pop quiz

-

without warning
a beauty appears
and asks
“what kind of poetry do you write?”

I tumble down
a spiral staircase
chasing my babble as it
falls to the floor
along with my tongue,
my guts
and my brain.

I need to work
on an answer
for that question.

someday
I might actually
want to know.

pool champ

-

he’s a big guy,
a regular
at pool and drink.

I know him
as well as I can
from shared complaints,
wedgies
and beer.

he holds up a little plaque
with great pride
showing me that he
was one
that helped gain
our shared bar
3rd place
in the annual
city pool league.

one of a two-man team.

I feel glad for him
mixed with a bit of pity.

I encourage him
trying to hide
how sad
I think it is.

I smile
and wonder
if there is no greater aspiration,
some larger reward
in his life.

I already know
there is not.

I do not regard this fellow
with disdain
or disregard
for he is a jolly
good fellow
indeed.

more capable
than I
of rejoicing
in the little things,
the tiny rewards,
the simple smiles.

still too young
to be damned
to his path
but there it is
in front of him.

20 years from now
I don’t know where
I will be
but I am fairly certain
he will be here
drinking
and trying
with all he has
to make his 3rd
into a 1st.

and as I sit in
hypocritical judgment
I am reminded
that no matter what

a man
needs a goal
in life

and that life
is a relative thing.

power trip

-

it is sometimes difficult
to remember
whom I have offended,
whom I have trespassed against
and whom
I have not.

judging from the look
on the face
of the guy
at the other end
of the bar
I must surmise
that he is one
whom
I have.

most likely the result
of my wanting
to make his girlfriend.

I probably passed her
a poem or two
on some drunken,
lonely,
desperate night.

that is usually
more than enough
to incur
some wrath,
some resentment,
some ill.

when she avoids
all eye contact with me
I take that as verification
of my suspicions
and my cue
to stay over here
and finish
my drink.

some guys never learn.

sometimes I hope
I never do.

sometimes
I hope I will
but for tonight
I’ll just sit
and enjoy
what little power
I have.

Dry hump

The random scrawling
seems little more than
frustrated masturbation
when it won’t
stay hard.

There is a severe dis-
combobulation of
my senses
and my
equilibrium is all
but shot
as I stumble
into one wall after another
trying to find a door.

I just keep dry humping
the pages
like I’ll never
get laid.

Wasteland refugee

I feel the fool
once more
as I wander this vast frozen
wasteland of cracked,
spider web asphalt
its shores ravaged
by an icy grip
as the winter’s cold
and the night’s dark
consume this sometimes
fertile land
caught between analogies
for hell.

Below it all
the loneliness boils
and dooms any voyage
I attempt
to make
before the sails
can even fill.