<div class="line">You could call me obsessed</div>
<div class="line">or a fool. There&#8217;s no future</div>
<div class="line">turning your insides out</div>
<div class="line">arranging words until they&#8217;re</div>
<div class="line">comfortable with each other.</div>
<div class="line">And the pay! Just this morning</div>
<div class="line">a check arrived in the mail</div>
<div class="line">for fifteen dollars, for a poem</div>
<div class="line">it took forty years to write.</div>
<div class="line">Standing on the corner</div>
<div class="line">looking hungry and tired, the</div>
<div class="line"><em>Veteran of a Thousand Wars</em></div>
<div class="line">does better on a bad day.</div>
<div class="line3">I show you</div>
<div class="line">how I feel inside, how my daughter</div>
<div class="line">whores for drug money, and my son</div>
<div class="line">ransoms his future for a soul.</div>
<div class="line">I tell you how my father</div>
<div class="line">forgot my name, and my mother</div>
<div class="line">went to the electric table</div>
<div class="line">to have her mind rearranged.</div>
<div class="line">I tell you how I prayed for grace</div>
<div class="line">and was given pain, to show</div>
<div class="line">that all prayers are answered.</div>
<div class="line">I&#8217;ve shown you how I died</div>
<div class="line">three times, yet here I am,</div>
<div class="line">Lazarus and Buddha, my</div>
<div class="line">victim and savior. All this</div>
<div class="line">for fifteen dollars and a year&#8217;s</div>
<div class="line">subscription. If I didn&#8217;t have a job</div>
<div class="line">at the factory, sweeping floors</div>
<div class="line">on the graveyard shift …</div>
<div class="line3">And I&#8217;ve shown</div>
<div class="line">where I buried myself, covered</div>
<div class="line">my walls with books and paintings,</div>
<div class="line">how I talk to them and they say</div>
<div class="line"><em>This is what you&#8217;ve always wanted.</em></div>
<div class="line">I am my prisoner and my warden.</div>
<div class="line">I tell you how a passing image</div>
<div class="line">makes me rise, and how love</div>
<div class="line">leaves me cold. I sleep alone</div>
<div class="line">in a king-size bed</div>
<div class="line">and spill myself. I confess</div>
<div class="line">in public. I publish my shame.</div>
<div class="line">I don&#8217;t judge anymore.</div>
<div class="line">I&#8217;ve forgotten how to pray, unless</div>
<div class="line">this is a prayer.</div>
<div class="line">And now I arrange my life</div>
<div class="line">in code, knowing you decipher</div>
<div class="line">more than I show.</div>
<div class="line3">They can keep</div>
<div class="line">their fifteen dollars. They insult me!</div>
<div class="line">All I want from life</div>
<div class="line">is sainthood and some poems</div>
<div class="line">that will last. I lied early:</div>
<div class="line">the future is all there is. My gift</div>
<div class="line">is my present to myself, this day&#8217;s</div>
<div class="line">condensation of memory.</div>
<div class="line">It saves my life.</div>


In Our Line of Duty

The Contrarian’s Advice to Himself

<p style="padding-left: 0px;">I have a friend who has tattoos<br />
of a skull and crossbones on her arms,<br />
and sandpaper scars, and down her spine</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">multicolored butterflies; a tender lady<br />
who talks of redemption, and often<br />
washes my pain away.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 240px;">.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">Sometimes, I am my father,<br />
who thought a laugh worth any price<br />
if paid by someone else,</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">or my mother,<br />
weeping the morning long<br />
for no reason she could think of.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 240px;">.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">All my tattoos are inside my skin,<br />
of Mom and Dad, and caterpillars<br />
down my back. My scars</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">don’t show, but when I speak<br />
you hear my father, and my mother<br />
when I can’t. Sometimes it seems</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">that tender only enters me<br />
when paper words escape<br />
the silence of my pen.</p>


Raising the Roof

STORM CROP

Tattoos

<p style="padding-left: 0px;">When the grandfather dies<br />
there are tears of sadness<br />
from his family. Why is this?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">If he has led a life<br />
of happiness and smiles,<br />
then be happy and smile.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">If he has had a life<br />
of sadness and unhappiness,<br />
be grateful he is at peace.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">If he has seen both<br />
he has been among the blest,<br />
to whom a full life has been given.</p>


