Tag Archives: Silver Jews

An Education in Three Parts

Posted on by

In celebration of National Poetry Month I’ll be writing and posting a poem a day for the entirety of April. No haikus. Nothing about wheat, unless fermented. All of the poems can be found here.

1. When I got to the backyard he was standing over the fire pit
pouring lighter fluid onto the flickering embers,
and drinking a bottle of six dollar vodka.

I hid the cat and cigarettes,
brought him a bucket of water,
and moved my chaise back a few feet
so I could watch the slow process of learning.

Later, speakers played Bright Flight from the kitchen window,
and we watched the rest of his favourite cardigan burn
a raven cloud up through the courtyard, shared a bottle
of gifted bourbon, and with the confidence of experience,
I did my best to explain exactly where his evening went awry.

It was a Tuesday. We were both single,
and despite the smell of a cotton blend ablaze,
and the taste of midweek whiskey,
we were entirely unsure as to why.

Continue reading →

Spaceman

Posted on by

In celebration of National Poetry Month I’ll be writing and posting a poem a day for the entirety of April. No haikus. Nothing about wheat, unless fermented. All of the poems can be found here.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a fire engine.
Parents and teachers and wise vagrants
told me I could be anything I wanted
and so I took them at their word.

I only recently came to terms with the notion
that I will never be a fire engine. Or an airplane.
Or a college graduate. But I have found a loophole,
a flaw in the matrix within the lawless West of uncledom.
I told my sister’s kids, ages three and five,
that I had, in a former life, been a spaceman.

It’s easy to lie to children. I’m smarter than most
of them. And taller. On most days I cry less.
It gives me a false air of authority,
an inflated sense of grandeur, an advantage
in reaching the top shelf, and buying smokes
without being carded.

“I was a spaceman,” I declared to hopeful and unsuspecting ears.
A hush fell over them like I was sunshine. Like I was Santa’s proxy.
Like I was a precocious cartoon Mexican immigrant
with a pet monkey saving dolphins from cunning foxes.
Like I was everything.

Continue reading →

Marry Me, and Leave Kentucky

Posted on by

Minced Oaths

1. The thing is, we disagreed about Roman Polanski.
And timing. And the Designated Hitter.
 
2. She liked to come home and announce:
“I’m starving, do we have any gin?”
and finish our arguments with:
“but, baby, it’s not condescending
if I’m smarter than you.”
 
3. I thought I was a manic depressive,
but it turns out I just ate too much cheese.
And I was a manic depressive.
 
4. At her friend’s Halloween party,
where an obstetrician was dressed as a pediatrician,
she whispered: “sex shouldn’t be ironic,”
and was dressed as a girl I love.
 
5. It was 11:34 in the afternoon,
and I had said all the right things.
I live vicariously through myself.

3 Links & a Tune

I miss the Silver Jews. I hope David Berman puts out another book of poetry, as Actual Air is one of my favourite things in the history of time. Then, he should get the band back together so that he can pay his rent and I can get drunk by myself. Happily. Here’s “Tennessee” from their last show ever. If there’s better lyrics than “I saw the river playing in the valley/Rushing ’round a bend and skipping stones/I saw the meadow wobble in the moonlight/I’ve come to get my girl and take her home” I’m unaware of them.