WHY THE BUS DRIVER IS LATE
WHY THE BUS DRIVER IS LATE
He rises every morning at seven
back pains,
displeased with the color of his walls,
thinking to himself
“I could have done that.
I could have written a movie about vampires.”
Dallas Clayton
TRAVEL LIGHT
TRAVEL LIGHT
If you are looking for a way to celebrate
a special event
or small victory
I suggest you visit a travel agent
and ask her to purchase a trip for you
to a place you have never been.
Have her book the flight,
the hotel,
the transportation,
and put the tickets in an envelope,
Seal it,
and write on the front
what time you leave
and when you return.
If you are lucky
you will end up in Cabo San Lucas
just for the weekend
feet in the sand,
wondering about what the ocean looked like
before the tourist industry
and all the peddlers
offering henna tattoos,
silver jewelry,
cheap drugs.
If you are unlucky
you will be sent somewhere else
you’ve never considered
and truthfully
the experience will probably be pretty close to the same.
LENGTH
LENGTH
If one end of it
is the best thing you ever did
and the other end
is the worst
how much of your life
will end up dead center
and what will it take
to change?
THE ONE
THE ONE
I fit a drawing
of what I think you look like
inside a bottle
to throw in the sea
but I didn’t want to poison the fish
so I took it out
and instead
folded it into the pocket
of man waiting for the bus across town.
There was a note at the bottom
that you will probably think is funny
years from now
when you find it
stuck in between
some old periodicals
in the public library
where you were just passing through
on your way to cure something
with a spare half hour to kill.
RUNNING TALLY
RUNNING TALLY
I’d like to know the ratios of wishes being made
to wishes being granted
and which god turns up more victories for the wisher:
coin fountains,
shooting stars,
stray eyelashes,
birthday candles,
The clock turning 11:11,
simple prayer.
Whichever it is,
the most reliable,
we should let it rest for a moment
and give the others a chance to catch up
so all the wishes don’t get spent
the same as fossil fuels.
SO MANY
SO MANY
There are sports
that fill stadiums
cause riots
command salaries
into the hundreds of millions
break up families
and inspire the multitudes.
Sports you have never even seen or heard of.
Sports you will never play.
APPROACH
APPROACH
When you want to talk to a stranger
but you’re scared of feeling like a failure
you should just picture them as a grocery store clerk.
You have no problem talking to them
about totally useless mundane nothing
and you don’t consider it a failure
or even give it a second thought.
If you are a grocery store clerk
the same exercise hold’s true,
just exchange the word “clerk”
for “customer.”
LYRICS
LYRICS
If all goes according to plan
the adults
will get wise
start growing out their hair
in different awful patterns
writing ignorant things on their shirts
and quit work.
Then things will be shook up.
SUPPORT
SUPPORT
How much better would each day be
if someone told you
you had done a good job
doing something you’d never tried before.
THE COUNT
THE COUNT
How many leaves are on that tree?
No seriously I’m not being poetic.
A million?
Is that what a million leaves looks like?
I have no idea.
CROWD
CROWD
I can’t stand here and watch your band anymore.
I’m sorry.
We’re both just kidding ourselves.
I need to sit.
Or you need to play faster.
No two ways about it.
LAND
LAND
When renting an apartment
a landlord should just say
“Walt Disney used to live here,
when he was a kid, working his way through college.”
Who wouldn’t want to rent that apartment?
And how could you ever prove it?
METHOD
METHOD
We fix
to climb the highest
most terrifiying structure
plant a flag
with our name on it
and sit around drinking
and telling stories
about how hard it was
and how long it took
to get there.