End of April - Eight Topics, Eight Forms

Back on the 19th, I rolled the 20-sided die, which determined I was to write eight extra poems over the remainder of the project, the product of that effort is below:

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 40^th 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