what was that? is that all there is? who is this? this is it.

another time

another place

respite

hiatus

escape

bubble

pause

fresh air

cold beer

hot chicken

taken out of context

and put back in

sitting in a sawed off lawn chair in the garage with the sun poking through. having a beer in a Wheel Fanatyk cup  reminding me of Ric. take a photo, fluff it up with a filter and send it to Ric. then he puts it on a postcard and sends it back in the full set full circle round trip return circuit out and back dinger.

do you know bro?

Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know, do you know. 

--Gertrude Stein

In the 80s my mom got Breakfast Club on VHS at the video store, probably more than once.  I definitely watched it more than once. With a pen and paper in hand I paused the VCR  and rewound it until I had this scene down. In a short while I had it memorized. 

To this day you might find me reciting it, once in a while, here or there, when I’m reminded of it, talking to myself, soliloquizing, rolling around the U-district, or grinding up the hill to get home…

Stupid

Worthless

No good

Goddamn

Freeloading

Son of bitch

Retarded 

Big mouth

Know it all 

Asshole

Jerk

you forgot 

Ugly

Lazy  and

Disrespectful…

As a kid my grandma would sometimes bust out a poem she memorized in school. A poem she still had stored in her brain, word for word, 50 or 60 years later. She could recite Rudyard Kipling’s  

If–

If you can keep your head when all about you   

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not...

autobiographical

irreconcilable

irreversible

immaterial

Seattle

Legal

skeptical

quizzical

historical

metaphorical

biblical

infinitesimal

intellectual

contextual

proximal

distal

medial

lateral

bilateral

symmetrical

eternal

ephemeral 

environmental

existential

whimsical 

practical

financial

farcical

variable

predictable

indelible

washable

sequential

accidental

digital 

scribble

comical

sensible

reasonable

logical

expendable

essential

nonessential

peripheral

incremental

exponential

statistical

anal

habitual

oral

insatiable

full

multiple

serial

single

available

tangible

visible

technical

spiritual

residual

bountiful

dreadful

beautiful

artificial

biological

ancestral

orchestral

probable

actuarial

mathematical

numerical

alphabetical

allegorical

superficial

susceptible

sexual

perpetual

perennial

annual

arboreal

terrestrial 

industrial

commercial

residential

cubical

hypothetical

factual

electrical

manual

anthropomorhical 

phantasmagorical

quadrupedal

vestigial 

coincidental

conspiratorial

let’s roll

"if you don't like the weather

wait 5 minutes"

Fable

I’m tired of meaning, says the tortoise

to the hare, who agrees. The lions

and crows don’t disagree, and the snake

chimes in: It would be better if we didn’t 

have to moonlight as morality lessons. 

Exactly, says the chicken. I’d like to let

loose once in a while, I’d like to

stretch my wings, she says. Yes, 

says the fox. You should get out

of your pen more, says the fox. You

should let me help, says the fox,

opening the latch to the evening. 

It was a fine evening and a fine

conclusion they were coming to,

thought the fox, helping 

the chicken out of her feathers. 

—Andrea Cohen

Poetry May 2024 

Volume 224, #2, page 105

reprinted here

without permission 

Wheel Fanatyk  pint cup