Deputy Dan was a crime-solving man,
went to church, ate an apple a day.
He never did wear his wits on his sleeves,
mostly stood alone guarding the town
after Sheriff McClintock befuddled the press
and just vanished one fine autumn evening.
He sent occasional postcards,
Dan laughed at the palm trees and lake bluffs,
seething under the pressure heaped upon him;
but a crime-solving man is a crime-solving man,
and his badge meant his promise to the people.
The bindle on your shoulder
contains all the implements
necessary to start a new life:
a razor, an old newspaper,
a tin of peanuts, a crumpled greeting card,
six or seven packing peanuts,
a fork, knife and napkin.
You can pick up anchor and float
to any destination you so choose,
soliciting the help of kind souls
along the way, never wavering
from your pilgrimage to nowhere special.
This little pint-sized skillet
takes the cake when it comes to
political treachery, lest you all
forget what happened on the night
of the great cupcake bake-off
last November. An implement
for destruction rather than
ingredient infusion, the greasy pan
struck a blow to our nation’s temple
and declared itself ideal, a tool
for the youth to look to as a reflection
of intolerance in the name of prosperity
and entitlement, teaching the lesson that
if you’re born with means, you can make
a goddamn mess out of everything you do
and still be considered successful.
Dare we complete the traditional maze
and try to emerge unscathed?
Hazards prove great, deter us for days–
a hindrance if you haven’t bathed.
A sphinx will appear and offer a rhyme
believing to confound us all,
we’ll look like we sucked on the sourest lime,
but our answer will make the beast fall.
It takes all of our courage to climb up
to the god of unreasonable fate,
and if we can just get to that old gilded cup,
we can probably found our own state.
Luxurious fame will belong to our names,
beloved wherever we go.
We’ll sing national anthems at baseball games
and watch our great legacy grow.
Uncouth youths
named Ruth,
in truth,
don houndstooth
to soothe
tollbooths.
I rescued a cat from a low-hanging branch while its master drank peppermint tea on the stoop, watching me the whole time with a blank expression. I received no thank you, not even a nod or a wink. The cat bolted into the house–quickly followed by the peculiar and stoic person–as I used grand sarcastic hand gestures to describe my disingenuous joy at reuniting the two companions. The blinds moved a smidge just a few seconds after the door slammed shut, and I continued waving my mitts, now in a flailing fashion and in no way courteous anymore.
I watch the smoker count the number of cigarette butts in his line of sight, which must be about eight or ten, and even though he acknowledges that I have emerged from the restaurant to sweep up each and every one of those butts, he insists on throwing his onto the sidewalk–as opposed to the smoker’s pole just feet away–and trudging his way back into the establishment (to a waiting beer and a fiancée who wishes he would just quit already). Of course, he avoids eye contact with me as a way of muting his conscience (similar to how he avoids looking at the starving third-world children in those charity adverts on television). To him, I’m just a poverty-stricken Congolese boy with a distended stomach, someone he can’t look directly at for fear of having to review his life choices and then contemplate his lack of contribution to important causes in this global society. Oh well, it’s just one more butt to sweep anyway, but sweet Jesus! He didn’t even step on it!
WHARVED 