the top shelf at stingrays
isn’t like the top shelf at another bar
it’s more like there’s no room on this shelf
so let’s stash it somewhere up above
but i figured i’d give it a shot
so to speak
"i’ll take that abners up there
the bourbon"
petey the bartender nodded
bent down and produced a bottle of abners
it wasn’t even bottom shelf
it was on the floor
but it got me messed up

some people have too much money
it defines them
totally
anything else about them
is irrelevant

country music night was a soft adventure
much stranger and more charming than expected
the living room was microscopic
they were passing around a fifth of whiskey
"i hope you don’t mind," said our host
a heavily-bearded med school/phd student
"but i drink from the bottle"
uh, groovy…  i stuck with beer
and admired his grungy charisma
we tuned to his autoharp
which was out of tune
we sang silly old country songs
he’d printed out lyrics and chords
young hippies came and went
a banjo, a fiddle, a lute, two ukuleles
my flashy flatpicking and slide
sweet, ragged harmonizing
we’d landed on the planet of pure music
skipping from moon to moon
till way past midnight
you should have been there

when people make assumptions about you
you resent them when they get it wrong
and you resent them when they get it right

dear ultimate phone number marie whateveryourlastnameis who

just graduated somerset high school, imaginary aroma of whose
thick, ready thighs and *** (and car!) woke me up this morning
at a boil, who told me anytime I want and wrote your number
on a slip of paper that I stripped my entire room to find, even
unhooking the radiator cover but no good:

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

thank god everyone's texting
looking down every spare
and not-so-spare moment
thank god for the distraction
now illiterate people have something to do

used to be that whenever i saw the proletariat
staring into space at a bus stop
while i was reading a book
i worried about them obsessing on vengeance
daydreaming about our destruction
rising up against us intellectuals

now they can forget about me
and the bus they’re waiting for

anthologized or unpublished
famous or failed
obscene or obscure
young or old
poets die with their boots on
boots of trochaic luster