SeaWorld, South River

There’s a commotion down at the bridge tonight,

the one by the plumber’s and old comic book shop.

Yellow and black crime scene tape drapes the trees,

a part time cop sets up plenty of orange safety cones.

There’s a dolphin swimming near the bridge tonight,

he took a wrong turn, went up into the Raritan Bay,

continued up the creeks and waterways to this place.

And all of the experts don’t know what they can do.

There’s a lot of people standing at the bridge today,

entire families, all with cameras, iphones, and ipads.

The poor creature surfaces for air, they take snapshots

and videos of him jumping like the football team’s logo.

There’s an ABC-TV news van on the bridge tonight,

capturing shrieks, squeals, and wows of the onlookers.

They tell a reporter it’s awesome, quite amazing to see.

I saved a ton of money, didn’t have to travel to Florida.

There’s a dead dolphin down by the bridge this morning.

he washed up on the shoreline, confused and exhausted.

This was no place for him, too many cameras, no way out.

This week’s casualty, the ongoing story of Man vs Nature.

JUST PASSING THROUGH

Tonight I sit inside a noodle restaurant

it used to be a Mexican burrito place and

before that, in the 90’s it was a Wendy’s.

It gives me the same feeling I have when

I sit in my living room in my big brown chair

a place I’ve lived for about a dozen years.

Others lived there before, sat in the same spot

watching TV, arguing about paying the bills,

raising kids, putting up Christmas trees,

painting the walls their favorite colors,

rolling out carpet to make it warm and cozy.

In another twenty years, someone else will

call this place their home and they’ll paint

the walls their favorite color and buy a new rug.

They’ll be out front watering the hydrangeas

that I planted along the driveway and raking

up all the leaves the way we used to each fall.

One day, when I’m gone, the postman will deliver

a piece of mail with my name on it, somebody will

glance at it, read my name, toss it in the trash

and say, “must be the guy who lived here before”.

Forgotten Muscle Car

thunders by on Route 18 South,

neurons fire, my 50 year old brain

searches for the word on the car.

Look close, a metallic logo confirms.

Drive on, beside him, behind him

remembering an old guy’s lament-

back in the days before computers,

street legal, slant sixes, big blocks,

4 barrel carburetors, a story always

laced with numbers, V8, 383, 426,

street legal, slant sixes, big blocks.

Secret codes for those who lived it.

Never saw these, even in the 70’s,

Chargers, Firebirds, Mustangs, sure.

Something ugly about this one, long

in front, squared off grill like a mouth

of the fish a Detroit guy named it after.

This one’s dull gray with a white roof.

I’d paint it purple, make the roof black.

Must be headed down the shore with

Historic QQ Jersey plates. Bet he plays

that old “Heart” song as kids walk along

the rows of cars with parents and say-

It’s kind of cool, what’s the name of that?

The Wait

Ropes and stanchions keep the lines in order

as if the people are going out on a Friday night

to see the latest blockbuster at the Regal Cinema.

Women at the front desk sit in their little windows

like the workers at Motor Vehicles, only they smile,

speak in quiet, calm voices to ask if you need help.

Dozens of people fill the expertly arranged chairs

like an airport terminal but no one has baggage.

They wait patiently to hear their names called by

sweet voiced young women in pastel scrubs who

remind me of the hostesses down at Olive Garden.

In the back, the machines await, its 21^st Century

medicine at its best- sonograms and mammograms,

CAT scans, MRIs, your basic x-rays machines too.

By this time next week, the waiting room people

will know if it’s a boy or a girl, if a lump is dangerous,

why they have frequent headaches and blurred vision,

what kind of operation will their knee require next,

or how bad is the blockage in the coronary arteries.

For now, all they know is that they must wait for

their names to be called, wait and fill out the forms,

wait for the technicians, wait some more, and worry.

SHE DIDN’T WRITE ABOUT

how pink smells like pretty flowers,

how it feels like butterfly wings or

that it tastes like cotton candy and

it doesn’t remind her of Barbie’s car.

Instead she writes hers about a ham.

It is pink, cooked with yummy pineapples,

honey and sugar stuck all over the top.

I tell her she kind of missed the point.

Later, as I collect papers from the class

she tells me why her poem is about ham.

No one ever made a meal that I asked for.

This Sunday, my grandmother is making

ham because I told her I like it so much.

I don’t see my mother much anymore.

My parents are really my grandparents.

The others all have moms and dads, so

I never told them. I tell her it was the same

for me growing up, but it was my father

who I never saw. Smiling now, she tells me-

“And I always thought I was the only one”.

Shake the Salt on When She’s Not Looking

to avoid her high blood pressure lecture.

If she sees his red eyes, she’ll say it’s a sign

of a health condition. She’ll insist on making

an appointment for him, he’ll say he’s fine-

Those doctors always find something wrong

and I’m not ready to hear bad news just yet.

He thinks they’d try to give him a prescription

and he’s afraid he’d have to go back every few

weeks to piss in a cup or get stuck by a needle.

Lately, he’s had tingling in his toes, now and then

there’s been those sharp jabs in his right side and

sometimes it’s like there’s a weight on his chest.

He’d agree to go in for a physical but knows

they’d tell him how he needs to lose weight.

Maybe he’ll go this summer, he’d consider it

if she makes sure the appointment is with the

big heavy doctor, you know the one who’s always

in the parking lot smoking cigarettes by his car.

LESSONS LEARNED

(AT AN EARLY AGE WHILE LIVING IN LOW INCOME HOUSING, 1974)

Sometimes in life

it’s a good idea to hide in the corner behind a red naugahyde chair.

Sometimes in life

you have to pound on the steering wheel and shout, “you know I wanted ice cream”!

Sometimes life tastes like

Swanson pot pies, Campbell’s soup, Quisp cereal, a packet of Wyler’s juice

Sometimes life feels like

the shot gun blast that killed the old guy who was the apartment manager.

Sometimes it’s like

an across the hall neighbor out of her mind on acid running in with a butcher knife.

Sometimes in life

you have to push the furniture in front of the door before going to bed.

Sometimes life is about

lawyers in the living room and toys you’re forbidden to play with.

Sometimes it’s

your cat having kittens in the closet, but you can’t keep one of them.

Sometimes life

burns like shampoo in the eyes or it cuts like a broken water glass.

Sometimes it sounds like

a Carpenters album, a Gilligan’s Island laugh track, the Banana Splits theme song.

Sometimes in life

you want Mrs. Beasley with her polka dot dress, not the red heart shaped pillow.

Sometimes life is like

pulling GI Joe’s string and the only thing he ever says is, “I've got a tough assignment for you”.