Kurt Roosevelt
Kurt reports he's really more of a fiction writer than poet, but it's kinda
interesting and short, so.....He can be reached at RussJ10@aol.com.
"Lately I've Been Running on Faith."
-Eric Clapton
All morning I've been trying to have an out-of-body experience.
Propping up eyelids with caffeine splints
I mentally hum the song "Running on Faith"
and I'm an Agnostic.
I stop to buy a free Mountain Dew
with a winning cap I got on Friday
before walking down to the old basketball stadium
to talk about Shakespeare, a plagiarist
who's been plagiarized a billion times since.
Makes me wonder if ideas are Communists.
Down in the dungeon I find my senile professor
has strung his thoughts together
long enough to cancel my 9:30
that kept me up until 4:00.
I buy another cup of coffee at Java's and work
on my presentation, periodically glancing
at my neighbor's USA Today
that I won't have time to read until tomorrow.
The coffee gives me a dull charge and my pen moves
faster while a synapse fires and three wounded thoughts coalesce.
I prepare a presentation on Emerson's essay
"The American Scholar" which should effectively condemn
the existence of the American Lit. professor I'm presenting to.
"Meek young men grow up in libraries believing it their duty
to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have
given,...
Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the bookworm."
After an hour I climb another hill to my final class.
The professor spends an hour talking about nothing
and a little Hawthorne, while not one student says one word.
Two other students and I stay awake while Horrible Higgins goes
off on a tangent, occasionally laughing at nothing
or a joke about the president.
My attack on the American Educational system is pushed
back until Wednesday. It's 2:00, I haven't eaten or said
one word out loud all day long.
Tankerville USA
Sitting at the bar enjoying the silence
not wanting to talk to anyone but my tanker of beer
when Larry staggers in. I look away like a child
who thinks covering his eyes with his hands
will make him invisible, but he makes a b-line
to the stool beside me and orders a Miller Light.
I'm a little sad today, he starts.
It's 4:30 in the afternoon and he stinks
of liquor. Today's my thirty-first birthday.
Happy birthday I tell him as I pretend
to examine a sign on the wall.
My woman couldn't make it. She has to work.
You know how it is? I close my eyes and nod my head
knowing that there is no woman.
You see this coat right here?
I've had this coat since high school man.
It was my grandfather's coat.
This coat will keep you warm baby! If it's raining,
snowing, whatever, you'll be warm if your in this coat.
Well your feet get cold, but that's it.
Really, I say, that's a good coat.
Thirty-one. That's me.
M.
E.
Me.
Thirty-one.
Happy birthday I say again.
I've been around too. I met the Doors, the Stones,
David Bowie. David Bowie's kind of weird though.
You know what Mick Jagger said to me once?
I haven't the faintest.
He told me he'd give me four million dollars
to have sex with him.
Four million dollars! Four! Million!
I shake my head smiling.
You know what I told him?
I shrug my shoulders.
Go fuck yourself.
Four million dollars! Man!
But I just couldn't do it you know.
I nod but can't take anymore.
Larry's voice sounds like my alarm clock in the morning.
I gulp down the rest of my beer and get up to go home
to a bottle of whiskey.
Awe, you taking off? Well, check this out...
let me get like a $1.75.
I take the money out of my wallet
and fan it out to show that I've just enough to cover my tab.
Awe, you hurting too. All right then.
I'll catch you on the rebound.
>
Kurt Roosevelt