1 - Breakfast Television
Free Verse
"I Like Myself"
In my underwear
Vodka-soaked
Smoking cigarettes and eating mooshu pork
I watch Dora The Explorer
She sings the words:
"Me gusto mi misma."
2 - The Life of a Barista
Heroic Verse w/Refrain
There are a lot of things I missed writing about here: free
pastries, customer crushes, rushed philosophical discussions, the fact that
your clothes always smell like coffee, playing the music you want to play,
admirers (wanted/unwanted, secret/not-so-secret), the sweaty camaraderie ,
tip jar thieves, beers in paper cups, constantly breathing in a fine layer of
espresso dust, and on and on...
Morning at the Marzocco
Astride my bike I beat the sun
Like Phaeton, Helios’s son
Then disembark outside the store
And groggily unlock the door
A shot, a small (no room), and then
I'm wide awake by six A.M.
No customers till half past ten
The café gets swept, the coffees get changed
By noon there is a steady din
The café's bustling within
While I am stuck at the Marzocco
Preparing yet another cocoa
I casually adjust the grind
Note the espresso's pulling time
Then move to conquer my drink line
The café gets swept, the bus bins get changed
After my shift I eat alone:
Soft tacos at Burrito Zone
"Hey, don't you work at Caffé Sable?"
The customer sits at my table
And I politely take my leave
Back to work, to Beth and Steve
To chat and maybe mooch some tea
The café gets swept, the trashes get changed
3 - Island Nations, Who They Fakin'?
Early 90's Whiteboy Agro-Rap
(shout out to J. Liggan)
Straight Outta Cardiff (Excerpt)
It's Waaaaales!
Where I hustle all of my bills
And I rack up all of my kills
Back off unless you wanna get drilled
Waaaales
Cruising down the M4 in my ’90 station wagon
With my crew in the back – they call us The Red Dragons
I'm wearing more leeks than the S.S Titanic
I fucked Catherine Zeta-Jones
Then I bought her a sandwich
Everybody knows I'm a closet romantic
Absolutely no doubt that I'll make your lady's legs shake
And if you've got a problem then you're gonna have a headache
I’m not afraid to stab a bitch for a motherfucking cupcake
It's Waaaales!
Where I hustle all of my bills
Where my parents always post bail
So I never have to spend the night in jail
Waaaales
4 - Acrimony
Acrostic
Acrimony (one-sided)
Acid-tongued
Crudities
Rudely uttered
In order to
Make you react
Outrageously
No luck
You respond with nothing
5 - Boston vs. New York
Twin Limericks
The Red Sox are greater than great
They really clean up at the plate
Though they're now free from Ruth
There's still the sad truth
They were the last to integrate
New York is the best town on earth
A playground of infinite mirth
But around mid-July
When the sun rises high
The whole island smells of afterbirth
6 - Subway Alliances
Prose
Here Comes The Sun, Underground
On a crowded evening F train, everything is grey coats and
downturned lips. The smell is stronger than usual: damp wool, wet leather, air
that has been inhaled and exhaled too many times by too many people. I sense
the bulk of the woman sharing the seat-back with me. Her flesh is spilling over
to my side and I can see her large hoop earrings in my periphery.
A man gets on at West 4th Street. He is carrying a guitar with
cracks in the body and a sunflower painted on it. There are about a dozen felt
sunflowers pinned to his shirt and pants. He speaks softly and there is dirt
under his fingernails. "Hi everyone. Life is a beautiful thing. I hope you
all have a great day."
The man begins to play and the moment his fingers touch the
rusty strings, a change comes over his face: the dirt and the lines seem to
disappear, as his eyes and mouth collaborate to form an open, childlike grin.
I feel the woman behind me moving to beat of the music. She
feels me moving too. "He's good, he's good," she tells me. I'm close
enough to smell her cinnamon breath.
"Yeah, he is good."
The rest of the subway isn't watching him - some people are
looking at the floor, others at the ads for lawyers and language institutes, a
few stare out the windows at the blurred tiles of the station walls - so he
plays for the woman and me. He labors when it comes time for him to fingers the
arpeggios, but he tells us, "it's alright, it's alright."
When he finishes, she and I clap. No one else does. "Come
on people, show the man some love," she yells to the skittish mass of
commuters, "put yo’ hands in yo’ pockets and dig deep. Dig deep
y'all." I give the man a dollar.
The woman and I don't speak for the rest of ride and I depart at
40th Street/Bryant Park.
7 - "Joseph Kony"
Insult Poem /Facebook Thread
I adore this man
Why do you love Joseph Kony?
That's really not funny, Tony
I bet you're sad and lonely
Yo facist, suck my baloney
Fuck you man, you fuckin phony
Wow, your an asshole Tony
I hope you get raped by a pony
Guys that picture's Carl Weathers
8 - Ingrid Bergman
Woody Guthrie’s tribute
Free verse/modified tanka
Grandmothers
We laughed together
Smoking a blunt in the rain
High as we could remember
Not talking about
Marjorie Teplitz
Or Ingrid Bergman
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