Muffin, My Cross to Bear

The last muffin,
one of those day-old types,
two days old by now.

Half-mawed, decrepit muffin,
weathered from the journey
home.

I do not know your flavor muffin;
all the other ones were red.

I just know of the colored
white speckles of sugar
on your head
and chunks of something
floating through your insides.

I know of the crispy rim,
broken, disheveled, and crusty.

I don't know how you survived
the car ride, but muffin you're my
cross to bear.

Oh cruel misfortune,
thy name
is muffin, thy
pastry rich center
be thy sword
with which thou' wouldst
rend me in twain
were I not to shove
thee twixt my teeth.

Turns out:
pineapple up-side-down
muffin.

Not bad.
\

Carousel of Glass

Sometimes when I'm working,
loading endless tiny bottles on to
a carousel of glass,
I imagine I'm no place
near where I currently am.

Some place far away,
not anywhere special,
just somewhere else

like in a library bathroom,
or in my parent's backyard,
or in a tourist info-center on the highway.

I'm just sitting there with a
cup of coffee, that dispensed itself
out of a machine, and I'm not doing
anything.

I'm just relaxing
at a highway pit-stop
and it's overcast,
and I'm drinking coffee.

The birds are chirping,
the temperature is a mild fifty degrees,
and a man is changing his tire
with his family watching
from a safe distance.

The man is sweating,
to the point that it is
soaking through his shirt.

His son is sipping a cold beverage,
and his wife is cooling herself with
a battery powered fan.

His daughter is laying on the hood of the car,
when all of a sudden,
I explode.

Beard Growing

I'm trying to grow a beard,
and on the one hand my mother
hates it, but on the other hand
everybody else only has good things
to say.

Specifically, it's been said that
I look like a less-handsome
David Beckham when I have a beard,
and that's great!
Who knew it was all in the beard?

It just takes that leap to make it happen too,
that determination, that one day when you drop
the razor and say, not this time.
This time I'm going to bring the ruckus.

It's not easy either, by any stretch.
You have to willingly let your face
become entangled and enveloped,
and those aren't fun words.

I can't say any victim of an entanglement
is happy, but you have to suffer to achieve
this rugged woodsman look.

A man becomes scared to grow a beard
until it happens, but
I'm not scared anymore.

Explaining "The Band"

Oh my goodness,
what was that?

That, my friend,
was A Noxious Burst.

A Noxious Burst?
What's that?
Are we okay?
Are we going to die?

No, I'm afraid not.

Then what, what do
we do?

Well, it's like I said,
what you just heard was
A Noxious Burst.

A Noxious Burst?

Yes, A Noxious Burst.

Some say it closely resembles
a slimy explosion
of noise;
some sludgy experiment of
indie-phonics and grime.

Will I be okay though?
I feel loose.
Mostly
in my bowels
and nose area.

You might have cancer,
you might have a gangrenous limb
but, again, I'm not sure
if that's necessarily
because of what you heard.

You made some bad life choices...

Then what should I do?

What should you do?

Yeah, should I leave?
Find help?
Apply a band-aid?

No, just buy tickets.

Tickets?

Yeah!
Our first show's next week,
and you clearly enjoyed
what you heard.

Being Vigorous

Whenever I'd come home from school, 

fourth-graded and shy,

chubby and disheartened,

walking slowly to my bedroom.

My dad would always say, 

"Son, you need some vigor!"

"Get on a bike! Move around!"

And when that didn't work,

he'd say,

"I'll bribe you."

So growing up, I learned to hate

being vigorous. 

I'd slop around the house with the consistency

of soup.

I'd gloop to the bus stop in the morning

like sludge on the bottom of trash.

I'd stoop around town in my mothers

mini-van, demanding she take me 

to some trading card game tournament 

or to some dumpster

full of pizza.

I'd do anything I could to be 

ludicrously lazy, but I like the way

I turned out.

I just hope any potential

children I may father feel

the same way.

Making The Most Of My Lentils

When someone hands you a pile
of beans, you have to make the
most of your lentils.

You have to say,
"Hey, these are some nice legumes, I could use some more of these."

