Overread at Booth 3: The Places Where We Wish to Die

The Places Where We Wish to Die



We think of all the places we want to die:
In Paris, while dancing down the Champs-Elysees in the rain,
Or frozen into a permanent fixture on the side of Mount Everest,
                where other climbers will nod their respect as they
                 pass our Zen formation on their way to the peak.

 Perhaps we wish to die being gored while running with the bulls
                in Pamplona, after a night’s drinking and unleashing our inner                    
                Ernest Hemingways,

or perhaps we wish to die in the arms of our lover, or beloved, or loved one,
the one we have loved for decades, or met just recently, or just

                someone.

 And that’s it, then, isn’t it?

 Because the place that we do not wish to die,
is some grey room in some grey bed with some grey pillow for our one grey head:
the curtains drawn and the door shut and nobody around us to
note our passing, until someone knocks on the door the next day,

to find us, already gone,

               only to push one button, to call for nameless others to wrap us
                and remove us, and make ready our grey room

for another grey head:

                someone else

 who will never be trampled in Pamplona,
nor frozen on Everest,

                 nor dance down the Champs-Elysees

                                 in the rain.






MR
2019-0130

Overread at Table 2: These Are Days in Eden

SC 256 T8 - 10,000 Maniacs “Eden”

These are the days in which we are unmade,
like a bed with rumpled sheets and no maid to clean them:
not here; not in this feral mist
that swirls outside this dank motel room
filled with cigarette stains and diesel fumes,

and the curtains are like shrouds and the cobwebs
fill the corners of broken windows and we long for

the break of daylight in winter,
the call of gulls at seasides,
the dark purple rain across the spiny ridge of mountains
that brings that smell of new Spring.

MR

2019-0128

Overheard at Booth 1: A Couple After Church

Wife: I wish you could understand more Spanish.

Husband: I do understand Spanish.

Wife: Well, you never seem to understand anything that Rocio is saying to you when she's talking to you.  You seem like you are not hearing a word she's saying.

Husband: It's probably because I'm too busy basking in the pheromone cloud of her sublime sultriness.

Wife: You are so lucky we just got out of church or I would stab your eyes out right here with this plastic fork.

Overread at Booth 2: Crystalline

Crystalline

                You are like the waters of the North Sea,

                                always cold and ever changing.
                Some will say that the ocean turns
                                different colours
                                                depending on the angle of
                                                the sun.

                But you, my dear, are constant,

                                bright, shining, reflecting
                                sparks of light from
                                each undulating wave.

                Your curves are cold yet mysterious.

       

                You are like the North Sea,

                               ever present –

                                                eternally changing.

MR

2018-0420

Overheard at the Counter: Rush Limbaugh Eats Lunch at his Desk

As I was driving the other day - it was Wednesday or Thursday - I had to change the station.  Usually I just listen to NPR or Christian Rock but on this day there was some interview with some whiner from the Trump Admin about how Pelosi keeps going on vacation and that's why the shutdown is going on so long, so I just punched in some of the other numbers and I landed on one station where the guy was going on about how no worker works only 8 hours any more - how if you want to keep your job, you have to work 10-12 hours a day every day.

He said that all his employees eat lunch at their desks.  He eats lunch at his desk.  He said he doesn't allow his employees to go out to lunch "Why do I need them getting away from work for an hour?  I need them here all this time if they're gonna do a radio show." 

Then I recognized the voice.  This asshole was Rush Limbaugh.  The guy was on radio talking about how he was breaking the FLSA.  But to be honest, this is what companies are doing all over the place now.   This is becoming the standard:  we pay people based on a 40 hour work week and then we make them work 60 hour work weeks, which does nothing but burn out employees - sucks them dry like you'd wring out a wet washcloth.  Why?  So those who make the real money can act more powerful and stroke their ego.

And I remembered then, that this, this right here, is what the American Labor Movement fought for, over a hundred years ago.  American workers, immigrant workers on American soil, toiling for American capitalists, they shed their blood and they died at the hands of the corporate-owned militias, against this wage slavery that we are just wallowing in today.

We dishonor their memory when we piss on their legacy.

The workers should walk out.  Let Rush Limbaugh eat his own lunch at his own desk.  Alone. 

And deserted.

Overread at the Counter: Poem of the Day "On the Radio"

On the Radio

Regina Spektor

This is how it works
It feels a little worse
Than when we drove our hearse
Right through that screaming crowd
While laughing up a storm
Until we were just bone
Until it got so warm
That none of us could sleep
And all the Styrofoam
Began to melt away
We tried to find some worms
To aid in the decay
But none of them were home
Inside their catacomb
A million ancient bees
Began to sting our knees
While we were on our knees
Praying that disease
Would leave the ones we love
And never come again

On the radio
We heard November Rain
That solo's really long
But it's a pretty song
We listened to it twice
'Cause the DJ was asleep

This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And…

This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

And on the radio
You hear November Rain
That solo's awful long
But it's a good refrain
You listen to it twice
'Cause the DJ is asleep
On the radio
(Oh, oh, oh)
On the radio
On the radio, uh oh
On the radio, uh oh
On the radio, uh oh
On the radio

Overheard at Booth 1: Pushing 50

Husband:  Holy crap, I can't believe I'm going to be 49 next year.  Babe we're pushing FIFTY.


Wife: Don't remind me.


Husband: I'm either gonna have to get a yellow Corvette or a 25 year old blonde.


Wife: Get the Corvette.  You can't afford a 25 year old blonde.