550: Final Poems

Living Room

Hope is not snuffed like a candle – well, at first, yes, but then it clings like a parasite –
it slowly suffocates yet again as the dawn light extinguishes a sleepless night
tearless eye and empty mind, creeping like a thug with a baseball bat. Unuttered
obscenities crawl through shaking limbs, pleading their pointless release into a cluttered
abyss. Then, giving in to primal screams an unearthly delight, a godless rite rights
the prostrate form, laid out not in a shroud and not in a shrine but on shabby carpets
in a disintegrating home, alone and writhing, scratching, writing. The sole soul
keeper of some memories, denied others, fades in a blaze of frantic being. One must
keep busy to cope and to suffer through hope.


Living Room, Part Two

At the end of the semester – well, not quite THE END, but, say, a week away – you do this dance – at least I do. Goes somethin’ like this: read a chapter & take some notes. They look so productive, marching across the yellow paper. Don’t worry that ten minutes later you can’t recall why they were important or anything else about the book between the notes. It will all come to you IN THE MOMENT. Type the heading for a paper. Now you’ve DONE something. A little gremlin called Procrastination jumps up and down in front of your face (in front of your computer) says this is the PERFECT day to vacuum behind furniture, clear out flower beds, organize unopened mail on the kitchen table. IT_ALL_MUST_BE_DONE_NOW. But being such a dedicated student – and after realizing the mail consists only of unpaid bills, it’s too early to plant anything & the vacuum cleaner died last month – you return to the computer, stare, and REALLY think for a minute: a game of solitaire is just what you need to clear your mind. Then another. & another. you just have to win ONE, then you’ll feel smart & accomplished & can really get down to work. By now you’ve forgotten what the assignment was & have to dig through stacks of books & papers to find one precious loose sheet that will answer all your questions and doubts. It says: Write a paper on any three class texts. You think, oh, that won’t be difficult; I read them all, kind of. I’ll make a list, you say. After an intense two minutes, the list has twelve vague items and fancy flaming bullets. This means you are ORGANIZED. This means you have IDEAS. Now it’s time for a sandwich & beer – you’ve earned it after all. That paper will practically write itself. Tomorrow.


The New North Side

Twelve hundred dandelions no match for one red tulip
Cats screech like babies being tortured and
Ducks fight as they bob down the creek
Sticky cottonwood seed pods invade all as
Spiders hurry through thoroughfares of dead leaves

My affluent neighbor smugly surveys his territory from the new cedar
deck on his new custom home approving the two yappy dogs
who patrol the bank opposite. Always on the phone and
gazing knowingly over here, he will march soon with bankers, brokers,
lawyers & councilmen, statutes & eminent domain. My wild paradise
his golf course utopia. Takeover is imminent. The American dream of conquest, conformity, & illusion. If it looks like a happy home, it must be one.
Such a threat my tiny rented cottage poses his tidy bloated empire.