To the Common Grackle

I don’t think you’re so common.

I have watched the way you eat.

 

You know? If you were human

you would be better off, common.

Birdwatching

This is my life:

A girl that loves me

in the next room

dialing wrong telephone numbers.

She desperately needs to get in touch with me,

or god, or some body.

 

A finger hunting for the right disease

in a moon lit room full of monkeys

does not scare me.

A life on the tracks is ok

as long as you don’t believe in anything.

I would touch Jesus

if he promised not to touch me back.

 

So why does she believe in me?

I’m a monster,

minus the tail,

killing the wind.

Old Jack

His face was a museum.

With eyes cold since Korea,

he sat at his computer and played solitaire.

His brain, growing old in his head

sent mixed messages to his jittery hand.

It could never be still,

and he was only at peace

when he slept.

It was the digestion of food

and dreams of playing in the mud.

It was there that the contrast between

inches

and bad sin

disappeared into him.

Killing Mr. Flemming

 

 

He referred to me as,

“Mr. Robinette”

This was important because I learned

condescension is only effective if you allow it to be.

 

He had a picture, not a poster, a real picture

of an ostrich with its head in the ground,

and he would point to it and say,

“That’s you Mr. Robinette. That’s how you go through life.”

 

There is an alternative,

a secret passage

that leads down two roads,

six, and then a thousand.

 

I used to think none of this had anything to do with history.

I was too busy thinking about girls to make the connection,

to see how we slowly entered back into the dark ages

feeling nothing and feeling it comfortably.

 

We began somehow, like a switch,

and ran like hell to now, and then for no reason

sat down.

“That’s how you go through life.”

Chicago