ALARM CLOCK

How times have changed for me,
each morning the Blackberry plays
the song “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive”.
I’ve set it this way as a little prayer to
begin another hectic day and to remind
me to be thankful to be able to walk out
of bed and get ready for work once again.
My wife says I ought to change the song,
"You won’t like it anymore, if you hear it
every day", and I just laugh and tell her
that she should know me better than that.

NATURAL BORN KILLER

For a week, he sat on my chair listening to
scratching under the front porch steps and
when it’s in the twenties outside, little animals
try to come in to eat, to get warm, to survive
the harsh January weather of a Jersey winter.

My wife says it must be a chipmunk, the ones
we always see scurrying around in summer.
But the cat and I think it’s got to be a mouse.
Early this morning, I’m up before everyone else
and I hear that old cat running around the house
banging into furniture, batting at the curtains,
scampering in short bursts through the kitchen.

And when I decide to check it out, I find him
sitting calmly, staring at the lifeless gray body
of the mouse, and my cat looks disappointed
that the game is over, not knowing he’s made
his first kill after nine years of never going
outside and always eating the same dry pet food.

Instincts from thousands of years of mouse catching
were summoned this morning and to think he did
it without having any claws on his front set of paws.

DISCO SHOPPING

You rush for the last few items
as the 24 hour A&P grocery store
announces to a handful of shoppers
that they’ll be closing in 20 minutes.
A moment ago, unknowingly you
strolled through the aisles, carefully
selecting cans of Mexicana corn,
coffee that was on sale, rye bread,
gallons of green tea, sweet mustard.
You were happy then, drumming
on the cart’s handle, whistling and
enjoying the Knock on Wood song
like never before because it has
a whole new meaning now, a history.

HOLDING HANDS

is awkward now, for the both of them,
out without their son, she complains
about how her joints ache, how his
wedding ring hurts as they hold hands.

They keep on going, thinking about
how they used to always walk like this.
From the corner of his eye, she looks
like that young girl he found in college.

But they’re both older now, changed.
White hairs on his chin far outnumber
the brown, the red, the blonde ones.
They keep walking, into another bookstore.

photo- Flicker http://www.flickr.com/photos/rozzie/274804266/

BEHIND

We threw out what was left
of the Halloween candy today,
the Smarties, a few boxes of Nerds,
Laffy Taffy, a handful of Dum Dums.
Finally we take a Sunday afternoon
to rake up the mounds of leaves.

We’re the last ones on the block
to rake, again. Each neighbor’s lawn,
dark green, clear of the faded mess
from the too many oak trees that fill
the tiny yards on our suburban street.
They have their brown paper sacks
lined up neatly on the curb for pick up.
I am behind again, just starting to deal
with my cursed homeowner duties.

Look forward to Thursday,Thanksgiving,
anticipating the day after even more,
a day off to sit, to read, to write, to rest.
Filling my last paper bag, I prop it up
on the edge of my yard and look down
the street, three houses down they’re
stringing Christmas lights on the bushes
and inflating a Charlie Brown snow globe.

MY WORST FEAR

Afraid of working for thirty years
and finding out at a doctor’s office
that I’ve got some incurable disease.
Pancreatic cancer like my grandmother
or Lou Gehrig’s disease like Cousin Eric.
A stroke, skin cancer, massive heart attack
in my easy chair one Tuesday afternoon
watching CNN or The Weather Channel.

Afraid of not getting to travel the world, never
seeing the Eifel Tower, The Great Wall of China,
Egypt’s pyramids, a soccer game in England.
Afraid I won’t see my son begin his life or
if I don’t live long enough to meet his wife
and kids or afraid I won’t be around
long enough to take them to all the places
I went with him when he was a young boy.

Afraid to know that I won’t be remembered
by too many people as time keeps moving on.
Afraid of not waking up one night, dying from
sleep apnea and my wife would have to deal
with big dead me. I wouldn’t want her to have
to tell my son, Come up here son,say goodbye,
your father is gone, have a moment with him
before I call the rescue squad to take him.

And with all this thinking of myself, my selfish thoughts,
I think about one day having to bury my wife or son,
this is truly my worst fear, a thousand times more.


*Ideas for this were sparked at a NYC writing workshop with Denise Duhamel after she shared with us the poem of the same title, My Worst Fear by Cyn Zarco. I let it sit,pecked at it a bit,then polished it. LL