FROM PRAISE GOD
DENNIS MCGEE
Have you ever watched the sun come up
On the first day of trout season?
Have you danced with your love
The happy one-step?
Do you remember the smell of the corn fields
October, at night, under the glare of the combine?
Were you there on decoration day
When the roof came off the place?
Claudine got happy that day, ran the pews
We were all born again
Can you hear the songs we sang, in the hallway between classes?
In the old meeting house that got moved when they built the dam?
Stone by stone, timber by timber
And laboriously reconsecrated?
Have you ever driven a car, in a matter of days, from your home
To some place you’ve never been before?
The alien landscapes of the west?
Warm beer and pills, Waylon Jennings and a piss jug?
You know how it is when the second line gets under the bridge?
It’s like that
YEEEEE-HOOOOO
I AM IN LOVE WITH A CITY
I am in love with a city
And a beautiful human being
It is there, and so is she
And here I am, bent at my hips
In the mud
Rain pouring up my raincoat
From the waist
Boots soaked
Trying my damndest to get a hold of some
Plant
That I don't even know the fucking name of
They eat it on, I don't know
Little subway tiles, where they serve
Miniature pollocks and kandinskys
Everyone slaps the head honcho on the back
All over blogs
People read, because
They lack the common decency required
To just ignore that kind of thing
I wish that I could commiserate with my
Compañeros
But I am dull-witted and slow, a small man of
Languid gestures
Clumsy hands
Goofy ideas
I do not speak their language very well, because
I am poor at learning, and often preoccupied
With questions
Such as the one just
Hinted at
Above
JUST LIKE HUCK FINN'S CABIN
It doesn’t matter
As long as I’m not unfriendly
I’ll drink my beer and go to sleep when I feel like it
Kinda the way Huck Finn did, on that ill-fated visit
With his Pa
Cuz I’ve got these little ideas that I’m working on
Shit to write down
And maybe we weren’t, after all, in on the same joke
But I’m still laughing
And you always keep loving everyone
For now is the brief hour of love
And every once in a while
The laughter isn't bitter at all
13 BEERS AND A SEROQUEL
I might as well just lie down here
I don’t believe I’ll get any better sleep anywhere else
Might as well just close my eyes right here, in my boots and belt
No use in turning out the lights, I’m afraid of the dark
I’ll wear the same clothes tomorrow
When I do make it to bed, disrobed and dim, sweating like a horse
I don’t often fall asleep these days
These nights, I don’t dream, just talk to myself
Does the rest help?
What is your bedtime routine?
I’m a 13 beers and a seroquel man myself
Can’t see the use in climbing into bed alone
A FRASER FORSYTH is a singer and a christian. A dying boy born in Pennsylvania.