Tenleytown

I have not been
Sleeping so well
I would prefer not to be
Persecuted for my nightmares
It's not like I selected them
Carried and corrected them
Rather, I gather and cultivate
The robotic and the reprobate

I replace pinwheeled decorations, numerically descriptive
With inappropriate behavior
Colored by lonely penny-ante poems
I used to ask her to read them aloud
I'd sit there pensive, nervous, but proud
And if she'd get the accents and inflections wrong
I'd remember it's the singer not the song

Sad refrain:
Except when it's the song
Except when it's the song
It's always the song
Always the sad sweet severance song
You got it wrong baby, always perfect and wrong

I have not been

Accepting of fate

Throat-clearing as I spit

An "it's not too late" at the audience

If you don't see them there

They're a ghost of a guy with a gun and a girl

And another girl with glittery eyes

And their cats and their kids and mittens and hats

They applaud as the reading comes to a close

They applaud as the moment sweeps to an end

They applaud as the loved one sneaks away softly

As the one who loves him looks down

And the one who doesn't nods and says to his face

You have not been accepting of fate

Because you and I agree on this

Fate is just future; future is just dots on a grid

Together they crooned and capped on the clever kids

Of which they were two

But they is I and he is she

The one who does is the one who doesn't
A is B and C is D

Everyone is one and the same

I should be as lucky

To be as joyful

As the two kids in the D.C. subway

Coming back from a Joe Cocker concert

In 2003, didn't they know Joe was old enough to be their dad?

As they first-kissed their first-date into the deep dark tunnel

They disembarked at Tenleytown

November 27 and November 30, 2009

Bags

We all have a tote bag phase
We all have a duffel bag stage
We all have a "throw your hands up / don't have the right bag" year of our lives
As we long for the totes
As we yearn for the duffels
And sin plenty for the range of our years
But you know, now ain't the time for our tears

November 19, 2009

Stereolab 5

I've listened to Stereolab in a dark car on a dark street
In a basement of a college I belonged to at the time
In an attic of a full house in a long street of a half-town
In my office at home, when I had an office at home
In my office at work. I have an office at work
These are the times
I've listened to Stereolab
Five times, the other times I wasn't really listening

November 12, 2009