
call in to collect their bets.

The Super Bowl is  Over

and we're all a little drunk and
mentioning our friends in Philly
and considering more cocaine
or maybe fighting the bartender.

I need to leave this shouting neighborhood.

The Super Bowl is Over

and there are so many new buildings
beckoning for retail, the suited men
look tired, these streets will not be clean.
the sports bars prepare for another
downturn and hope to live off
these profits at least until Saint Patrick’s day.

The Super Bowl is Over

and it is time to  sort my w2s.

The Super Bowl is Over

and my Dad’s best friend, laid to rest
at the Rainier Beach Mortuary in
a two hour ceremony one hour before
I work. My sister texting tears that
she can’t make it out.
My Mom’s pet dove, family pet for
thirteen years, shivering in it’s blanket
then still.

The Super Bowl is Over

and seriously fuck that one guy,
and his voting record, this can,
or has to, mean something. We
taste  his tears from TV screens.

The Super Bowl is Over

and there are buses I no longer take
pictures I’m wiping from my phone
a Cat I’ll never see again
and a line around the block
for a play I will not see.

The Super Bowl is Over

so no more guesswork. The why
it went the way it did are stories
that will change with tellers. There
will be another one next year
and after that, an occasion
for fundraisers and toy drives
and nachos and puppies
and million dollar commercials.

The Super Bowl is Over

which means there must be winners
but I am more concerned with losses now;
that corner space in the charming building
promised such potential
, sits empty.

Friday 8 December 2017

Some days

a burger with an egg on it, a mimosa, a shit ton of coffee, and an upscale coffee shop playing gutter punk are the push-pulls that lead to advanced productivity.