Wet Groceries

wet groceries is a mild homage to “dead” by they might be giants.
to quote:

“I came back as a bag of groceries
Accidently taken off the shelf
Before the date stamped on myself
Did a large procession wave their
Torches as my head fell in the basket,
And was everybody dancing on the casket?
Now it’s over I’m dead and I haven’t done anything that I want (now it’s over)
Or, I’m still alive and there’s nothing I want to do”

a little grim yes?

now perhaps if it was raining
and the container that held said groceries
became soggy
returning to pulp
from whence it came
tearing under the weight
spilling its contents

perfection…

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tether

at my junior high
on the playground
which barely qualified as a playground
more like a prison yard without the sentries
we had tetherball poles
only no tetherballs.
just the poles and the strings.

during one of my bouts of homelessness
years later
i would try to sleep in this playground
but usually would just sit
in the dark
looking at the shadows. the poles
now without strings
cast in the moonlit dirt.

one night
after trying in vain to sleep
i decided the poles without purpose have had enough purposelessness
we’ve all had enough

these kids needed poles with strings
with balls on the end
that they could punch and send hurdling through space towards whomever was on the other side.
we needed meaning
these poles and i
purpose fufilled
Destiny!

so
i grabbed my sketchbook
scribbled a note
tore out the page
and slapped the note to one of the poles with some gum:

“BRING US THE BALLS ON STRINGS OR WE WILL PUT YOUR HEADS ON THESE POLES. – thank you, the children.”

i never went back.
and i found much nicer places to sleep.

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3rd shift

I cant sleep.
at night.
like a normal person
i have never been able to
because of this
ive lost many Mcjobs
every so often id take a graveyard job in attempt to counter this
let me just say,…
i LOVE graveyard shifts
which if you’ve ever worked a graveyard shift anywhere
you know what they can be like
especially if you get to work them by yourself

in 98 or 99
i was working nights at a gas station every night from 11pm to 7am
shielded behind two inches of plexiglass
talking to my friends
the ones still awake at two or three
through a circular vent in the plexiglass wall
and
then they’d leave to sleep
while i kept drinking coffee

there is a calmness
that sets in between the hours of 3 and 4
its lovely

the downside of working a graveyard shift
is over a period of time
regardless of how social you try to be
you begin to feel terribly disconnected
your whole life becomes sheilded behind two inches of plexiglass
where you sit
head against it
drawing pictures in the fog from your breath
bored
feeling drained
it follows you home
it clings to you
it becomes a suit of plastic armor

there were words to this song
appearing one line per pattern as they played through

its well after
two am
the plexiglass
dividing
me from the rest
of the world
is fogged over
with the stale
lifeless residue
that calls at
this hour
leaving grease
prints behind.
the parking lot
empty. except
for the wind
blowing the
trash back
out onto the
streets again

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Gum & Eggs

I had recently converted to veganism
shortly before writing what would become burnplate no.1
(after being an ova-lacto vegetarian for 7 years)
it was a giant leap in the “me doing things all the way instead of half ass” category.

It wasn’t that much of an adjustment
I set a date and tried to eat everything i thought i would ever miss
for two weeks prior to my vegan launch date
in the refrigerator
were two turtle cheesecakes
of which i ate a piece twice a day
one for breakfast
one after dinner

post vegan launch
however
it was difficult to maintain the conviction
and resist cravings for things made with dairy and eggs
staying informed on all the unnecessary animal biproducts and ingredients that make their way into food that one would think would be animal free

who puts beef fat into snack cakes?
i mean really
beef fat
or milk bi-products into non-dairy creamer?

so.
I devised a system (you have to have a system)
If i was struck with a particular craving for something non-vegan
I’d recall the texture of scrambled eggs
as old gum stuck under a greasy spoon diner table
scraped off
served hot
with a sprig of parsley
hair stuck to it
perhaps a shard or two of broken glass
or pebbles for a decorative touch

as you can imagine this method worked for most things.

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