New Poem

We had a really fun poetry event this past weekend at WGC, called Across State Lines. It was a night featuring a bunch of fantastic poets spanning the Ohio Indiana border including Hoosiers Tony Brewer and Joseph Kerschbaum, local poets Joanna Schroder and Rachel Wiley, and Andy Anderson and me.

It was a great time and a lot of fun to hear everyone's work. I hadn't really read in awhile so it was cool to get back up on stage. I ended up reading some old stuff and then some new pieces that I'd never done before.

I hadn't posted in awhile so I thought I'd put up one of the new ones that I did on Saturday:

Grocery Shopping

Strategically sorting we go cavorting
finger tips grazing
produce beaded with fresh spray
Turnips and romaine artificially moistened
gleaming like Big Mac Lettuce

We unconsciously grab staples with ease
bread, milk,eggs, cheese
cart wobbling hands bobbling wondering
if we can afford Gorgonzola

Seconds precious no economy to waste
with army precision we hurtle through linoleum miles
through deli and dairy, can gooded, freezer cased.

There are those items that we can never find.
We think the employees move them in the night like elves.
Deftly dislodging products and shifting shelves.
Laughing through blanks smiles as we beseech them to locate
barley, fried onions, lentils, or coconut milk.

Checkout cuing science applied
ballparking in split seconds the shortest distance to commerce
measuring minutes by inches, by items, by body language of fellow pilgrims.
Line chosen, like marriage for better or worse,
we stand waiting reading Us Weekly, and People
getting our gossip via glossy covers.

Hand in hand we leave, back to life
back to the rough feel of parking lot pavement
ready to chop, stew, slice and spice our way
to sustenance. Victoriously hefting our brown paper trophies
we lock step triumphantly through the woosh of glass doors
Horizontal panes parting submissively
in the wake of our comestible supremacy.
We exit, conquers into the sunlight.

Now, where the hell did we park?