Factotum

Claude knew that his life was meaningless

but he could never manage to save up enough box tops

to send away for the document giving him permission to kill himself.

He spent every evening after work decomposing on the couch until

his girlfriend delivered an ultimatum: that he find himself a hobby, or forfeit

all bedroom privileges. Claude fought her at first;

he had always looked down upon such useless pursuits

as stamp collecting and model train enthusiasm.

But desperation and the limits of self-gratification

made him at last attempt to discover some new interests.

Poking around on the internet, he came across

some old black-and-white footage of a hamster beating a drum, and grew

obsessed with it, watching it repeatedly until it took on the significance

of a religious icon in his mind. He even built a small temple to the rodent

which he accidentally burnt down while lighting some sticks of incense.

Disillusioned, he turned to the stock market for solace,

making wild investments in companies like Jell-O and Snapple.

He tried to start a James Woods fan club in his basement

but not even the promise of free Jell-O was enough to entice anyone to attend.  

Finally, he started buying antique barber poles from auctions.

He had them mounted on the front of his house, dozens of them,

along with a sign declaring This is NOT a barber shop,

this is a private residence. Please do not block the driveway

to alleviate any confusion. His girlfriend was less than impressed

by his efforts to fill his life, but Claude didn’t care.

He didn’t have time for her now anyways.

Winter Takes All

A flock of pigeons lifts off.

A shuffled deck of cards

Limbs tremble as a tree realizes

it's holding a losing hand

Calculi

Brimming with rum, Claude grew sleepy in the sun

and conked out in the hammock strung between the elms.

The afternoon being unseasonably balmy,

the earthworms surfaced and spread their blankets.

They unpacked their picnic baskets and passed around

the dirt sandwiches, uncorked bottles of bubbly mud champagne.

Being creatures comfortable with slime, they didn't dive for cover

when it started to rain, even though the droplets smelled unusually pungent.

Had they eyes, they would have noticed that the shower possessed

a definite golden sheen, as it was, in fact, Claude's urine,

sprinkled liberally across the grass, Claude being too drunk

to stumble inside, or even bother to aim properly.

Indeed, the oblivious invertebrates cavorted merrily 
in the downpour, that is, until it turned to hail.

Song for Adam Smith

Valets in red jackets huddle in the doorway of the social club,

emitting little puffs of breath as they watch the streets flood

with well-dressed couples in tuxedos and heels,

followed by musicians lugging black cases which conceal

cellos, oboes; all of them flowing away from Symphony Hall, 

on the second floor of which, through a window I can see a tall,

severely balding young man 
pacing back and forth with a cell phone in one hand

and a trombone in the other, white sleeves rolled up. 
He seems agitated, chattering nonstop.

Finally he slips the cell into his pocket

and starts to play; at least it looks like it.
I can’t hear a single sharp or flat through the glass. 

He swings the bell; light polishes the brass.
He pumps the slide enthusiastically, strutting like a lunatic
around the room, every movement duplicated

by the wall-length mirror. I’ m frustrated:
what good is music you cannot hear?
“Come out into the street,” I want to yell, “and share
your gift with those of us who can’t afford a seat
in the back of the hall, much less the balcony.”
But why should I begrudge this musician
this self-indulgent moment of enjoying his isolation?
It just seems like a tease, like being at a peep show
and longing to touch the girl behind the window.

The muted notes tumble out until 
he’s knee-deep in them; kicked up, they swirl
through the air like confetti snowflakes.

A comely flautist in a camelhair coat takes
my attention away with her for a moment,

and by the time she returns it, the target of my voyeurism
has packed up his instrument

and flicked off the lights. He pulls the door behind him,
his music left behind in melting piles, going to waste,

as across the street, one of the valets 
begins to whistle a lively but out-of-tune melody.
I savor each generous note of his discordant charity. 

Bardo

We all know that fable about the bullfrog in the pan
with the water temperature rising so gradually
that the submerged amphibian doesn’t realize

until it suddenly finds itself boiled into the afterlife.
The story’s bullshit, but what about that water?
What does it experience as it straddles that state line,
just before escaping into vapor?
What goes through its mind as its matter
disbands and evaporates into the ether?
How would it feel to be perpetually trapped 

at 99.99 degrees? Snagged on that cusp, 

teetering on the razor's edge of existential orgasm?
How does it compare -if we might trip down the cellar stairs 

of the thermometer- to being that same liquid 

just before it seizes into ice? 

Do you even notice that one instant you’re fluid,

the next you’re frozen solid?
Do you experience some epiphany,

is there bliss -or even pain- in transformation,

or is there just a moment of surprise, 

like that evening when you served dessert 

and found you could not look him in the eye?

We're Coming In Loaded

My coffee mug prints a brown C

that bleeds into the paper placement

printed with ads for auto body shops,

realtors, podiatrists

as I sit here at Nick’s.

Every Thanksgiving I fly back here

to visit my old haunts, nostalgia cajoling me

into torturing myself with meals at all

the bad Pennsylvania diners I frequented in my youth,

staggering through the glass door drunk 
in the middle of the night to fill up 
on greasy food and watery coffee.

Garlands of nylon autumn leaves

droop across the windows and etched mirrors.

Elvis sings, piped in from an internet radio station,

not Love Me Tender or Hound Dog or even In the Ghetto

but his more obscure numbers you never hear:

Joshua Fit the Battle. Three Corn Patches. Rubberneckin’.  

I used to come here all the time with Abby,

and I’m sad for a moment, welling up with regrets,
until I remember that, if she was here,

she would wrinkle her nose at these songs

and mock me when I try to defend their greatness,

would groan and cover her ears if I started to croon along.

The Eagles are losing with agonizing efficiency

on the corner TV, the old men at the counter

hypnotized by the inevitable failure,

eyes affixed to the screen as they fork

wedges of chop or chicken croquettes

into their soft mouths. Like me, they can’t help themselves.
They keep coming back. I slurp my food.

The Italian wedding soup is better than I remember,

though just as salty; big, ragged meatballs,

plump pasta pearls. I must be hungry

because even the decrepit salad of iceberg lettuce

draped across the glass plate

and swimming in gloppy dressing tastes great.

There’s only one entree I can safely order here,

crab cakes made with artificial crab.

Drizzled with lemon they're not too bad.

The waitress, who never recognized me

even when I was a regular,

will bring them by eventually, warning that

the metal dish has been in the broiler

and is too hot to touch, and as always,

Ill find myself unable to resist 
touching it anyways.

Covoiturage

Sparks burned through the tarp

slung beneath the drawbridge to catch

the debris cast by the laborers 
busy doing Lord knows what to the girders,

repairing or replacing them, and all work 
screeched to a halt for fear the falling bits 
would fall into the water, harm the migrating fish

speeding through the congested river.

The company was canned unceremoniously
and the bridge, still closed, sat quietly for months,

bristling with orange cones, as a new

contractor was hunted for.We mumbled 
but succumbed to the detour,

those of us who worked downtown

having no choice but to drive south

half a mile downstream, to the next bridge over,

from which the first could be seen, waiting 
patiently above the river,

white tarp slapping beneath its abdomen

like some kind of flag of surrender.

Below, the salmon passed undisturbed

on their on their way to work, unperturbed

by the inconveniences we were suffering,
the tough sacrifices we were making, 
the extent of the trouble we were taking

to ensure that nothing would interrupt their commute, 
so that nothing would detour them from their route,

as their tiny brains remained focused solely on 
reaching the ocean, our mutual destination.