THE WORLD AND US, PART II

The world came back from the dead to discover
that humans had taken over and ruined everything.
So the world smoked a lot of pot
and wrote limpid little poems about spring
that nobody in the world gave two shits about
but the world wrote them anyway because it made him happy,
and because he was so high all the time
that it always felt like spring,
even when the world had just been dumped on
by twelve inches of snow. The ice trucks came rattling
down the streets of the world, but the world
didn't know it. There it sat, with its Bermuda sandles on,
reclining in its giant beach chair, snow swirling about
its hoary head, and nobody even noticing its decadence.
The newsmen came on and spoke about apocalypse
but the world knew better. He had better know better:
after all, he had been to the abyss and back.
To take a simile from one of the world's best poems,
it had been like swallowing a strychine sandwich
that had been left on the counter for weeks
and then attempting to do jumpingjacks
into socks lined with brass tacks.
But that's the beauty of a simile,
it's always just like or as,
never is. The world didn't really eat that sandwich, fyi.
The poem was loosely based on a real-life incident
involving some rotten tuna salad
and a pair of ill-fitting shoes.

CALL WAITING

I called my land land
from my cell phone
to hear myself in stereo.
Hello, I said in both ears.
It's me. How are you,
I said. Fine, I said.
The land line beeped
with a call waiting.
I put myself on hold
to answer the other call.
It was my friend in Rome
calling me on Skype.
He had gone there to convalesce
in the warm Mediterranean sun,
and had recently pgraded his account
to call land lines.
I asked how many land lines
he called nowadays,
since everyone was going mobile.
More than you'd think, he said.
I'd think you'd call about three people,
I said. He said, nope. I said,
about five? Wrongo, he said.
Well, how many then, I asked,
but before he could tell me
I remembered about my other line.
Hold on, I said, be right back.
Sorry about that, I said aloud
to myself. But I think I had stayed
on the other line for so long
that I had pissed me off.
I was beginning to apologize
when my cell phone vibrated.
It was another call coming in,
this one from my wife.
Be right back, I said, and clicked
the green phone icon. Hi Honey,
I said. When are you coming home
from work, she said. I don't know,
I said. I'm busy.
My lines have rung all day.
I'll call you back, I said,
and then switched back over
to my first call
where I'd been growing more and more
impatient with myself.
You put me on hold for forever.
No I didn't, I said.
Yes, you did, and you forgot
that I had my friend in Rome
on the other line the whole time,
you big dickhead, I screamed.
I hung up one phone and then the other.
I felt superior, then inferior.

MNEMONIC

I must remember to turn on the oven
in half an hour, while the bread
is finishing rising, to heat up
the pot that holds the dough.
This poem serves as a reminder.
Instead of jotting on Post-It notes
stuck to the regfrigerator,
I'll post poems to a blog.
The string around my finger.
In the breakfast nook where I type
the penciled bird on the wall is still dead
and there is a German print of pigs:
Marschschwein and Tamworthschwein.
Out the window the neighbor's dog
is pointing at nothing, now barking.
UPDATE: Emily has turned on the oven.

THE END OF THE WORLD

Somebody asked the world
if it liked clams and linguine.
The world said you ought to reverse it.
Reverse what somebody said.
Make it linguine and clams--
putting clams first is problematic.
Why asked somebody.
Because said the world clams belong to the sauce
but the sauce isn't as important as the type of pasta.
So you prefer linguine to clams.
You could say that.
Could I say that you prefer clams to fusili or rotini.
Yes you could say that.
So you like clams with fusili or rotini.
I do.
And linguine with clams.
Yes.
Do you even like clams?
But the world didn't hear somebody
ask the final question.
The final question the world ever heard
was the one before that.
The world then had a heart attack
and was rushed to the hospital
but perished in the ambulance.
In the interest of full disclosure
I admit that I am that somebody.
For years I have harbored the secret
guilt that I killed the world.
I think about it every time
I eat at the Olive Garden.
The waitresses all know to bring me
endless bowls of the same two dishes.

THE WORLD AND US

The world asked somebody a question the sound of underwear,
like freshly folded underwear.
It was spring and the flowers were out for a walk.
I stood on the flagstone path drinking a tonic.
The world sent an airplane across the sky at the precise moment
somebody started to answer the world.
Everyone watched the plane scribble its white crayon
across the blue paper way up there.
I asked a woman if her name was really Luann.
The world repeated its question, this time the sound of overalls,
overalls caked in mud from fourwheeling at the bog
with the Jeep doors off and the hard top off and the radio loud.
No one really got what the world wanted,
but we admitted it had a good way of speaking.

Me Reading Some Poems

I couldn't make it to AWP, but I did read with Timothy Gager, Mignon Ariel King, and Laura Cherry at the HallSpace Gallery in Dorchester, MA, on Saturday, February 21, 2009. It was a nice time. Tim was kind enough to record me reading two poems: "Myth" and "Human Nature." I wrote those poems for this blog and this is where they live. In fact, the HallSpace was the only other place besides this blog that they've ever been. They think it's good to be home.

Planned Obsolescence

Poems are flawed.

They fail because they end.

The perfect poem fails forever.