Sunday, October 17, 2010

This is why I'm not getting a Ph.D.

Going to see the Gilmores,
to see Yalies who get dressed up
in dresses & suits & brooches & ties
to have drinks with their friends
on a Friday night,
who pithily talk about intellectual matters.

I want to be clever, have witty conversations while half-drunk
about t.s. eliot and heidegger,

but there’s no room for me here,
no place for me to freak out,
to make perfectly valid comments, like--
What about the pope, huh?
only to get blank stares.
or yell--
No! no! that’s bullshit!--
flailing my hands about,
how i do when i’m myself
around people who know myself.

In my hobo-chic clothes
drinking musty red wine
and smoking spliffs on the sly,
I tell people that I work at a co-op in Vermont
and insist that Bridget Jones Diary 2: The Edge of Reason is a meta-text,
while white couples hold hands limply.

The lonely-hearts couplet

“You can’t play frisbee alone.”
“Get a fucking dog.”

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Untitled

tired, hungover, hungry,
it was rainy outside
and i didn’t have my coffee yet

i go to look at the cover of the Times,
like every morning--
my heart crushed from the night before
again and again
drinking and making bad decisions--

i glance at the headlines
but the above-the-fold is dominated by a gigantic, full-color photo
of a brown pelican
covered in oil
flailing
struggling out of the water.

we are both so tiny
and so far from each other
and from anyone who can help.
but i will live.

a co-worker walks by, seeing my tears,
rubbing my shoulder,
understanding the sentiment
if not the severity of my reaction.

and all i want to do is drink the oil,
drink the damaged ocean
and die
for that pelican.
he is better than me,
better than the rest of us
combined.

and then i go to work.

This is why I hate New York/cities/corporations/life

I just bought
and drank
an iced coffee
from a fucking McDonald’s
without realizing it
because it was called
a fucking Cafe Metro.

Seasonal citrus

A Hendricks martini with the juice of a Meyer lemon, garnished with frozen blueberries.

Still needs a name...A Meyers Michelle, in honor of Michelle Williams?