JARDAY
1. JARDAY writes poems, biographing life not himself.
2. JARDAY writes poems, read frequently by a select group of humans and occasionally published.
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UNTITLED
lies naked in bed
sheets and blankets are a cocoon;
Cocoon is a shield against the cold night
leaking through the window:
Won't bother closing the window;
shivers
Needs the fresh air:
Lazy
Cigarettes make the air stale;
stale air makes the throat dry,
No, the planet;
the planet makes the throat dry,
its life . . .
Not a native, can't feel native anyway
Distant stranger shivers
Tomorrow is another day
. . . can't live here
can only watch: for a while
self, pro tempore
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SAME WAITRESS, SAME OLD POET
Jovial,
she's found her place
in the world.
She puts plates on tables
and asks "Catsup, hun?"
Ask her about the work,
ask if she likes it --
she'll stare, smiling, not
sure how to answer.
Says, "Oh, everything is
fine, hun. Everything is fine.
What can I get ya'?"
She managed to look past
my every attempt to be
a spellbinding poet and
said "What'll it be, hun?"
Just like she'd said it
to the man in the suit.
Just as she'd said it to the
greasy man in coveralls.
"Coffee," I said, "and
tomato juice." And I rolled
a hand over my notebook.
"Mnmn," she grinned,
"Well you'd better have
something to eat, honey,
you're all skin and bones."
I fanned through the notebook
for the next blank page.
"Only tomato juice for
breakfast, and that coffee."
She grinned, winked and took up
the menu. I started writing this.
I got all the foundation down,
ready for her to return and
yab about all the ordinary people
she gets in here and how
refreshing it is to serve a poet.
She comes back, breakfast in
hand, chatting at all the regulars
the whole way. I look up knowingly,
expectant, but doing my best to
remain aloof. She smiles again,
shakes her head and comes out with
"You poets, all about
taking the life out of things so
you can put it on paper;
Always saying nothing is important:
Only every thing is important.
Always throwing word play around
like it's life and throwing life
around like it's word play."
"You poets, always trying to get
noticed, want somebody to say
'My, that fellow sure is a poet.'
Son, if you're so much more
interesting, why is it you're
writing the poem about us?
Why not the other way around?"
"Know what is really interesting?
Cindy over there is dating a mechanic,
her third mechanic in a row.
He'll drop her like the others did
when he finds out she knows more
about cars than he does. Big Lou?
He cries himself wet every night
in the bar over his daddy who died
ten years ago -- but he doesn't
know he cries and we all pretend
he's a big, tough guy. Billy,
he swears up and down he killed
Lou's daddy -- now, no one
believes him, but old Lou sure
pretends to have it out for him.
They cry together those nights
in the bar. Jenny, she's
sixteen and having Lou's baby
and all the while I'm putting
plates on all these tables."
"Truth is, hon, you're not so
interesting and neither am I.
Probably why we're in the line
of work we are, carrying notebooks
and pens. We're both gossips.
You've just got a poem as
a cover an' me? I've got
this here bill for you.
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THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN
He liked to think he was
a good father . . . sure he was,
Sure he was. Some husband, too
at least he bought her flowers.
Little Jr. cries himself to
sleep, consoled by the state --
they offer no consolation. They
offer mum rehab, though -- It
does no good - all she wants
is to forget it all. She does,
she does . . . until she starts
wondering, again, how it all
happened. Why it all happened.
Update: She's found a cure -- she's
standing on the old overpass and
if the fall doesn't do the trick
the midnight train will. She's always
been an efficient strategist.
What the hell went wrong with Him?
Fast-forward ten years: Jr.
makes headlines; said to have copy-
catted his mother. "Copy-Cat Jumpers"
they'll be remembered as,
"A Second Ticket for the Midnight Train"
the poets said.
He'd like to remember himself
as a one-time good father. Sure he was,
Sure he was. Then, I couldn't keep
my dick out of his ass; Then he couldn't
keep his balls out of my face.
For the record, He is doing fine.
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TERRIBLE
Consider a tragedy.
There is much unhappiness,
many who would say it is
a terrible thing and go
so far as to say,
because of their remote predicament,
it is a terrible time.
Men shake hands and women embrace.
Some of them in light of the tragedy
and some of them completely oblivious to it
-- after all, news spreads
only so fast and so far.
And, really, do tragedies in the news
really upset people far away?
Not so much, only insofar as
they directly impact you.
Not sofar. Not somuch.
So, men are shaking hands and women are embracing.
Children are playing and and dying.
Old folks are chatting and dying.
Children are being BORN, even.
Meanwhile, there's a little tragedy.
Which, in light of it all, isn't so much
-- isn't much at all.
A fellow who bummed a cigarette off of me
was grateful and that is why I shook his hand.