The Connection Between God and Nature Beats Me Over the Head ...
by Mindy Nettifee
December 13, 2008 [poetry]
Somewhere in this building is a guy who looks a lot like me. I saw him the other day leaving the kitchen. I came in through the one door, and he climbed into the dumbwaiter and raised himself up to some other level.
They keep Super 8’s they keep letters they keep
the peace They keep the walk along the coast
the point of the sun the boot camp
I’ve just skidded in on bald tires
with the metal showing,
steam coming out from under my hood,
Say yes. Yes
or belonging is a state of mind.
Steady with apathy, I ride out to the end of the peninsula
I start to answer but stop. The well-groomed car rental agent doesn’t even notice. He just clicks and clatters on his keyboard in near frantic dedication. With neatly gelled hair and European eyewear, he asserts his dignity behind a desk of the-customer-is-always-right, America. more ...
He is short but he has shoulders and I think he wears the flattest shoes going, cheap sneakers of some kind, and that is attractive, that he doesn’t try to elevate himself in any way.
Eight million years ago a volcano grew from the bottom of a cloud, spewing mounds of cool lava all over the early civilizations of our planet, making villages scramble to dig out their children from the hardening lava.
Wednesday I bought a halibut steak. At home, I unwrapped the white butcher paper and lifted out fish that was heavy and hung over the edges of my hand. I broke an egg into a shallow enameled bowl and beat the egg with a fork.
Sometimes a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a bag of stale Cheetos just don’t do the job when it comes to seduction. My apologies to the corner store Casanovas.
beer rockets launched by calloused human hands. stars circling our heads like haloes. maybe once we could’ve been cartoon characters in pete and trixie’s foster house of horrors but now we are merely shadows.
He sat in the cinema with his girlfriend and made a quiet apology to his brain. He was sorry, he thought/said, not only for subjecting it to this film but for his past abuse, for the antidepressants—drugs—he’d taken in the attempt to feel happier. more ...
Like a spy I left a note in that bush, in that field. You knew to wait till I climbed back onto the landing before fetching it. When I checked later it was gone, so I know you took it.
I woke up an atheist today.
and it is definitely connected to the “Chakra Magic Lunar Calendar”
pinned by my kitchen window more ...
My childhood best friend died Sunday of a drug overdose. I got the news via Facebook. It was written on “my wall,” “did you hear that Tommy overdosed?” to which I replied, “by overdosed, do you mean he’s in the hospital or dead?”
My father was a lawyer who traveled to Tokyo several times a year on business, and he would always bring me back a t-shirt. The first one he bought in a Ginza district sports collectibles shop said, "Try your guts!"
Clean my desk.
Look out the window forever.
Wait for the robin to bring the pomegranate seed of eternal
i’m in a band called “My Name’s Joe”,
we don’t play folk,
we don’t play rock n’ roll;
we just play songs about a guy named Joe.
It’s not easy, as we all know.
The sandwich lies on its plate
with a hurt look and a bite out of it.
IT WAS THE BIG BROWN NOSE and demonic, toothy grin that I recall most vividly. The eyes were concealed behind leather-bound goggles ...
It was all starting to feel like a plastic bag tugged over her face. Orchid gripped the parking brake, sweating damp rings through the armpits of her work uniform.
Zippers click dryer hum.
Shower steam recalls places you’ve been.
The faucet will someday outrun us.
It was seven p.m. Bravo – garrulous Tony Bravo, called The Dreamer on the cock fighting circuit, my barber for thirty five years – was cutting my hair.
Dear Harper Lee,
I hate to be the one to tell you this. But your childhood home has been replaced by one Mel’s Dairy Dream ...
My daughter wanted a goldfish. I said, “We can do better than that.” I took her to the pet shop and asked a clerk where the whales were. She escorted us through a maze of aisles into a separate room ... more ...
I am trying to remember that Gertrude Stein looked just like my grandmother who smoked like Marlene Dietrich—a remarkable feat for a woman of eighty ... more ...
That evening she scoured the floors and dryers at nearby Laundromats for her stepfather’s lost sock and combed roadsides near his empty apartment ... more ...
