Tuesday, July 28, 2009

     


franklin and third (part one)


     i slept on the couch, in the living room. i forgot my gym shorts in the car so i just slept in boxer-briefs. i didn't think she'd care. i had a blanket anyway. "this one's lighter." she said. so i took that one (because nights in the cities are warm in july and people leave their windows facing the streets open sometimes). 
     i was woken up around eight by creaky footsteps taken on the old wood floor followed by the sound of the front door shutting. i was momentarily slightly extremely concerned for three reasons. 
     the first being i thought i may have missed my alarm somehow and overslept and the sound of the door closing had been the result of her leaving for work. she was scheduled at eleven (at the bank). i was scheduled at ten (at the warehouse). if the door closing was her leaving, i was late. 
     the second being if she had in fact left for the day, i was now the only other person in her apartment apart from her roommate, her cousin, who i didn't know all that well. awkward time maybe. 
     the third being if i had in fact overslept and she had rushed out the door in a hurry, possibly running late herself, i had missed my opportunity to say "i hope you have a good day." with the by now expected embrace (not to mention "good morning"). 
     i groggily sat up and stretched forward to grab my almost dead phone off the end table near my feet. the digital display read "8:12 am." relief. (not late). exhaustion. (six hours of sleep). 
     i sat on the couch just waking up, not moving much. after a few minutes of that i headed to the bathroom. the bedroom door (next to the bathroom door) was open. she was sleeping still, laid out peacefully under several covers. freeze baby. 
     her roommate had left earlier. i realized that, still waking up, and was relieved. 
     i put on an old blue stripedy t-shirt and went to the kitchen, found the folgers, and began the not at all difficult nor complicated process of brewing a pot of coffee. 
     poking around the still unfamiliar cupboards for a few clanky seconds led me to a pair of coffee mugs. one purple, one army olive green. she was getting the purple one i decided. 
    after a couple minutes, the pot was more or less full, full enough anyway. i went back to the bedroom across that old floor so mercilessly creaky. still sleeping. i left the purple mug on her night stand on top of a book called the Bible next to her clock and went back to the couch. 
    

Saturday, July 25, 2009

i wish you luck, hebrew vandal
july 2009
saint paul, minnesota


Thursday, July 23, 2009




you make me want to not go on sinning anymore
and that's not how it should be
because you're not Jesus and you're not me.

so take me to your window and let me either jump
or fly off into a future you're not in
with a bunch of stained photos and poems you wrote me

that i'll either throw away or keep in a silver box
under the headboard of my bed
in case that i have nightmares i can throw those away too

and they can stay with memories in that silver box,
those terrible terrible dreams
living comfortably with recollections of you. 



Wednesday, July 22, 2009


scurvs
july 2009
minneapolis, minnesota

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

israel tele-
                    phones me
and 
        i have not
the 
      hand
               to answer.

Sunday, July 19, 2009






fourth of july

eight o'clock isn't so bad. 
we usually start at eight
on saturdays anyway.

a.j. (the other seasonal guy) stumbled 
in a few (eleven) minutes late still drunk,
not even hung-over yet.
the kid was miserable. i almost
felt bad.

...(almost).

three or four hours in
we all went outside the 
warehouse and sat around
a few small grills while stevie cooked 
brats and a large can of bush's baked beans
right there on the grill. they tasted smokey 
and i liked that. 

we looked like some scene out of a 
modern-day norman rockwell painting, sitting around in our 
ripped jeans and ratty wolf t-shirts or old flannel
button-ups with blue collars, company jackets and carhartt hooded
sweatshirts draped over the dry old wood picnic tables. dirty leather gloves
scattered around the table tops.
we sat for a while passing the ketchup or plastic forks and
enjoying freedom, the outdoors, charcoal-readied cuisine 
of the lower middle to middle middle to upper middle class,
and the breeze.

we finished early-ish, around six. 
a.j. was still hurting being that he was now 
hung-over 
but the food from the grills helped i think. 
we all left and some of us went to fireworks while 
some of us just went home. some of us went away
and some of us passed out. some of us stayed up all night and
some of us threw up. some of us danced the night away

and some of us did not. 


Saturday, July 18, 2009

a/l/k

come here, let me take your picture
and we'll frame it on the wall
of the house we never live in.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Thursday, July 16, 2009

on the time being:

the trunk of my car is now

a. my closet
b. my pantry
c. my tool chest
d. all of the above

Tuesday, July 14, 2009




the man from the cable channel show

i loaded a truck for a 
little asian man
today. he was wearing a
golf club company
baseball cap.

i don't think
he played golf.

he bought a whole mess of
fruits and vegetables to sell at
the saint
paul farmer's market (a place 
where actual farmers go to sell things
they actually grew) and he was all excited
because "the man 
from the cable channel show" was 
going to be there
trying out various
obviously
homegrown produce.

"you know the man
from the cable channel show?"

"...uhh, no. i don't really
watch television."

"he go all over the world
and try food on his 
show."

"ohh."

he was further
very excited
because he had managed 
to purchase from us
a pallet of
mango-nectarines
which we received by mistake and
i am almost positive had some amount
of genetic alterations performed
on them
to bring them to the 
current, dual-fruit status they
were in
since God, in all His 
goodness and wisdom
decided not to give us
mango-nectarines 
at the get go.

He gave us mangos
and 
He gave us necatarines.
we had to get
all curious and somehow
put them together
apparently.

anyway

the little asian man (who laughed
rabidly after any and everything
he said -

"you close the 
door? hahahaha"

"you have bill? i have so
many bill. hahahaha"

"man 
from cable channel
show coming. hahahaha"

"we stack this pallet on
here. hahahaha"

was all jazzed up 
about these
mango-nectarines.
he said he was going to
make
"big sign!" and maybe
the man 
from the cable channel show
would try them (as if they were
something hand-grown here, 
in the ever tropical midwest)
and he would be on television.
how. exciting. 

well, i finished loading his
hobbit hole of a truck (crouching
down every time i 
drove in with a pallet) and
the little guy drove off, 
cackling like a hyena
no doubt. 

i thought to myself
that the man
from the cable channel show 
would probably never get
anywhere near
my easily amused
client.
poor guy. 

oh, and
i hate saint paul.