No Good Deeds.

I don't do the work I should be doing. Your wife putters about in her kitchen, whistling a tune

under her breath, oblivious to the suffering outside.

You are dull of the mind; you get angry when you don't have to
be angry; the words roll off your tongue.

I try to have a good conversation with you, but you glare at me
from hunched shoulders,
like a gargoyle, and shout swear words to me in Spanish-
I don't know what words they are, shithead, damn, fuckturd,
that one was your favorite.

Hours and Hours.

I work.  For hours and hours and hours, I work,

trying to please, trying to bend knees.  For years I have

worked at the same place-a chinese restaurant-shelling fortune

cookies and feeding them to pelicans.

This is not hard labor.  Hard labor is different it is something else,

something you cannot see, cannot feel, cannot be.

Every day, after work, I eat one orange, my grandfather loved oranges

and peeled them for his wife until they both died-collapsed on

the kitchen floor at ninety-one.  

I do not break down.  I do not move like an unmovable wall.  You stand

there like a wall.  You are my boss.  I am not sitting.  I am not tall.

I am not reflection.  This is not my house. 

Sometimes I wish for a quick death and that is all I can take,

talk, talk about now.  The wind moves my hair.  

The Word, "Love."

The word love should not be thrown 

around lightly-

it should not be taken into consideration

unless you speak about the lions

in their dens,

about the genius of a blank page.

I guess you could say that I have

angered the gods.

My shoes are not on too tight.

My heart is broken and misused.

I could not stay away from

the cub,

could not believe the words

that drifted in the fog.

Being on tv will do that to you,

especially if your words are in the media,

especially if you walk in a straight line.

I come home every day after work

and kick back and relax and

look at the newspaper.

Sometimes, my mind is beyond my grasp.

Sometimes, I don’t know where I should 

land.

I see faces in front of me,

but they won’t speak aloud.

It Won't Work, Melissa.

There was the time Melissa tried to get me into a singing career; there was that agent at the Billowing Pig, who knew someone in Hollywood who knew some casting director at American Idol and was looking for new faces. I don't care about Hollywood. I care about reading books. So, Melissa, if you are reading this, no, I am not going to be an actress or a singer in Hollywood, no matter how well I sing. I'd rather learn how to make birds out of loose leaf paper. I'd rather learn how to make paper cranes.

Published here: http://tuesdayshorts.blogspot.com/2009/04/it-wont-work-melissa.html