And then you have to take them.
Take the starch, the amino acids,
the vitamins. All of it.

You have to make them a supplement for yourself,
your life, your own fibers.

You have to hand pick 'em,
so you can take them one by one
and insert them into your face.

One day, awhile back, somebody handed me a whole satchel
of navy beans and I thought,
"Well, these are probably my least favorite beans.
They're not as steadfast as a kidney, not as cute as a
pinto, or a mung or a
cowpea."

I said, "Why don't you give these beans to
somebody else?"

"Someone different should have these beans!"
"Someone more deserving, with a palate
suited towards them! I don't want these beans!"

Now, all I do, is think about
what I missed that day.

90's Boy

If I were a super hero,
who would I be?
Well, I'd be 90's Boy of course!
I mean, who doesn't love the 90's?

90's Boy would be
the ultimate dispenser of justice,
I'd be like the Pez Dispenser of justice,
complete with:
"Ultra-Stomping High Tops,"
 a "Super-Faded Flat Top,"
some "Mega-Turbo Karate Chops,"
and maybe some
"Ordinary-Humble Flip Flops?"
I don't know, I'm might reconsider that last one.

Nevertheless,
90's Boy would be near unstoppable.

What powers would I possess?
Only the sheer ferocity of the 90's!

What's more the powerful than the ability
to live a politically incorrect life,
and one rich with
advertisement jingles
and Arnold Schwarzenegger
Christmas movies.

I'd be nigh-invincible
without the fear of
kidnappings, terrorists, carcinogens
and my enemies would tremble in fear
of my plaid vision.

Yes, 90's Boy would be quite
the omnipotent being but he wouldn't
be devoid of a fatal flaw.

No no, even the legendary Slug Woman had a
weakness and 90's Boy would be no different.

The stake to my heart wouldn't be
a high sodium diet though, it would simply
be the passage of time.

Trucking

When you're trucking, you never add an apostrophe in front of your "S".
I mean I never have at least, but it could be funny.

"Dan Savage: Lawn Repair"
could read more like
"Dan's Savage Lawn Repair"

And "Mike Stump's Grinding Garage?"
That's the funniest thing I've ever heard of.

When you're trucking, though, you never think of the apostrophe in front of your "S".
All I think about is the open road, coffee, and the stars.

Nature Guide

When your slamming down a back trail
on a crispy-crackling morning,
you have to take in all your surroundings,
you have to become one with the nature.

So let's start by
taking a deep breath,
good,
give me a "sharp inhale,"
good, that's good,
now your going to start
smelling something powerful;
you smell that?
That's the smell of raw nature.

So come on,
nothing to it now
but to do it proud
and loud...in a crowd...
nature crowd.

You feel the dirt?
That's real dirt.
You hear those birds?
Those are real birds!

Now let's take a swim.
What I want you to do,
is kiss the bottom
of this murky filthy scummy lake and come back
up all leech-ridden and glistening.
Cause you know what you'll be glistening in right?
Nature that's what! Good, that's good.

Now let's take a hike!
I want you to take these
wolf cubs I just found,
and climb that
mountain unscathed.
Then once you get to the top
I want you to bathe in the mountain
waters, because you're smelling pretty bad already.
Good, yeah that's good.

Now let's eat a north american beaver!
Yeah, that's right,
let's do it!

Come on, let's go!
Let's climb those trees with a spear in our hands,
because unless I'm mistaken, I don't think
it's quite north-american beaver
season yet, but it could be.

It definitely could be.

Ham Salad

My breath smells like ham salad
and I haven't even eaten ham salad.

I have ham salad for lunch, sure,
who doesn't? But it's 6:30 A.M.

You know who likes ham salad?
Everyone.
You know who likes smelling ham salad?
Nobody. It's gross.
It looks like brains, but it smells stupid,
like those smells you take the trash
out with.

Bad associations smell like ham salad,
ham salad wafts through nightmares
like guys with daggers.
Ham salad is the stuff Tim Curry
sold the movie "It" with
when he was promoting
"It" back when "It" was popular.

"Buy "It" on Lazer Disc,
get some free ham salad,"
that's what he said;

Ham Salad.

