“George’s problem is he’s too affectionate
– he expresses himself”
one woman confided loudly
in a restaurant
unlike the usual complaint
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Copyright 2015
Category: American Affairs
WANT DO YOU WANT FOR QUARTERS?
All the fat girls in town
had congregated in this Laundromat
to giggle at a skinny hippie.
When they sat, mouths agape,
stomachs bulged more than their breasts.
Everywhere, there’s a pecking order.
The manager in her blue scarf and coat
fluttered in to chase neighborhood children out.
“They mess the place up. I don’t want them.”
Kids, kids, kids, she muttered
raking in quarters – all this bitterness
robed in garments of honey and bees.
As for me, another day,
another dollar, down the drain.
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Copyright 2015
BUT THAT’S NOT EVERYTHING
in the median strip of Route 17 just north of Pennsylvania
Paula and I found a road map of Fayette County, Tennessee
“you wanna talk about getting lost?”
all these vehicles entering a busy traffic circle
are just a matter of shuffling cars . as the matron confided,
“Harry and I used to go down to Buffalo” to do this or do that
careening along curving roads, I saw the moon
swallowed and released over mountains . “she’s
a nice girl who does well in school, but that’s not everything”
or we could have just stopped at a
BAR DINING ROOM
flashing in orange and green neon
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Copyright 2015
REGARDING THE GATE HOUSE AT BLODGETT’S CANAL AND LOCKS
Thoreau turned upstream on the Merrimack
rather than to the ocean
before heading back
~*~
needles and rotting leaves
the floor of the stream steep
water the color of tea
it’s a dangerous
river that was home
shores denuded
when tall pines older than the railroad
were felled to make way
for fiber optic cable
they say you log on
in its branching current
owls and herons take him away
above the hydroelectric turbines
~*~
landing adventurously
perhaps to shout
I remember where you are
the cuisine isn’t that much different
than our second city together
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Copyright 2015
WITH FINGERS AS THICK AS HOT DOGS
Resting on the park bench, she complained
she couldn’t keep pace with her children.
When the seven-year-old pest returned,
demanding, “Ma, give me money”
for a cola, she complied,
thinking it love.
~*~
She couldn’t touch her toes.
~*~
Her legs pushed away from each other, yet
in her cotton dress, unexpectedly
as she swatted a fly, she began to float
and meticulously shrank from sight,
bouncing along the horizon.
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Copyright 2015
ALWAYS WASH THOSE HANDS
and that’s the really frightening thing
the bomb-sniffing dog
on the way to the Laundromat, before
~*~
I’ve had enough this season
to satisfy my sensibilities
though it’s still unseasonably warm
and raining
lingering
over
food
this buzzing
finds pollen
wherever
our sun warms
~*~
yet to the Appropriate Authorities
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the United States Government
unrelated by family or livelihood
my next-door neighbor
together on numerous occasions
I further state
intelligent, industrious, socially responsible
capable of
very truly yours,
the prodigal son, without the dissipation
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Copyright 2015
WEDDING PARTY
“you said when you married
you’d still make love to other guys”
the guest at the house party argued
though now
I initially have difficulty telling whether
he’s talking to the bride or the groom
even as he added
“you’re too young to be getting married”
he spent the night anyway
among those of us encamped in sleeping bags
around that second-floor apartment
~*~
we’d had an intellectual tete-a-tete on the corner
and then, upstairs, stoned out and dancing
at the heart of the crowd, I collapsed
it was all ass and thigh from the floor
so she liked flirting with me . Ooooh!
she told me my eyes were a strange, beautiful color
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Copyright 2015
HANA
with empty matchbooks all about
the apartment stank, as it had
since the 17-year-old sister encamped
at the door, a 50-year-old tattooed
sallow visitor with a front tooth missing
inquired if she was home yet
said he’ll be back tomorrow
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Copyright 2015
REALMS OF DESIRE
Two cheerleaders wore white gym shoes
and thick white socks leading
to smooth adolescent legs
and who knew what else.
Freak girls bummed cigarettes like crazy
and you fed their neuroses.
A chubby chick fought and shrieked the hardest.
“God-damn fart-face!” she called a boy
she hit squarely, not to be left out.
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Copyright 2015
STARTING OVER DINNER
the scene broke up the night D and V
connected the same time R and M did
all in one apartment . for me
only torment and loss
her haunted poster of the gaunt Gypsy
came off the wall a week later
~*~
of course, the living arrangements
would change . “when I first met you,
you were giving off funky vibes
like at a 90-degree angle . all nervous energy”
of course, we remained friends
for a while
~*~
there they were
like a bad novel
on Doubleday Street
there, he smiled from the kitchen
“anyone want some cooked garbage”
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Copyright 2015
Jnana's Red Barn 