A Few More Words About Standardized Tests

As I stapled the last
standardized practice test
my mind went numb.

I stared through glass
onto Middle Avenue and
a bank of grey clouds

who cast peculiar shadows
onto abandoned storefronts.
I thought of my son, 8

years old, bored by instruction
regarding how to properly
pencil in the bubbles.

Important Discovery

Long ago
I found that
skateboard wheels
on pavement
sound like waves,
and sometimes
have the effect
of erasing
all other thought.

A Religious Experience.

I hear the white and grey cat
speak from the basement.

He is always asking questions.
I rarely have an answer.

He is like a zen master
in his way of open questions.

We will sit together on carpet
in a sliver of sunlight.

I am crosslegged, and he watches
me smile.  His head tilts slightly.

Again, he is a question,
and this is the answer.

This Guy I Know.

I like that guy.
He lives straightforward.

He works.
He seems to take care
of his people.

When he is thirsty,
he drinks.

When he says he is
happy to see you,
he is happy to see you.

When he is not happy to see you,
he says nothing at all.

I like that guy.

He is somebody.

Rock-n-Roll Radio

They sold the radio station
a little more than a week ago,
switched to Christmas music,
and in another week
will reformat to soft jazz.

It's a goddam crime.

I'm not just considering myself.
I'll get my rock-n-roll fix.
Worry not for me, but for the poor
displaced DJ's mourning
the slow demise of rock radio.

I can see them in small rooms
beneath tattered Ramones or
Pink Floyd posters, stubbing out
generic cigarettes while the HiFi
loops the latest by the Black Keys.

Fear not, sullen DJ's, they buried
our station.  I cannot find
the Chili Peppers anywhere on the dial,
but I won't plan the funeral yet.
It may be underground, but it ain't dead.

Angry Christmas Songs

Did I apologize to you
for not being in touch
this past year?

If not, then
I'm sorry for not saying
I'm sorry.

Honestly, it was these
Christmas lights that got me
feeling sappy and apologetic.

You know, the electric blue ones
hung from the eaves
of that house on Cambridge.

If I'd seen you 15 minutes earlier
when The Kinks' "Father Christmas"
was on, I might've

punched you in the face.
So, I guess I'm sorry for that
as well.  I was thinking,

there aren't enough
angry Christmas songs, and
we should get together soon.

In the Glow of My Computer Monitor.

I believe that we have
too much information,
that it has become
as inescapable as
winter cold, or hunger,
that we have become
disfigured as a result,

and furthermore

that even if I returned
to the vast treeless plains
of western Kansas
where I once watched
violent electric storms
on a horizon
hundreds of miles away

I would still be overcome

by the soft glow of a monitor,
deceptively beautiful,
like hunger before a meal,
like clear cold Ohio night.
We are far too ugly
to know this much
about one another.