A bus had brought me there,
barfing me up a block from a cafe where my boots dried out and so did I, more or less.
"Danny's" it was called. The goth chick looking out-of-it in the back corner claimed to be a succubus.
Whatever, honey.
We all suck at something.
It might as well be souls.
I scammed a tampon off of her and swore
that if I were still here by Wednesday I'd be a different woman,
open a kissing booth at the county fair or
marry a soccer star from Brazil and crank out kids.
I was certain it could be easily done, here on Highway 61.
So, how did I ever get from there to here, you ask,
spinning at my keyboard loom, all these poems and whatnot?
It was when I winged a napkin holder at my imaginary friend
there in Danny's Coffee Shop, Anytown, USA,
bruising her imaginary eye and changing the look of myself,
that I found The Way.
Blurring the edges is all I've done,
but the gray in my hair elicits assumptions
that I'm basically good,
can bake,
and have fifteen cats at home destroying the sofa.
You know what, Bo Peep? Two of those things are true--
Three guesses which.
______
From a word list kindly provided by *. I used most of them and gave the rest to The American Haiku Foundation.
Oregon
61
kissing booth
sapphire
foursome
keyboard
cafe
blurring the edges
tampons
bruising her eye
candles in the rain
soccer shirt
Danny's! Or more accurately, Danny's Revisited. Love the Dylan reference, and really, the insight and arcanely arch tone as well, which make this so genuinely free of BS about the eminently BS-ridden and difficult states of affinity, suckage, disillusion and aging. I laughed, but I also felt just the odd bit teary, wondering if all the haunts of our youth and foolishness are haunted like this. I know I see a lot of ghosts these days anyway, here and elsewhere. Fine fine writing, Shay.
ReplyDeleteI very much want a full Stephen-King-esque novel, then movie, to come from this brilliant first-page teaser.
ReplyDeleteI especially enjoyed these sections:
“Whatever, honey.
We all suck at something.
It might as well be souls.”
“Blurring the edges is all I've done,
but the gray in my hair elicits assumptions”
Want another list?
I love Danny's, loved reading about it again, and am thrilled to discover it was an actual place in your life, and there was an actual goth chick. I love best the poems you write about your life. LOVE your closing stanza, and I guessed the right two, I am certain of that. LOVED this poem. That is some word list. That person should be doing prompts somewhere!!!!!! I went to check * out, but it is a closed blog.
ReplyDeleteI adore this. I get a visual from a Jim Jarmusch movie, or maybe The Twilight Zone. (Both good things in my view) Thank goodness for that napkin holder!!! So glad.
ReplyDelete