This is a Toast

So, this is a poem I hand wrote Morgan and left on the seat of the car for her to find after a particularly trying set of days.  I am including the original preface here for context sake...

     When I was in high school and college I would write toast poems, usually dedicated to being alone and doing whatever I wanted while listening to cds in my underwear and drinking diet coke or grape soda.  A few key details in my life have changed since then...


As I sit with a cup of tea
black as a cloud Portland Night
       after a drunk takes out the power lines,
       answering the question
       of how hard a bike can hit a pole....
              Don't worry, he's ok. 
              He jumped off
              and landed on a stray cat
              who he will take home
               and walk on a leash.
       Doesn't matter...
      It's just a metaphor for how dark my tea is.
As I sit with said tea
I make a silent toast
because the tea house
 is crowded with people
inhabiting overlapping universes.

This is a toast to digressions
and finding it impossible to focus

This is a toast to us catching
the mental capacity and maturity
of a 2-year-old as if these things were
childhood disease,
just when it comes time to make dinner.

This is a toast to never appreciating
my pillow so much.

A toast to impatience and impulse
and attempting to plan ahead.

This is a toast to lazy dogs
dirty cats, hardwood floors,
good wine, buckets, choo choos,
owning a laundry machine,
and being a toddler rosetta stone.

This is a toast to you and me and the monster
that sleeps in the room next door and the endless number
of possibilities
but being content with just a hand squeeze,
a beer,
a song,
and falling the fuck asleep.

Cheers.

Haiku on crappy books and My Daughter Likes Dio

I am working on one really inappropriate poem, but wanted to continue to post things more regularly, so more Haiku and a poem that plays to why this blog is named what it is.  The first haiku is in reference to a terrible book that I had to finish for some reason.

Haiku:

I finished that book

8 months later than planned,

no satisfaction and the wine is gone

and in that moment I said

Cheese knives are in the back of the drawer…

I was an adult.

She fell off of the playground

Four feet off the ground and pooped

I had to stifle laughter.

My Daughter Likes Dio

 

Last night,

At rush hour

As the sun set

Slowly over the

Pacific Northwest,

I drove my toddler home

While belting out my best

Completely off key renditions of

Metal ballads and punk rock songs

Dio and Bad Religion.

Under no illusion that I have

The slightest iota of talent,

But for that singular

Moment, I have my

First and possibly

Only adoring

Audience

Who cries when I stop.

Haikus.

I've written about these before...and often planned on writing more of them.  I have them strewn accross every notebook in my house and on random documents on my computer.  My goals is to, if nothing else, share a few relatively often on here.  

Note that my view of the Haiku is that it is an expression of a moment.  To that end, I really don't care about the 5-7-5 structure though I try to stay close.  These are thoughts that were in my mind that needed to get out, but not necessarily in a longer or larger way.  Moments of frustration or people you see that need to be noted.  I think if I make posting these a habit, a lot of them are going to be about doctor things and baby things.




 

I Don’t want to be

a doctor anymore.

I just want to be a dad.

Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah

I should start but there’s a wall.

So I’ll sit and wait.

Elementary school kid

In a pea coat and turtle shell backpack

My vision of adulating.

I’ve been trying to finish

The same book for eight months

I’ve gone to far to not like it.

I will never get

when I play them a new record,

No one else gets pumped

The Church of Competition

I have seldom if at all written over the last year and a half.  This idea came to me, and this poem didn't quite get to exactly how I felt so I'll try again, but here it is, something...fresh off the brain.  This one is about how no matter how hard we try we end up comparing ourselves to others and competing when cooperation would be so much more pleasant.  I think everything in our society is set to train us this way and have us worship competition. 

 

The Church of Competition

Give an offering, sacrifice and say a prayer,

Used to wear shirts that said No Fear,

And now I should be wearing a pressed collar

And a well tied tie.

No Pain No Gain

            But no one seems to be Gaining much

Light candles, light candles,

We’ll sit in a circle,

And listen to Bible verses set to acoustic guitars

As we worship at the church of Competition.

There are trophy stores on every corner

To award God’s plan,

There’s one for the winners

And mysterious ways for all the rest.

Luck be a lady,

God and Uncle Sam are men.

Jesus and the Lombardi trophy. 

So reheat this country’s best delivery pizza,

Delivered faster than the competition,

In car and driver 1993’s safest vehicle.   

And

Light candles, light candles,

We’ll sit in a circle

And listen to Bible verses set to acoustic guitar

As we worship at the Church of Competition.

Pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,

It’s about how hard you work. 

And the cream always rises to the top

Like the foam on a 12$ cappuccino.

Best coffee in town.

Along with the best food carts

And best restaurants located within gas stations

Who compete to see who has the most gas.

To avoid the pump, I’d like to ride my bike,

But I don’t ride fast enough,

My shoulders slouch in an unattractive way.

But there’s always a great spot

Open to lock my bike,

With number one brand U-Lock

Outside,

And

Light candles, light candles,

We’ll sit in a circle

And listen to Bible verses set to acoustic guitar

As we worship at the church of competition.

So turning away

From an artificial shared condition,

To the mirror that tells me

I started this whole race with

Wealthy white male lead.

I still want my opinions to be yours too

To make a living,

I have to be the best.

Convince people,

I’m better.

So I guess I need to open my Bible

And read Revelations,

Where God rigged the game,

Cheated to win,

Mirror that mindset

And

Light candles, light candles,

We’ll sit in a circle

And listen to Bible verses set to acoustic guitar

As we worship at the church of competition.

It’s just business but it’s not.

I’m raising my daughter the best I can,

To be the best she can be,

I can only rate my performance by comparison.

Comparison to friends and acquaintances

            And with less euphemisms, strangers.

I gave up on praying a long time ago,

But I pray to be the best,

And the only way to be the best

Is to beat the best

And to stand towering

            Over,

The corpse of their lesser approach to life.

And

Unbeknownst

Unintentionally,

I wonder into a shiny storefront

On the strip mall that is decision making

Only to stumble into,

And prostrate myself to…

Light candles, light candles,

I sit in the circle

And listen to Bible verses set to acoustic guitar

As I worship at the Church of Competition.