Even

Near

Near middle age
I find myself
talking often
of the wild ones
from my youth
who vanished
just to reappear
as survivors in
parents’ obituaries.
Scattered across
the country
I imagine them
lawless still,
on the run,
colorful pushpins
in a manhunt map.
Sometimes
in obit photos
the dead
are younger
than I
ever imagined
their reckless
offspring
would ever
live to be.

Underneath Philadelphia

 

 

Umps, Bananas, Walruses, Oh My!

1.  Animals are funky, am I right?  I mean, giraffes, hippos, fucking walruses.  I mean, what the heck?!

2.  Why are street festivals so entertaining and fun? I mean honestly, most of the time, the things occurring at street festivals are only moderately enjoyable, at best (if there were a funnel cake truck set up on a street corner on a normal day, but not part of a street festival, I dare say a majority of people would walk past it), but when a street is closed off and we give the festival a fun name or theme, people flock to it in droves.

3.  It’s surprisingly easy to forget about the fact that somebody you know has a very unfortunate last name.  I know people with last names like Graves, Tomb, Fish, Hair, and Noseworthy.  (sorry if any of you are reading this)  The first time you meet them or get introduced to them, it strikes you as perhaps odd, and you may think, wow, that last name sucks, but in no time at all, you’ve forgotten the real-world meaning of their name, and it is just…their name.

4.  What is going on with baseball umpires this season?  Until now, they’ve been pillars of self-control and poise, almost like they possessed some kind of super-human ability to not inject themselves personally into the sometimes incredibly monumental events they are a part of.  Now all of a sudden, this season, it’s like an umpire reality show going on. What the heck?

5.  A few days ago, I went in to work on an opening shift (I don’t use the name of my employer online, but I work for a very famous international chain of coffeehouses).  I entered the building at about 5am, turned on all the lights, and walked through the “bar” area (that’s behind the counter) to see how the close had gone the night before.  My gaze swept past the front counter where we sell pastries and assorted other goodies, and I noticed a piece of paper of some kind sitting in the basket of bananas.  I approached it.  It was very unusual.  It was a small envelope with just the word “Banana” written on it.  This is the envelope:

I opened it to find a carefully folded piece of paper, with what appeared to be a handwritten poem addressed to the banana.  Before I show you the poem, I’ll skip to the end of the story: that afternoon, the guy who had closed the night before came in, and I asked him what was up with the envelope.  His response: “Some girl came in, who I’d never seen before (read: not a “regular”) and handed it to me and asked me if I’d give it to the bananas.  She said I could read it if I wanted to, but if I did, I had to read it aloud to the bananas.  I left it here cause I figured you’d get a kick out of it.”

Dear Banana,

I am sorry…we may have to split ways.
You’re delicious and nutritious but as far as
most of us can tell, produced in a world that is
fictitious.

I’ve been asking for a very long time,
why can’t you just grow in my backyard?
Why do you have to travel so far?

Please don’t take offense.  I hope you understand,
it’s not you, it’s my foes.
Oh this is too hard, I hope I am making sense,
it would have been awful for me to live at
your expense.

I’ve Spent My Whole Life in a Dream, But I Don’t Give Two Shits

Here is some seriously artsy-fartsy stuff, for those who are into that sort of thing.  I must give song credit in the video to the band Hoover, the song, “The Lurid Traversal of Route 7”.

One
very hot summer, I remember, we spent most of it down by the Spring, its clear
frigid water a haven. Water bugs danced on it.
The sun made hazy repeating patterns in the air (repeating patterns) and
swept us up in its geometricity.  We
threw rocks that made ripples, splashes, chased cranes, built dams that lasted
as long as a breath.  There were dreams
in the air for the taking, wisps, unfathomables.  It got so I couldn’t tell where the real
ended and the not-real began, where the waking ended and the not-waking began,
where the is turned into the not.  Once for
a moment years later and a great distance away I slipped back into that summer
without trying and was there with a slew of people I used to love but didn’t
love anymore, saw them bathing in that Spring, splashing, cavorting, concentric
circles (concentric circles) like pebbles thrown, the feathers of birds, the slightest things
imaginable.  I’ve lived my whole life in
a dream, but I don’t give two shits