Missing You Expedition 2006: day 1
Missing You wakes
in the middle of the night
after a long day of not sleeping
ties on its blue bandana
and puts in another Bela Lugosi movie
stomach churning
like unwanted butter
because you’ve taken your love
on a long vacation
this flat assed futon mattress
of ours feels even flatter
without you
love is a wet sidewalk
in New York
dressed in the bones
of broken umbrellas
the distance a dark mountain
casually shucking walnuts
below her navel
Missing You curls itself
into a dumb lump which is
intended to resemble
a postcard
tapes this poem
to its forehead
like a stamp
and waits like that
with the VCR treading
those first awful
flames of daylight
until dawn
Missing You Expedition 2006: day 2
Missing You fed the cats today
They looked nap beat
and hungry
so it gave them some of the
good stuff
and now they’re chewing
like Marlon Brando
snorting hot gravy
off the every frames
of his acting day sceneries
and
when they’re finished
Missing You throws the empty
can into the bucket
beneath the dirty dishes
in our kitchen
counts the unwashed forks until
you come back again
while somewhere on the opposite end
of a completely different ocean
the moon shines like a bright donut
with the tip chewed off
and between the trees
of the all you can drink dance clubs
Kevin Federline unwittingly impregnates
another unsuspecting
slash
naive
slash
drunk
slash
slutty
slash
moose
Idiots On Mars
Missing You Expedition 2006: day 5
Sunday afternoon
Missing You
falls asleep while
not watching the Super Bowl
and wakes up around 9 p.m.
starts drinking again
and settles in for
a long night of leaky feelings
and Italian Sci-Fi
There’s a two hour time distance
hurtling between us
The Earth’s balance is off
and rotates like a half baked potato
limping through a dream of cold sour cream
without
You: In New York City
Missing You: In the mountains
and the
Idiots: On Mars
Unable to prevent the loneliness
from colliding against everything
It streaks across the sky like a large meteor
the size of a helmet-less planet
So tonight it’s over
we’re all doomed for sure
I take another two or three drinks
from the bottle and try to focus
what’s left of my attention
on the TV
In this particular movie
Claude Raines has
all the best lines
but he still manages
to die in the end
just like the rest of us
You can clever your way
out of a lot of things
But there’s no clevering your way
out of death
Cheers to Claude Raines
though, at least
for trying
The alien shrapnel may have
taken his body
But it’s that last line he delivered
that saved his soul
(from Missing You Expedition 2006 chapbook (the correct line spacing seems to be currently refusing to be transferred correctly to digital, but the words are all there)
Multiverse Johnson 