Whitnall

First day.
4:45 am.
Tripods. Hot box. Umbrellas.
Six graders. Punk asses.
Short shorts.

Break.

Went to a rummage sale on my break.
Lot's of old coins
and fake dollar bills.
One had Michael Jackson.

An old man, walked up to me
"Have you seen the Obama one?"
No.
Pulls out an envelope bulging with bills.
Michelle Obama 1,000,000$ bills.
Hands one to me.
"Is this for me?"

"Yes, don't usually give those out for free"


My first day on the job...
and I made a million bucks.

ABC

Public Enemy.

Today,
while picking up a few cassette tapes
to listen to
in the 15 year old car I'm borrowing,
I accidentally cut in line.
In front of a woman
in a motorized wheelchair
who was blind in one eye.

The Cure.

She told me not to worry about it,
She wasn't in a hurry anyway.
I got my change, two dollars.
I noticed she had a piece of tupperware in her hand.
I asked her how much it was.
Sixty six cents.
I threw down a dollar on the counter,
Said,
"This is for that,
thank you for letting me skip you."
and walked out the door.

Morrisey.

Canzoniere

Barbara Jean
is the queen
of the seventh floor
of public housing unit fourteen.

Her husband is a poet
but no one knows it.
He wouldn't let her expose it.
He was a business man, you know?
Where any shred of sensitivity
meant scrutiny and liability.
He wrote sonnets on napkins
and prose on scraps
of graph paper
and threw them in the shredder.

And her son yells at her
a 42-year-old drop out.
Who stays without
welcome.
She had to smuggle him
into her public situations.
Stayed for two weeks,
then took a two day vacation.
She hated sending him to the but
she had to.
'Cause if the landlord ever found out,
he'd kick her ass out too.
So far, they haven't noticed.
But it's just a matter of time,
and she knows it.
And Barbara Jean
will be back on the streets
quoting poetry
to strangers she meets.
Who won't look her in the eye
at the bus stop...

Worth it

Brewing Grounds for Change on Facebook

Nothing

No car.
No computer.
No job.
No place.
No love.
No peace.
No escape.


...

Rosie

Four days a week
she heads eight blocks down the street
to the same coffee shop
where they know what she wants before she speaks,
and it's always decaf.
She says it helps her sleep
because in her dreams
she is free.
It's there,
that that godamn chair
gathers dust
and her iron legs dissolve to rust.
But it won't last.
'Cause when she wakes,
reality shakes, her
heart can't take this ache.
She won't believe her destiny
is preconcieved imagery
full of sympathy
for eternity.
Well...hers at least.
So, every day, before she opens her door
she reaches for that white sunhat.
The one she said that makes her look
like Mary Tyler Moore.
At least that's what Steve used to tell her
back in 1974.
But, that was before that messy divorce.
Where he took half, but wanted more,
then ran away with his little whore.
So now she's left with a one bedroom, half bath
ceiling's cracked, mouse traps, hurts to laugh.
But, she still finds it within her.
She reads Buddhist literature.
"Everything's impermanent", she told me.
And plants Rosemary,
then gives it away to people she meets
for free.
And every day before her day begins
she puts on red lipstick.
Because then she resembles Betty Page
Half her age,
free from her cage.
Bird sings, and I know why
because I've never seen her cry.