Hey Sheldon!
How you doin’?
You’re a dapper dapple doxie dog
With the big spot on your butt
And your little bow tie
Matching your mismatched eyes
Someone found you in a blizzard,
The frost biting your ears.
But when I came to the shelter
Your tail was wagging,
Your spirits high.
They told me you had trouble making friends.
What they meant was:
You hump every male dog you meet.
Other dogs might try to bite you,
But Frank is a stoic.
When I come home from work
And Lennie whines at the door,
I see you waiting too–
Your stubby legs keep you low to the ground,
So I sit on the floor, and you climb all over me.
Author: dowdicus
We Are Kept Awake at Night by the Cries of Starving Children
It’s August now, and the stores are gearing up to save the economy
The holidays are coming close and spending has been low
To cure what ails we need to spend, the price of liberty
We are the best, we need the best, as everybody knows
Ghosts and goblins frighten children until they laugh with glee
Throughout the neighborhood they scatter, to every door they go
And bring home treats they went to earn with costumed trickery
But Hind Rajab, phone in hand, cries the tanks are coming close
Thanksgiving next as leaves turn brown and red and orange and fall
The turkey fat and steaming, plucked and stuffed so we can savor
And everyone gives thanks to God, that we could gather one and all
But Nabhan’s bodies in the orchard marred our grace, ungrateful to the Savior
Then Christmas time, with all the snow, and elves and gifts and wonder
Santa Claus, he’s at the mall, with manger scene prospectus
Parents wink and purchase gifts which to the tree go under
But Mohammad Al-Motawaq, that bony babe, should starve; it’s all genetic
Would that some high stationed man with money and a suit
Could find some way to hide from me the children destitute
For their cries are shrill and feral and they break the season’s peace
I don’t feel bad; I’m just annoyed: I want their cries to cease.
Want
I wonder at times
what life might be like
if somebody cared about me
if there were someone I could call
whenever I’m crying
without being a burden
if there were someone I could invite
to a birthday
and expect them to show
I have been made
to feel I must beg
for companionship
I wonder at times
what life might be like
if I believed somebody cared about me
Saccharine Under the Circumstances
I hate the whiteness that surrounds me.
That feeds me
educates me
pays me
celebrates me
disciplines me
shapes me
abets me
trusts me
gratifies me
winks at me
suffocates me
I hate the whiteness that moves through me
I hate that there is no way to separate
the color of my skin
from ostensible beauty of limits and thefts
from a normativity beaten from difference
from an entitlement of birthright without blood
from a divinity that crowned my father clean
from an objectivity that erases inconvenience
from a destiny that steals futures
from a nation that murders to make me
I hate to be marked
I hate to be favored
I hate to carry a history of rape and murder and engineered famine—
crushing the bones of little children like apple snail eggs—
and unload it with a thud
while knowing it’s heavier than I can perceive,
and you must work around it or be broken
by the weight of our knowing
I hate that the only word I have to describe this feeling
is as saccharine as “hate.”
One More Mile
I got a mile more to walk, or so I’m told
The same thing I heard ten miles back up the road
Just another mile
Just another mile
For me to tote my weary load
Been toilin’ and troublin’ all my days
Got another mile to walk to find my grave
Just another mile
Just another mile
For me to tote my weary load
I’m adding to my load with every mile
And the load upon my back is miles high
Just another mile
Just another mile
For me to tote my weary load
I slow down with every step I take
My thoughts blow like dust across the plains
Just another mile
Just another mile
For me to tote my weary load
The boss man sold me miles when I was young
And I walked them with a smile and had my fun
Just another mile
Just another mile
With which they bought my young man’s soul
It’ll crush my bones as I grow old
They’ll find me broken down and all alone
With no more miles
With no more miles
And no more place for me to go
But to Sleep and Feed
“I just called to let you know I failed my test
So I’m giving up.
I probably won’t finish my papers.
I think you’re an amazing teacher.
But this has all been a waste of time.”
You needed to call me
To say I’m amazing at what I do–
And what I do is waste time.
