Howard Friedman
Eventually On Time
But not really though,
my little brother breathed in coal miner’s dust years after the mine, and I managed to look bad in a tux.
I don’t bother breathing when the TV’s on. What you’re hearing is listening.
My apartment has six mirrors, three cans of dog food and a picture with the Virgin Mary.
I am taking advice on how to get married,
not how to find a girl, but how to make the tattoos wrap around my little belly hairs.
The world would not stop taking turns as children.
Can you hear the West Wind? She explained that they were permanent.
You sell me back my childhood here, because I am already tired from waiting.
The war remembers Okechobee snack cakes. We had a black mailman, we
moved to a new address we had a black mailman.
If you can pierce this, you can pierce that.
The room wouldn’t stop glowing, I walked in to my own life thirty minutes
late and I’ve been late everywhere ever since. I use
my mother for every excuse. Sorry I’m late, my mother. People
eventually ask, Is she sick?
She sold a man his own smile just a week ago.
Read The Title
If you’re startled do not fade. Do not fade. We’ve been doing this for
days. My eyes are green. They are my only secret. You don’t know
it is a secret. That is my secret. There are so many ideas that go
unwanting. My grandmother provokes a lion to sleep in a ring,
levitating above the Earth. To think she was a girl
now a lion tamer with a comb for a collar and a principal
division, frosted chocolate cakes driving up and down the
road. The principal division in traffic. People and pedestrians,
cars and birds and the melting sky. Songs and promises, secrets.
I can hear you opening oranges when you’re nervous, big bands
and trumpets, echoes. When not looking at the cameras,
images clap their hands. You said it was deer hunting,
the deer was spooked but absolutely fine,
in nature it only takes three
seconds to make a bed.
Gimme Tha Diploma
My great aunt said I’d be in the music business so I cruise the funeral homes trying to make good connections. I’m old school. My okay uncle got me a feature on a Frank Sinatra track. I’m the one in the one about the race riots. Who will get there first? Aching, taking faces back to my place to kiss. I don’t know what an orgy is, I just know good organization. The suit the tie the hat the coat the jacket the belt the pants the socks the shoes
all to not get arrested.
Howard Friedman is a writer, actor and comedian from Chicago, Illinois. He has had his poetry published in 'Cellar Door', 'Catch', 'Combat!' and 'The Desperate Reader'. He has written plays that were performed at The Second City, The Factory Theater and Voice of The City. He likes to find pockets of nature in the city and pockets of the city in nature.
© 2020
