Sunday School Number #1

SO I got
this
real thick
neck.

I can't wear ties
as the
top button doesn't button.

My driver's license picture
looks like a
thumb
with
hair.

And
I'll
sit here
in front
of you people
and I'll breathe
heavy
through
my
thick neck and
shirts
that don't fit right.

SO here I am, before you
neck exposed
see it's girth
and laugh shamefully
at my misfortune.

In this
thick-ass neck
is your
moles in the mirror
and the pimples
that hurt in your sleep.

Here on a man
who can't
wear ties
or find
shirts that fit
is every fat-joke we've ever
made and
every time
we superfluously
thanked a deity
that we
"don't look like that"

SO here, look,
you can't
see my tendons well
or any veins,
and my adam's
apple is dwarfed by a double
chin.

SO when
we cough
loogies
and disdain
a bad
tattoo
Samsara
spins
our traffic jams
in hair knots
just as the track of
a wheel
follows
an oxcart.

A Poem To A New Friend

There were baby buzzards
hopping short-tailed
in the pumpkin field
that day I saw
my past twisting in your
hair.

The Roar and Flame
of
Internal Combustion
was the rhythm
to a song
of which I already
knew
the melody.

And I sang, because
you did not know the
the words, but I
heard under your
breath
the humming of
familiarity.

So open your mouth
and sing with me!
We have been here before
together
and driven past these fields.

Let loose your
tongue and buy me
music,
because the tracks are cheap
and we have our
own instruments.

I can feel the missed notes and
our off-key
wailing
that we have made before,
but now,
with practice,
I think the sounds
will be
much sweeter.