The Oldest Banana

Hey! It's snack time!
My father bequeaths unto me a banana.

"Dad, what's this?"
He doesn't say anything.

"Look inward towards yourself son,"
he says with just a glare.

It had been in his briefcase
for nearly 4.5 months.

Motorcycle Dreams

If I get a motorcycle I want it all. I want the fastest, most sexy, rocking-abs-in-your-face-crotch-cannon on the market. You can't just half-dip your toe in the motorcycle swimming pool, you gotta dive!

If I get a motorcycle I want to weave in and out of traffic, I want to duck through red lights and zoom past stop signs without stopping because, let's face it, you can't just act careful on a motorcycle. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!

If I get a motorcycle I want to be real cool. I want long hair, a cool jacket, one of those spiked helmets, and a babe on the back hanging on to all my sweet biker gear. I also want two other babes, on side cars, complimenting the babe that's directly behind me - I want a tri-wing babe army!

Wow, that sounds cool.

If I get a motorcycle I want to be the king, but if I get a motorcycle I feel like I'm going to die. Really quickly.

So that's why, If I get a motorcycle, I'm going to need at least 3 big dudes at my funeral to take a stand and say, "Ian was pretty rad." Otherwise it won't be worth it.

My Last Olives

I came home late from work,
my roommate came home early.

I was feeling lackadaisical
my roommate was looking rather surly.

I asked him what was up,
I said, "Why do you look so cross?"

He was standing by the fridge,
So I asked, "Are we out applesauce?"

He said, "Hey bro, did you eat my olives?"
"I won't be mad, just tell me the truth."

I said okay, "I ate your olives."
So he punched me...
in the throat.

Meeting Lukk

I met Lukk
two years ago
in Oslow,
at a bus stop.

He had a patched jacket,
wool pants, bad breath,
and he was eating an
English muffin.

I asked him,
just by happenstance,
if he had a quarter for a
vending machine-fruit pie.

He said he did, and
as I grabbed the change
from his pleasant hand
he said, "Praise Jah, may duh fullness
of his entirety bring yahs to Babylon,"
which I thought was a little weird
at the time.

I then proceeded to walk over to
the coffee machine, totally distracted
by this Norwegian Jamaican man's generosity,
placed a quarter in and pressed the
"dispense coffee now" button.
I did actually want a fruit-pie, not coffee,
but as luck would have it, the coffee
machine was broken anyway.
.
Unaware that the Xpresso Deluxe
had been taken out of order for spewing hot drink
into patrons' faces, and
still musing over this mans amazing mixed
ancestry, I received my scalding coffee to the face.

Lukk just turned around and said,
"Sheeet."

Old World English

I want to talk about a word
severely underused
as of late.

A word created then lost-
callously discarded to the
depths...of the 1990's.

This word is rad.
Coincidentally the word I'm
talking about also happens to be the word: rad,
but rad's pretty rad so it still works.

Let's face it,
there isn't a nugget of vocabulary
that rolls off the tongue as easily as rad.

That rug is rad,
that hat is rad,
that raggedy rickety rabbit is so very righteously rad.

That broom is rad,
that chair, so rad,
that broom on that chair?
Rad, rad, rad!

What's better then rad?
Nothing, and the only reason
I can think of for why it's fallen
out of style is that it was indeed
too rad.

Like Pogs, and Whistle Pops,
it was just too rad.

Dramatic Poem

Who doesn't love a good dramatic poem?

I'm talking about a poem that

makes you cry, a lot.

I'm talking about a poem that makes you

cry so much you just

waste away in the chair you were sitting in;

cry so much you just soil yourself

right in the chair you were sitting in;

cry so much that you 

stain your petticoat,

roll on the floor sobbing,

and then stain the petticoats of 

those that flock to your side

to comfort you.

I mean, that sounds great time to me.

Who doesn't love a good couple of verses,

or even 85 versus, all working together in

unison to make you burst into

a water-factory of woe.

A good dramatic poem

pulls you into

a depth of melancholy 

you never thought possible.

Those kinds of poems are my favorite.

I can't stand poems that aren't dramatic.

Those poems and the poets that write 

them should all explode on conveyor belts.