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Running Dog
It's 11:15 when I look at my watch,
And that's what I say when I speak
Into the receiver. Call me, I say, and then
I hang up. I feel the need to make it
To midnight tonight. Waste some time
Farting around, watching some
Television, writing a quick poem or two,
Reading some Carver. HmmmÉ Dead: that's
What he's been up to lately. And
Only fifty. Fifty years old! He was sober,
They say, during those last ten years.
That's what they say when they write about him.
If I was Ray, I would have had a few drinks,
Would have hidden some vodka under the sink,
Drank some whiskey when I was alone and writing
And scratching nostalgic poems about fishing,
Hunting or divorce, smoking or love: life maybe.
I ponder over how he lived his life
And how I live mine. I'm twenty-three
And scared Ð scared of dying when I'm fifty,
Scared I won't be able to stop drinking like Ray did.
Scared I won't get my "gravy."
Dec. Rent
I dropped off the december rent
found time moving fast as the money I spend
and hoped for a virgin january
with dirty snow to drift through
dragging my ghost behind
keeping it flawed but pristine
corrupted glamour kicks courageous
as I drag my comb over deep river hair
mirrors shatter from fear of reflection
as time is passing months flip on the calendar
and reincarnate now again
but there's st. peter waving you in
safe at home by late july
vain in the loss of fingerprints and naval
a headache in my existence
to give in to subsistence
I fall to see the beauty in now
wondering what is really real
turpentine body odor at a quarter to three
roll over and flop your body around
pick up your legs with heavy success
killing an illogical illusionary
a gateway to celestial orbit
and finding that certain, overhead standard
ascending to a bitter dance-floor where no one dances
but broken bodies sprawl out and gyrate
teeth chipping on linoleum tiles . . . .
David Marrinson is a substitute teacher. He occasionally finds time to write but only at night when most people in the States are sleeping and only when he hears crickets and grasshoppers playing their trademark songs. He is a 2002 graduate of Western Illinois University and he now resides in Cary, Illinois.
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