EL CAFE

(the closest i have ever come to doing it justice.)

I wake up every morning
to the muffled sounds
of NPR, and the clatter
of cooking pots
my mother, in the kitchen
starting out a day
that will inevitably
end in varicose veins
and another 15 loaves of bread.

My father, making coffee
tests our patience
letting the kettle scream
until my brother and i
run out of our rooms, disgruntled
to shut the burner off.

My brother, six years my elder
trapped in his room
by his own inventions,
music slipping out
from under his door,
something that he has taken to calling work
and I have taken to calling,
a pretty excuse.

Thus, the day proceeds
and we try our best
to find sounds
to fill it with.

At night, i creep down the stairs
drawn in by the soft hum
of folk music.
I watch the reflections
dance off the guitar
in rhythm, as though
they know some secret
i am too human to understand.

I lean my head on my mothers shoulder
and right before
I fall asleep I think
if these
walls
could talk
[they wouldn't talk
they'd sing,
like a gospel choir
on Christmas morning,
like they've never loved
anything as much as they love
this place]
[they wouldn't talk
they'd yell,
they'd speak in tongues,
they would shake
themselves to pieces
from the mysterious beauty
of the things that happen here.
they'd bleed magic,
the sounds of all the voices
that have filled this room
at once
like an orchestra,
but better]

I wake up long enough to tip-toe
my way up the creaky stairs,
to my bed-room
where I collapse
onto the sheets
and fall asleep to the sounds
of muffled folk music
mixed with laughter
and wait for Jean Feraca
to gently wake me
in the morning.

This must be the place.

ODE TO ORGANIC WHOLE MILK

skim milk is simply not my cup of tea
and two percent won't do the trick
but I love whole milk made organically

though most my friends say it makes them sick
to watch me drink straight from the carton
I tell them that I don't give a lick

so when the weekend is just startin
and everyone is buying beer
I go out to buy my milk carton

while many find this to be queer
I would have to disagree
that piss beer you drink comes no where near

organic whole milk of such high quality
and even thought it's full of fat
I drink it quite religiously

oh sorry, i'd love to stop and chat
but I drink whole milk, are you down with that?





not my best. but it was written in terza rima form, and i seem to struggle when writing in form. my new goal is to write a poem every week, and i will be putting them up here, but i warn you that they are all in their roughest stages, most likely. On weeks when i am not particularly busy, i am going to try to attempt writing in different forms.