A very special thanks to Brenda A, because the discovery of a good can benefit many, and it all starts with a musical mantra that finds you caught in an unsuspecting moment.
40/40: Summer Poem Slam-a-bam is a project in which people have joined me for 40 days and 40 nights of on-demand poetry. They have submitted the concepts, ideas, and subjects; I’ve done the work.
A very special thanks to Elevator Eva, all dinged up.
40/40: Summer Poem Slam-a-bam is a project in which people have joined me for 40 days and 40 nights of on-demand poetry. They have submitted the concepts, ideas, and subjects; I’ve done the work.
I find it curious that people put an end time on a party invite.
No room to breathe, extraordinarily inorganic.
Restrictive and lacking in color.
Party end times should always remain open-ended.
Don’t you think?
Sometimes my best work is accomplished in the waning energy of a social gathering.
I feel no pressure from the ticking clock as it advances.
My job is to break through that wall, become unmoored, and push all envelopes to the point of excess.
I am the progeny of Bacchus.
In fact, a direct descendent by blood.
Bloodlines, red wines, dancing divine.
Party is my middle name,
and I prefer engagements that weave endlessly onward toward dawn,
then onto brunch, wrapped up in giggling walks of shame.
Debauchery mystifies and beguiles my smiling eyes.
Mischief is to be masterfully made.
Do me a favor if you are having a party,
Have the decency to let the party determine its own life.
Definitely a start time, but the end time should be less finite, and stretch outward like an expanding universe.
Until, there is no light or energy left, but the void of space, and false burping hangovers, punctuated by piercing headaches in search of more excess.
A very special thanks to Sir Christopher Coxen. The future may be queer, but it is certainly bright.
40/40: Summer Poem Slam-a-bam is a project in which people have joined me for 40 days and 40 nights of on-demand poetry. They have submitted the concepts, ideas, and subjects; I’ve done the work.
On account of not having the money to pay Paul, after exhausting credit with Peter.
My bottom line bottomed out.
My red, became yellow, because I have no green.
Much regret.
Bounty hunting, bogus debt.
Slave one, undone.
Consolidate.
Student fees, faux degrees.
Never ending story.
Given enough rope,
You’ll hang yourself.
A very special thanks to EV for helping this baker bake.
40/40: Summer Poem Slam-a-bam is a project in which people have joined me for 40 days and 40 nights of on-demand poetry. They have submitted the concepts, ideas, and subjects; I’ve done the work.
Building robust constitutions one rain date at a time.
A very special thanks to A and L, for taking a wet song and making it wetter.
40/40: Summer Poem Slam-a-bam is a project in which people have joined me for 40 days and 40 nights of on-demand poetry. They have submitted the concepts, ideas, and subjects; I’ve done the work.
She insists on wearing woolen, open-toed house slippers.
She says they make her feel like Ginger Rogers.
But, they offer up no protection from the elements.
Soiled, marmalade in color, and quite smelly.
When you take a good look at her feet,
you see savaged nail beds and scaly red flakes.
She likes to joke with me,
asking when we’re going to get pedicures together.
I see her often, mostly every day.
She holds court at the bus stop.
She seems happily homeless, if there is such a thing.
Sometimes she has a brown paper bag peeking from a bottomless pocket in her thrift store trench coat.
It’s her armor from the dragons haunting her voyage through this life.
Whether it’s thirty-two degrees, or eighty-five degrees,
Sidewalk Sally stays in character.
Man does she sweat.
When she asks me for money,
I buy her a coffee and a breakfast sandwich.
She tells me she would spend the night with me for seventy-five bucks.
I tell her I have a girlfriend, and we’re going steady.
She laughs a hearty cackle,
sounding like the rattling chains binding horses to a Conestoga Wagon.
She shows me her swollen leg as encouragement.
The white sweat pants she’s wearing seem painted on,
and are migrating to more of a butterscotch shade.
One time, a friend of mine that drives a trolley from Old Towne Trolley Tours,
told me that he saw Sidewalk Sally defecating on the stairs at City Hall,
while he was giving a tour.
“And there’s Sidewalk Sally, relieving herself, next to the Samuel Adams Statue.”
He said she was bent over, head between legs,
sweatpants around ankles, shooting poops in an arc.
I didn’t believe him, but I believed him.
I sort of miss Sidewalk Sally when she’s not there.
A pang of worry creeps into my heart.
Inevitably, she returns with a cast on her hand,
or bandages on her head, or bare-footed, sans woolen house slippers.
On occasion, Sally asks me for a smoke.
I don’t smoke.
Then she pulls one out and lights it,
and immediately blows the smoke in my face,
waiting for my reaction.
I think she likes me because I’m from Chicago.
Sidewalk Sally escaped from Chicago,
but is reticent to explain the circumstances.
She just sashays down the street.
Scuffling those slippers when she has them,
And talking to whoever will listen.
A very special thanks to the invisible among us. I promise, I see you.
40/40: Summer Poem Slam-a-bam is a project in which people have joined me for 40 days and 40 nights of on-demand poetry. They have submitted the concepts, ideas, and subjects; I’ve done the rest.
A very special thanks to EV. We all get a case of the Sundays. Ain’t no fun in that.
40/40: Summer Poem Slam-a-bam is a project in which people have joined me for 40 days and 40 nights of on-demand poetry. They have submitted the concepts, ideas, and subjects; I’ve done the rest.
