The American Dream
People say The Dream is changing.
Deal with it.
Sell your truck,
Downsize,
Spend smarter,
Eat less,
Read more,
Learn Spanish,
Love better,
Lower expectations
(Especially of our “icons”).
And most of all don’t complain,
It’s really, really not helping.
The Big Finish
This is the solution.
The necessary alternative
To years in a nursing home
And old age.
Six months before my 60th birthday
I reminisce 10,000 feet above the ground.
I had a good run, a great one mostly,
And the future offers little more than
Chronic health problems and
The steady disintegration of the body
That once popped jump shots into hoops
Over hot blacktop down at the city park
And once could hike mountains for days at a time
Just for the fun of it.
Now I can still climb the stairs,
But barely,
And living to see the day I can’t
Would just be too much for me.
This seems like the right way to go,
Skydiving with no parachute,
Naked,
Right into the middle of the Super Bowl.
The Catcher - A Poem for the memory of J.D. Salinger
Last night another big one fell.
There’s fewer left everyday.
Someday there might be none,
And then what?
Who will tell us when
To kill the rock stars now?
There are no more bananafish.
Sick Day
I woke up sick today.
I wasn’t positive at first,
But now I’m sure
Because all I wanna do
Is watch re-runs and take naps
With my gallon of water by my side
(I’m out of cups again).
I should be writing
Or working out
Or accomplishing
Any number of tasks
That need doing.
All that can wait, though,
Until my head stops feeling
Like it’s stuffed as full as a piñata.
I wonder if there’s candy in there?
That’s the fever talking.
Holden Caulfield has checked out.
How To Feel Alive
We showed up late to miss the opening act,
The kind of bold move you only make
When you’ve been drinking
And you have tickets to see your favorite band.
A group of diehards who know all their songs
And memorize set lists of every show they see,
We held our heads high and our spirits higher.
The mass of tie dye moved about anxiously
In anticipation. As the band emerged onto the stage
The chants and the pipes sparked up together at once.
“Umphrey’s! Umphrey’s!” we yelled,
And the scene could best be described
In their own words:
“The air felt different at the start of the show
As every breath resembled smoke”.
They began to play and those who had not
induced euphoria on themselves already
Were now forced into it and beyond.
Love in the Zombie Apocalypse
Love is learning how to use a twelve gauge
When the flesh eating monsters tear down your girlfriends door.
Love is sprinting out through the chaos and anarchy to the car defenseless,
Just to move it closer so she doesn’t have to risk her life
anymore than she has to.
Love is ignoring warnings to fend for yourself and forget all others
When you agree to her sobbing pleas to go back inside for the dog.
Love is holding her hand tight as you purposely ram your car
Into the stumbling masses who crowd the once civilized streets,
Hoping to god you inflicted enough damage to keep them down on the blood stained pavement.
Love is trying your best to make it out alive together,
And knowing that if they get her, you’re going down too
But you’re taking as many of those zombie fucks with you as possible.
That’s love.
Move
I want my words to move like you.
I want them to tell of beauty and pain and dreams and death.
I want my words to dance on the page like you dance on stage,
And to have the flexibility you have, and the stability, and the confidence.
I want my words to make you dance the way your dance has made me write,
And even though this poems for you I hope others feel like dancing too.
I want my words to be as soft and as smooth as your skin
And as full of wonder as your eyes.
I want my words to spring and kick and pirouette,
To shine and shock then fade to black.
I want my words to command the spotlight
And do with it what they will,
And I want my words to get your attention
And hold it like you hold your breath
As you wait for my next word.
