This leather bag and I,
we've tasted a bit of the world
on dirt trails and city sidewalks,
inside cars, buses, and planes.
This leather bag and I have done battle together.
We've struck intellectual blows in classrooms,
and we've celebrated success in board rooms.
The bag and I even laugh about that time
it blocked a drunk's fist aimed at my kidneys.
Few people believe in the loyalty of a bag.
They seek devotion, love from other people,
only to suffer great disappointment.
This leather bag and I,
we're the best of friends.
That's how it is
and that's how it will always be.

About three weeks into one of the many jobs
the boss, some short, white woman,
stormed up to me like she meant business.
"You don't act professional!"
she screamed in an emotional rant.
"You don't dress professional.
Your humor isn't professional either."
I stared at her in silence,
occasionally feeling my eyelids blink.
When she finished, I asked a question,
"Can you define the word 'professional?'"
She stormed away with the ferocity
in which she arrived.
I was back on the job boards that night.

Along the shore of the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh
a little girl of about seven, dressed in a track suit
threw chunks of bread to nearby ducks and geese.
The geese, twice the size of their mallard brethren,
aggressively pushed between the ducks
to gobble up each morsel.
The girl placed her hands on her hips
and scolded the winged despots for their greed.
A few of the ducks joined in the protest,
and quacked in solidarity, for justice.
The geese remained undeterred in their conquest.
Clearly frustrated, the little girl gave up.
She handed the bag of bread to her mother
and then ran off to join a group of older children
playing frisbee in a nearby grass field.
The ruling geese and the victimized ducks
continued to swim near the shore,
hungry and confused,
and without that reliable food source.

I lied, baby, and I'm sorry.
The truth is I never loved you.
Watching you share your passion,
hearing you sing really turned me on.
I loved ******* you,
filling you with my pain,
watching you take your punishment.
But I will never love you.
The passion is over.
My **** is dry.
Goodbye.

A young man with ***** hands
walked into the bar.
He sat next to a blonde
of about the same age
and ordered a beer.
"Don't even try to talk to me,"
she said in an arrogant tone.
The young man didn't speak.
Defeated, he climbed off the stool.
He took a pull from the beer
and then dropped a crinkled fiver.
As he walked out the door,
the girl laughed out loud.
She showed us all
who was boss.

In the late 1990s on the South Side of Pittsburgh
there was a cafe I'd frequent
with large cozy chairs next to picture windows
that looked out onto East Carson Street,
the main drag in that part of town.
From those chairs, I'd read and write and watch
tattooed bikers, artists, skaters,
young ***** with their **** out,
and poor thugs in ***** clothes
posed as weathered statues against brick walls.
They all craved attention, respect,
a solid footing for their place in the world.

Today, I imagine most of those people are
dead or in prisons or barely making it
with several children and dead-end jobs.
That cafe, like so many storefronts,
fell victim to the polite ravages
of suburban malls and the Internet.
Those days are gone to never return.
Still, those people had my attention.
For what it's worth,
they will always have my respect.

Out for a walk one saturday morning
I passed an antique store..
In the window sat a cat
with an all white fluffy coat.
The cat appeared hardened,
probably from a life of confinement,
and from the daily onslaught of customers
that insist on petting its furry back.

I stopped at the window
and that cat gave me a good once over.
He and I were compatriots in a mad world,
both of us shamed for our truths,
both of us loved in convenient moments.
After a minute, I moved on
to grab a coffee and a cigar,
secure in the knowlege
I'd made a new friend.