I was Group A

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

pretty bumpy en route
not the only ones gone to dallas
george dub, too
short flight, 33 mins

cold in dallas, dallas love
a place to wash me hands
pop some 'cedrin
head is cabin-pressurized

my hands: scraped
spilled myself at intersection
walkin the whole way home
leaving a classic message
then writing gibberish mail

count the drinks, count em
on both hands
without all digits, i'd be short
one dogfish, two dogfish
bus comin—half a dogfish
real ale phoenix esb
cigarettes and a phone

over to a bar onn fifth
a jack, a coke, a band and waiting
hey, there is someone i know
beers for them
where's the group leader?

there he is, says, "car bombs"
consensus says, "OK"
half a pint of guinness
(you can chug it)
and bailey's goes down easy

no drink service on this flight
coulda used some water
parched, dessicated, husk of self
carcasse void even of lions
clipped from sky
like a headline never written:
i arrive on time

time for another beer
let's move on
time for some dancing
wristbands and a cigarette

forty bucks for jaegerbombs
the guy next to me gets three
i double that
but can't unload the sixth
maybe god drank it
before he kicked my ass
in the form of a friend
handing me what was it?
some anonymous shot

goodnight everybody
good night for dancing
who's gonna dance with me?
i told a guy we should
brokeback dancefloor
but it didn't come to that
i worked up a sweat
doing the faux salsa

when did I leave?
don't remember
barfed a little
turned off my phone
woke up to the sound
of the handyman
mowing the lawn,
two hours late
for my flight.

Unavailable Unavailable

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

When the phone rang, I suddenly thought of an ex-girlfriend sitting in a smoky bar somewhere on the other side of town with hair in her eyes and a cell phone in her hand. Either that or my mother rolling over in bed to pick up her own receiver.

The receiver—still a-ring, I realized—lay at the side of my bed, far away from its base and the caller ID box. I answered it anyway.

"Hello?"

"I didn’t think you were going to pick up."

"It’s late."

I sat halfway up in bed and patted some still-damp patches of hair into place. An ambulance cried in the distance.

"They’re coming for you."

"Where were you today?"

"I won’t be around tomorrow either. I thought you should know..."


Continue with this short story...

Work Poem

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

I was washing my hands
in the john
When someone came over
the bathroom speaker—
there was a brief pause...
before she spoke,
during which I thought:
Is the building going to blow right up?
In a fire? Or a terrorist's attack?
Anything to get out of work early—
surely they wouldn't
dock that from my pay.

8/3/2004