about buying a customized poem

A young man, his long, damp-brown hair pulled behind his ears, sat curled over a spiral notebook at a little TV table set up along a high-foot-traffic area. I passed him on my walk to the drug store. He had posted a handmade sign: "custom poems."

 

But he is gathering his things when I pass him again on my way back. "Is it too late to get a poem?"

 

"No, it's not too late," he says, pausing, resetting the table. "What do you want the poem to be about?"

I look down. "How about—when you're about to see old friends after not having seen them in a long time."

 

"Ah. How long has it been?"

 

"At least 10 years."

 

"That's a long time. Okay." He sits down and goes to work. He should take his time, alone.

 

I step away and watch a family take pictures by the city's 20-foot Christmas tree, in front of its white lights' bright confidence in a January evening willing to forget that New Years happen and ever come.

 

Some 5 minutes later he stands, holding a page ripped from his notebook.

 

"Read it and let me know if it makes sense." I read. It's a poem written by a young man. "Does it make sense? Do you like it?"

 

"Yeah. It's good."

"Good. I'm glad you like it."

 

I hand him $10 and thank him. He appreciates it, he says.

 

I should have told him how I really feel about seeing old friends, how conflicted I am. But it's a poem by a young man.

 

a note about Ms. Kitty

 

One day in second grade, I learned we had a cat. Dad found her or got her for free somewhere, I guess. We called her Ms. Kitty because that was the name a vet put on the paperwork when she was vaccinated. She was mean as hell except to my dad and me. We could pet her and hold her, but nobody else could. She would nap on my bed or sleep on dad's newspapers. When she had kittens, she got even meaner. One day my older sister brought over a boyfriend and his big, dumb German Shepherd. Ms. Kitty ran right out the door to confront the dog on the back patio, springing, claws out. I still remember bright red blood dripping off the stunned dog's rubbery black nose.

 

a creative writing exercise on here

The sun blinks. The cells in this body never should have asked permission. The foreign bot-god could make another you to love the corpse you leave actually dead.

Things, special dead special things. God raising families of corpses night and day, rain or shine, until they negotiate mentally through oxygen and make a deal with the black angel.

Offer Satan my white horse and ask him, What is real? What made me and why? Buildings now ruins, people now dust.

Sign here and explode, angel. Leave the heir sterile living or dying. Promise to the black angel.

something about a David Sedaris best-of

The Best of Me is a David Sedaris best-of collection that was released in 2020—more than 25 years into his professional writing career. Sedaris supposedly picked out the essays himself. The publisher's copy claims Sedaris's "words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision." I think that is debatable. I probably should not have read this because doing so will lead me to skip ahead when I come across these essays in the other books.

Note: I've read and thoroughly enjoyed more Sedaris since drafting this.

something about the lunch table

One day, this kid at our high school lunch table, Patrick, started talking about a Geto Boys album, “Grip It! On That Other Level,” and about Bushwick Bill, one of the rap group’s members. Patrick had us laughing as he mimicked Bushwick—“Fawk ‘em up like a gawd-dāmm caw crash!” I went out and bought the album, which was already several years old, on cassette. Bushwick sounded just like Patrick said—“You gawd-dāmm parrents awe trippin’, gimme sum madat shet ya’ been sniffin’!” But the album was no joke, especially the Scarface-driven songs “Scarface” and “Life in the Fast Lane.”

 

(posts) two Eliot Smith lyrics that have bounced around my mind the last couple weeks