Summer Poems

I Can't Mow the Grass

Sat on a lawnchair
looking at the grass grow
getting closer and closer to a foot

too much heat
and too much drinking
and strangely too much
algebra

a calico cat walks across the yard
it doesn't know what to do
it eventually goes away

two 14 year old girls walk up the street
talking about their sweet boyfriends

a car passes

decide to do my algebra homework
realize quickly all it is
is combining like terms
2x -9 =0
2x =-9
x = - 9 over 2

Then there is a clearing as Heidegger would say

That all the answers are
what number is next to the X goes is over the number without a letter

so the next answer is -5 over 3 or some shit like that

and then I know what the domain is

After I do that problem

I think

"Oh my god, life is pointless."

But it is okay

that life is pointless

and all we really do all day is combine like terms

I have the calico cat walking across my yard

and my car seems to be running well lately

I think this is why I'm so fucked

I was nine years old. I would sit two feet in front of the television and just stare at the beauty of this video.

I remember wanting to the lead singer of this band really bad. I would in my room and use a little white telescope as a microphone and pretend I was him.

Since my parents failed to properly install a religious or media driven worldview in my brain I believe in a strange way this video and song became my worldview. And that I process all my experiences through the memory of this song and video.

I remember being ten and staring at the flopping fish and knowing what it meant.

I look at the lyrics now

it says, "
What is it?
It's it
What is it?..."

Earlier in the song the lyric states what "it" is, "It's cryin', bleedin', lying on the floor"

What a strange thing to say "it" is.

something that is "cryin, bleedin', lying on the floor."

I think without this song I would finished college by the time I was 23 and would have a good job and kids now.

But instead this song came into my life when I was 10 and made me into some strange alienated animal.

Okay.

I'm writing more

It is a strange summer day.

I woke up to all these beautiful bird and bug noises, which reminds me of when I was little and i would go outside in the summer. I don't think I really outside in the summer now, I've been doing algrebra for two hours and plan on going inside a restaurant soon.

But here I ma

imagining I am like ten

and what was going into my brain

My parents weren't going into my brain

They weren't really going near me.

My dad would drive me to his friend's house or his brother's house, and I would play with their kids. And he would sit and drink beer with me and talk about random shit.

Then he would drive me home drunk.

Sometimes we would sit at the bar while he got drunk and I ate chicken wings. You know it didn't occur to me until like a year ago that dads didn't bring their kids to the bar with them.

I remember watching this video too



I was like that little girl.

Just staring.

I remember wanting to the lead singer of this band too.

I was little growing up in the country with like no black people or other races or nationalities in my life.

I just sat there alone, in my living room, eating like a sandwich staring at these strange black men, wearing strange outfits, telling me that it doesn't matter if it is Stalin or Ghandi, leaders just want you to adore them.

The other song that influenced my whole life and interpration of reality and my overall linquistic paradigm that helps me translate reality into something meaningful is Welcome to the Jungle



I wanted to be Axl Rose. I think I still want to be Axl Rose.

After listening to these three songs in a row.

They all seem to have the same structure.

demoralizing lyrics mixed with guitar playing that screams, "panic."

All three of these songs came out around the same time, around 89.

But maybe it was my psychological make-up that brought me to these songs.

I was in a state of confusion and panic before these songs existed.

Then the songs existed

and my confusion and panic found a voice in these songs.

PEKAR IS DEAD

Harvey Pekar blurbed one of my books. I talked to him on the phone once, he was nice to me over the phone.

I read some of his books, have a signed copy of one around here somewhere, and enjoyed the movie.

Here's the article from yahoo.

I think Harey Pekar shows that if you are a fucking weirdo, and keep being a weirdo someone will notice one day. I don't think he got rich or anything, but he got the front page of yahoo when he died.

LIFE PLANS

I feel like I've spent the last year making shit up

I make up about five to six life plans a day

everyone i know is talking about their life plans

there is an endless amount of life plans going around

I can't seem to be able to snatch one up

My life plan was to go back to school.

I was working at Lone Star and everyone was going to school

and I thought, "Oh, it seems like a good idea, go to school. Sounds great, that's a life plan."

So I started going

I think maybe I thought I would drop out and have more excuses of why I'm so useless

But I kept going

Because the government keeps giving me a lot of money to go

And then I met a woman who is in college

and now I am a college man that dates a college woman

And now I have taken my two required spanish classes and I just finished my first math class and now I'm half way through my second one. And I'm not failing these math classes, I'm actually passing them and doing fine.

Basically after I pass this math class, everything difficult will be over. Or everything I don't want to do will be over, and I'll be able to graduate in the spring no problem.

I've emailed a bunch of people asking them questions about what I should do.

I kept thinking I want to something for people so I'm getting a political science with applied sociology minor.

But I don't know about that.

I think I still want to entertain and write.

But where?

For who?

I don't know

I even considered going to Hollywood for five minutes.

Or being a travel writer.

Or going to south korea and teaching english.

maybe going to New Zealand.

Maybe going to New York City

or Chicago

I don't know.

I know I want to leave Youngstown.

I don't think there is anything else I need to do here.

I look around and feel like my work is done here.

I feel like I'm an entertainer.

Like that is calling.

or something.

I wouldn't even mind working in radio or a TV show.

Which sounds odd.

I don't know.

Somebody tell me some of their life stories, maybe it'll help me think about my life.

A Poem about Lebron James

Lebron James

Cleveland does not need

people with small penises

we have purchased a lot of merchandise

from China for you

to make you richer

so you could have bigger houses
and nicer cars

You should be happy about that
because you never went to college
you don't even have a technical degree
and could never get a job besides
working at Taco Bell

We have done this because you dance for us
and make us feel happy

That is your job
to make us happy
to make shoe companies money
and to be a good role model for the kids

There is a bridge in Akron where people kill themselves

I believe I may go to the Akron Art Museum one last time

and jump off the bridge because

I can't live without you