There was nothing
In eight weeks of instruction–
Brainstorming. Writing. Revising.
Interrupting my explanations.
In all that
You found nothing worth your time.
I hope it was worth more than mine.
Postwar Reaction
Had the Nazis won
There’d have been a
Nationalist Atlantic Treaty Organization,
staffed by high-ranking Wehrmacht officials—
men with names like Speidel, Heusinger,
Gehlen, and Globke.
Perhaps a man named Werner
would build rockets for the Reich
under the stars and stripes.
There’d be an industry for tracing ancestry.
People might say things like:
“I’m 47% German and 33% French.” And respond:
"Aren’t you glad to know that you’re pure?”
We’d compete for purest blood,
and purest German grammar,
and German ideals—
such as Efficiency,
Individualism,
the Value of Hard Work,
and Law and Order.
The police would be held up
as heroes
and paid as such,
with bonuses for cracked skulls
and hidden lists kept confidential.
Had the Confederates won
There’d have been a white supremacist United States,
with a white language,
and white neighborhoods,
and white committees deciding
who speaks
and who dies.
They’d issue identification cards:
Eyes: blue
Hair: blonde
Blood: Hexadecaroon
Neighborhood: Birchwood Reserve
The police would stop you
if you looked like you didn’t belong.
Villains would write our textbooks,
name our schools,
tell our stories—
and we would call them heroes.
All the Difference
What use is
Knowing
The mouton has nearly finished climbing.
Clench your fists
Grit your teeth
Gaze into the empty eyes of the heads in the basket
Perhaps you could shout
Some too radical words for the jeering crowd
As the white paint peels from the dry, cracked lunette
And a panorama of empty eyes
Hunger for someone else’s blood
You have time to think
And feel regret
Every time two paths diverged in a wood
You chose the guillotine
The frame shudders at the mouton's climax
What use is
Knowing
The blade is shearing through the air
And once you’ve stopped knowing
It will take another
The Test
I shouldn’t be writing this poem.
I should be working on my book.
Or my other book.
Or one of my essay ideas.
But poems are so sweet and tasty.
I would have failed Mischel’s test before he left the room.
Writing a book is such a long arduous process
But a poem
From concept to finish
Takes a couple of hours.
There is no research involved–
I might look up someone’s name.
I could do some thinking work
Seated at the long wooden table in the research laboratory
Staring at the fluffy lump of gratification in front of me
…I need to study Wittgenstein, and go over the Gorgias again…this scene has to be just right…
I might mean something to someone
I might make some money
I might become an author
Then again, I noticed something today
A small detail that I could make meaningful
An image that seemed poignant
A phrase that bit into me
It could be delicious with a touch of processing.
It’s right in front of me, on a pink porcelain plate.
Cylindrical and lopsided
And velvety smooth
The fleeting sweetness of a poem
Would not leave me for so long
With the burden of possibility
I haven’t written a word of the book in months.
Perhaps I don’t believe it will be as gratifying
As a completed poem–
A moment on the lips…
To struggle in the laboratory
For only a pair of marshmallows
Is a cruel punishment.
Gimme A Dollar
I found, as expected, a card in my mailbox.
Sealed with a sticker
Embossed: “Happy Birthday”
I wondered if there was a gift card inside for a bloomin’ onion
(There wasn’t)
Let me fish it from the trash–I don’t remember what it said–
“We hope that your birthday was as amazing as you are”
It’s management dogma:
Never give a worker anything useful
Wages are kept low
So we are kept weak
I wonder what a birthday card costs–I never buy them–
Everything costs twice as much as it did yesterday
(Except labor).
Signed with love, from my [redacted] family.
My [redacted] family,
Who’d just turned my brothers and sisters
Out in the cold
I suppose I should be grateful
For the chance
To feast on their flesh
My parents took me out to eat for my birthday and gave me a hundred dollars.
They spent time with me and we talked about the world.
They know I don’t want a card, though I’ll still check it
For cash before tossing it in the garbage.
How wonderful it would be to come to work on my birthday
And find a crisp one dollar bill
With love,
From my family.
Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium 