4

Another Monday morning watching Netflix
Sun streaming through the curtains
When I should be running errands
Now I'm checking online sex tips, gmail, espn.
The dishes are piling up in the sink
and I'm browsing through
the British high school comedy section
How has this happened again?
How has this happened again?
I was supposed to be studying for the LSAT.
I was supposed to training for the marathon.
Why is my computer on?

The Waving Woman

Just before you get to the Prudential billboard,
and you've hit the point of no return, you're leaving
San Francisco, you see a bag lady with a dirty
box face waving at all the cars passing by
at the speed of stop and go traffic. She smiles
and waves at you, the way you occasionally
greet friends you haven't seen in a while. She
does this to every car that passes. She has no sign
explaining anything about her, not even an empty cup.
She's not selling a story. Just selling a smile and a wave.

Highway 80

In stop and go traffic, suspended above
the layers of pavement and people,
I saw a billboard for Prudential
saying that one in three babies born
today will live to be at least 100. Then
it said prepare for longer retirements. Prepare.
Well, I say, prepare for older workers,
prepare for your grandmother to have
her executive job well into her eighties.
Prepare to be an intern until you're forty.
Prepare for longer periods between promotions,
and more experience expected for entry level jobs.
Prepare for higher unemployment for younger people.
Prepare alright. Prepare not to be able to afford a house
until you've had two midlife crises. Prepare to invest
in prunes and Viagra. Prepare for procreation to be
an ethical debate, like abortion. Prepare for the death panels.
Prepare to hear these questions on mainstream news programs,
as you go to get your drinking water from the vending machine.

Knowing myself usually feels like the consolation prize

of watching your team lose,
then knowing they lost,
when you told everybody in the bar
in your hometown that they would, 
and they didn't believe you, didn't want to believe you,
heckled you even,
and the burning desire to prove them wrong
dug fault lines in your brow,
the suspense was a dimensional imbalance
and overshadowed the outcome of the game
so that seeing the end felt like swallowing
a mouthful of moist white bread.

Boy, Put that Wig Down, what's that?

We are going to tell you some things.

Who's "we"? Eric, Xena, Max, and Old Sap. Sometimes we call ourselves poets. Sometimes we even write poetry.

Eric and Old Sap were sitting at the pub in Chicago the other day, staring down at their saisons, and they resolved to write 30 poems in 30 days. Then Old Sap was in Minneapolis with Xena, and Xena said she wanted in. Why not? We have stuff to say.

So here's where it'll happen. 30 poems. 30 days. Boy, put that wig down.