RED FIELDS

Excitement of Getting a Room with a Minibar

On the Death of Grandfather

<p style="padding-left: 0px;">
She asked if I was in line and I said<br />
I’m always in line for something but<br />
I never know what it is and she said</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">nothing for what seemed like seconds<br />
and then replied That’s way too deep<br />
before my coffee and I said Ask me</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">something after we’ve had our coffee<br />
and she said Whatever would I ask<br />
and I said Ask me what my plans are</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">for Saturday night as we inched along<br />
and she said I like movies I saw Unfaithful<br />
last week and it didn’t have</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">a happy ending which made it more<br />
realistic and we got our double lattes<br />
and found two corner seats and I said</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">I saw <em>Y Tu Mama Tambien</em> but the sex<br />
didn’t seem real and she said Movies<br />
never get it right and we had another</p>
<p style="padding-left: 0px;">double latte and talked awhile and<br />
drove to her condo and lived happily<br />
ever after what seemed like weeks</p>


A GUEST IN ALL YOUR HOUSES

On the Flyleaf of C.K.W.’s Selected Poems

A Starbucks Romance

<div class="line">Now that science has discovered that cod</div>
<div class="line">get seasick in a storm, and that halibut</div>
<div class="line">(and probably other fish—they’re waiting</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">on a federal grant of five million</div>
<div class="line">to study the subject) pass gas, perhaps</div>
<div class="line">it’s time to move on. We don’t really know</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">how salmon change sex</div>
<div class="line">when the going gets tough, how the swan</div>
<div class="line">finds a mate for life, or the swallow</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Capistrano. And there must be more to learn</div>
<div class="line">about the hibernation of bears, and why the Cubs</div>
<div class="line">can’t win a pennant. Let’s find out why</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">the whale beaches itself,</div>
<div class="line">the drinking habits of certain birds,</div>
<div class="line">and how the monarch takes four generations</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">to migrate north, then another four</div>
<div class="line">back south, and how each generation</div>
<div class="line">returns on time to a place they’d never been.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">How can they remember what they never knew?</div>
<div class="line">when in one generation I can’t remember</div>
<div class="line">where I left my keys. Let’s study that.</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">Let’s study why the long forgotten</div>
<div class="line">flashes into a mind that goes blank</div>
<div class="line">on what he had for breakfast, and mixes</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">the names of his grandchildren. Let’s determine</div>
<div class="line">why an otherwise serious poet doodles</div>
<div class="line">gibberish when he could be creating</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">esoteric balderdash. Or better yet</div>
<div class="line">let’s just study that which retards</div>
<div class="line">the advancement of our civilization,</div>
<div></div>
<div class="line">like spending five million on seasick cod</div>
<div class="line">and flatulent halibut, or half a minute</div>
<div class="line">on a bored poet with equally bad habits.</div>


CREATION MYTHS by Mathias Svalina

Thalassophobia

Why I Am Not a Scientist

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parent

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description

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Term ID to retrieve child terms of. If multiple taxonomies are passed, $child_of is ignored. Default 0.

True to limit results to terms that have no children. This parameter has no effect on non-hierarchical taxonomies. Default false.

Retrieve terms where the description is LIKE the input value. Default empty.

Array of term ids to exclude. If $include is non-empty, $exclude is ignored. Default empty array.

Array of term ids to exclude along with all of their descendant terms. If $include is non-empty, $exclude_tree is ignored. Default empty array.

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Field(s) to order terms by. Defaults to 'name'.

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Parent term ID to retrieve direct-child terms of. Default empty.

Search criteria to match terms. Will be SQL-formatted with wildcards before and after. Default empty.

Array of slugs to return term(s) for. Default empty.

Array of term taxonomy IDs, to match when querying terms.

Whether to prime meta caches for matched terms. Default true.

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the TermNode type

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before

first

last

Connection between the Product type and the TermNode type

terms

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the visibleProduct type

Connection between the Product type and the visibleProduct type

visibleProducts

Connection between the ProductVariation type and the shippingClass type

Connection between the Product type and the shippingClass type

Shopping Cart
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January 19, 2010Robert FungeA Starbucks Romance

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January 19, 2010Robert FungeA Starbucks Romance

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