In this collection of poetry, Todd stays sober and sets his sights on the details the rest of us forget while tipping back a pint or two. Or, if he is to be believed, Todd’s powers of observation sharpen with each passing drink. Either way, these poems keenly recollect the good, the bad and the slippery of a night on the town.

Epic Streets

Moses, Molly, gin and a blonde: oh, to be in New Orleans when clouds gather and break, and wash away the memory of all that…

SUV-driving subversionites carry the day
as hyperbolic shadows gather on the horizon.
The blonde peels the label off her beer
and appreciates smoothness while lamenting
her zipper problems.

Moses strolls into the hardware store
to look for matches, realizes he’s seen everything
and contemplates the worst singer in the world
as she scrambles up the platform.

Molly ponders the apocalypse,
also appreciates smoothness,
and responds firmly with a yes.

The human noise
we all make mixes with the gin
and she starts slip-sliding away.

-March 4, 2003

Jack London’s Revenge

Todd, our resident specialist in cultivating etymological literary hybrids, introduces: Thoreauvian-chic.

The loose cannon and the tarot card princess play
razor blade tic-tac-toe on the back of his hand but
their game ends in a backwards draw because
neither understands the rules of attraction.

Sliding through the crowd
she turns out to be more
Thoreauvian-chic than Southern belle
so I stop drinking and turn the other way.

Avenue breezes mix with an air of superiority
as Daisy chokes at the next table and wishes she could turn blue.
Fiery reflections coagulate in the downpour
and a decade disappears in the shiver of a spine.

The minister’s daughter is too hungover
to reflect on her night of passion
or hear the laughter at her own expense
but maybe that’s beneficial.
She supports women’s suffrage
but alcoholism is the main reason.

I laugh as purgation occurs and the banker wins in a landslide.

-April 23, 2003

Should we talk about something else?

How to change the subject from store-front churches to lips and hips

We can still see you diving
behind the newsstand;
pretending to be enthralled
by the days mind-bending,
politically-correct marketing ploys

Gin joints, jazz clubs, and cheap pick-up lines,
back-room poker games, store-front churches
and didn’t you know Elijah is coming?
(crawling, falling, gasping for air)

Put track seven on repeat
and we’ll discuss the dichotomy
of lips, hips, and the end of the world.

-September 10, 2003

Pause for Effect

A poem about your corner bar, or the one you went to when you visited your parents, or the one that made you feel like you could, that you should, move to the east village, or Mississippi, or Prague, as long as the person across the table from you came along.

Past the gulf of low-rise jeans
and painted smiles
the bar opens, engulfs, stares, and stumbles.
(And winks because they’ve shared your pain).

Syrupy twang of Sheryl Crow jolts me back to frigidity
as the Chairman eyes up Norah Jones,
makes a crack about pipes,
(which ones I don’t know),
and offers her an olive.

Conscience looms like the elephant;
lurches forward, and winks too.
Jack London’s clear thought gives way
to ambivalence, morning haze and hilarity.

Murder, rape, cannibalism, and sex
hold attention momentarily, but
laughter reigns.

-February 18, 2003

Scramble

“Blame the drive on Davenport West,
pepper spray, and the Wal-Mart truck…” Inspired by the Illinois Valley, old friends and an impending marriage.

The smell of crab intestines and Camel Lights
snap out of the daze as the Pink Lady is on in three.
(Don’t hit the brakes; we’re three feet behind!)
Blame the drive on Davenport West,
pepper spray, and the Wal-Mart truck

Coolers collide with sobriety on the seventh green
and the cell phone rings
Pensacola’s on line one but call the fourth/fifth/sixth fairway next
Breeze blows out the lighter flame and the birdie putt lips out
but we already tapped in the eagle for one over on the front nine.

-November 12, 2002

Snap Judgment - Party of 12

Inspired by dinner on the town at an age when valet service still seems extravagant, a waste of a good walk…and mostly just a waste.

My friend - you would not trace the chalk-line
of a magnesium-hot parachute parade.
Irish archangels would instead
circumvent the strung-out, stripped-down
divas-in-training and choose to focus on
turquoise-tan skin and
the things that really matter in life.
True patriots are smothered
in “an ecstasy of fumbling”
without a scent of suburban
recognition - “musical and strange and perfumed”
Role reversal and a right hook to the jaw
while staring out at the darkened street lamps
pondering the infamous question -
Is it a crime to waste inspiration?

-November 30, 2003
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