soup

late bloomers
sometimes, there’s really nothing you can say,
like when your son starts asking you the “big questions”
(and he plays the “why?” game until you have to admit
that you don’t have all the answers
or you reach a why? that just doesn’t have a because)
or your girlfriend wants to “talk about it”
(fixing a problem you didn’t know existed)
or when someone at a funeral tells you “they’re in a better place.”

or when it’s your boss’s birthday
and her husband has flowers waiting for her in the lobby
(well, they are from her “dogs,”
since she had explicity stated that he not “make a fuss”).
because an elderly co-worker asks you nicely,
you go to the front and get them.
as you’re walking back through the halls,
the women of the office are letting you know that
“those flowers are so beautiful.”
“oh, what pretty flowers,” they say.
“oh, my, aren’t they something!”
and, seriously, there’s nothing you can say to that.
i could go into it more, but that would defeat the purpose.

dirty talk
we’re breaking up– technically, she’s moving away,
going to school in a state i’ve driven through many times
without seeing anything interesting enough to visit.
she was interesting, so i didn’t get it at all.
i didn’t get a lot of things, like why i wasn’t interested in her.
it can all be traced back, i think, to the time
we tried talking dirty to each other.
you see, her idea of talking dirty was talking about
how much she wanted to talk dirty
and being appalled by my attempts to describe
even the safest, most tasteful of sexual maneuvers
(in my head, we both have our clothes on, even now).
when we get to the airport, it’s not the least bit crowded.
i tell her to call me, but i’m not sure what we’d talk about.
her plane gets delayed, and the goodbyes last a lot longer
than i’d like them to.

ladies and gentlemen
for she’s a jolly good fellow.
for she’s a jolly good fellow, indeed.
it’s like transvestites rule the world,
and i can’t make heads or tails of it.

brown cow
i think “jeez, louise” is a remarkable phrase.
there, that’s another thing
you probably didn’t know about me.
“how now, brown cow?” she says, rubbing it in.

copy room
the copy machine at work
is so close to making
its 800,000th copy,
but, for some reason,
i’m actually glad to know
that i won’t be here
to see it reach that milestone.
it’s a lot like when your kids
do something really embarrassing,
but you’re proud of them anyway.
that’s how i feel about myself.

wow, i’ve just realized how close i am to becoming that asshole who e-mails all their dumb haikus around the office.

oh i cannot let
myself become that guy or
i will kill myself.

goat grazing
today i thought about the time
i sat outside my brother’s room
while he listened to records
and about the girl
he was in love with that summer.
he knew nothing would come from it,
but he was happy, nonetheless.
i thought about that today
and why i’ve always been so optimistic.
i’m not sure what got me started on this.
on tv, there was this story about
the fire department using these goats
who eat acres and acres of brush
to prevent forest fires from spreading.
the brush, they said, was unavailable for comment.

einstein
someone dropped off
free bagels this morning.
i grabbed a garlic and onion one,
and now my breath is deadly.
the guy next to me
is making the same mistake.
i just found out i’ve been calling him
by the wrong name all year.
it’s going to be one of those days.

between
how many business casual outfits
should one person own?
two weeks worth, ten outfits?
or enough to be buried in?
it’s better than business serious, i guess,
but who ever casually gets anything done?
story idea:
in 2001, as part of a dare,
between him and his friends,
jim warner attempts to
swim across the hudson river
but fails because all of his bathing suits
are in new jersey.

opening day
it’s opening day, and my new boss is late.
i’m waiting in the lobby, reading a magazine.
finally, she shows up and apologizes.
“sorry to keep you waiting,” she says.
they “find me” a desk, and i start to work,
which is basically the same thing
without the magazine.

are these, really, in any way, related?
my friend just spent an hour
trying to explain to me
that forrest gump and back to the future
are the same movie.
you see, he himself had
backstroked through time,
and whenever he hit a wall,
he’d push off.

his shoes
i want to be one of those people
who pray before getting into cars,
but i’m too busy riding my motorcycle,
bitching all the time,
and wearing tennis shoes to job interviews,
if i show up at all.
i ran a marathon once, you know.
it only took me seven days.
when i do get a job
and get to appreciate the feeling
of coming home after a long day’s work,
first i’ll take off my shoes,
and then my socks;
it’s almost deliberate how i’m doing this.

on the subject of the mute button
i used to have this girlfriend,
but don’t ask me about her–
it was a bad scene.
after i told her about the affair,
and that it was because of her that it had happened,
she said, “thank you for being honest with me.”
i tried to explain to her that this couldn’t be true,
that in no way did my admission constitute honesty,
but she wouldn’t listen.
she had mistaken my vulnerability for truth,
allowed one situation to trump the other.
we dated for a few more weeks,
but she never really listened after that.
i was on mute,
like the t.v. during our lovemaking.

snakes
i’m watching eraserhead,
but i don’t like it.
it’s one of those movies
that thinks old people are scary,
that babies are little monsters.
it doesn’t realize that
old people and babies are like snakes,
only we’ll turn it around and say:
we’re just as afraid of them
as they are of us.

clockwatcher
i want to live and die by the clock.
well, not that clock–
it doesn’t have a built-in radio.
i want my job to be my entire life:
to breath it, to live it,
to stress and stress and stress over it,
to infinity, and then some,
and for it to be the “reason” i never had children.
oh, i want to hate it, too:
to long for home just to long to be back,
a lonely rider, looking longingly,
briefcase in both hands.
you know what people did before alarm clocks?
they went to work when they FELT like it.
“if the rooster’s not crowing, i ain’t going!”
was popular, i’ve been told.

and then, present-day, somewhere– no one knows where–
a middle-aged trucker,
his son at his side,
throws his map out the window of the beast
and hesitates, shifting gears.

mason jar
my boss is THIRTY-ONE years older than me.
this puts things in perspective.

salt mines
i once spent some time
toiling in the salt mines.
forced to toil,
as is so often the case.
it was great.
everything i tasted that year
was delicious.

green beans
my wife said something kinda interesting today.
boy, she came right out and said it, too.
“james,” she said,
on account of that is my first name,
“i’m not happy being with you,
and i don’t think i ever will be.”
boy, that sure stung.
got me thinking, too.
i mean, i’m pretty unhappy, sometimes, just like her,
and, sure, we do fight a lot.
but all couples fight, ’specially the married kind.
i finished my dinner after that
and couldn’t help but get lost in my empty plate.