Brandi spells her name
 
with an “i”
and she dots the i
with a circle
and sometimes with a heart.
 
she drives
a red ’77 Honda
that needs tires
and a brake job.
 
she’s two years out of high school,
with a kid,
 
and she lives with her mother
who drinks more often than not.
 
she could have been married once,
but he left.
 
now, she drives to work
every day in the Honda,
wearing jeans and sneakers
and a shirt.
 
and when she gets there,
she changes into
a white tube top,
a skirt and nylons and heels,
 
and she gives
hand jobs for a living,
in a place
that pretends it’s a gym.
 
but it doesn’t matter, anyway,
because her name’s not Brandi,
 
it’s Susan,
 
and every now and then
her mother gets sober,
and she really does
love that kid.
 ....................................................................................................
 
did i ever tell you
 
about the time
Linda said i was good,
but that i’d never be
Bukowski?
 
Linda was a poet.
 
one of Bukowski’s
girlfriends
in the ‘70s.
 
for a while
she edited and published
a pretty decent little magazine.
 
she wrote to me saying
that she loved my poems…
 
actually, it’s been so long now
i really don’t remember
if she loved them
or liked them,
but it doesn’t matter…
 
she said that i was good,
but i would never be great…
 
because i wasn’t
mad.
 
Bukowski (she said) was mad…
and he was
great.
 
i wrote back
saying that she was right…
Bukowski IS mad
and Bukowski IS great,
but if one of the qualifications
for being mad
and being great
was having to put up with the likes of her,
then i’d be more than happy
to settle for what i am
and what i’m
going to be.
 
that was 30 years ago,
and do you know what?
 
i’m still not mad
and i’m still not
great…
 
but, every now and then,
when the moon’s just right
i’m not
half bad.
..................................................................
 
he hurt
 
like a broke-dick dog,
only the hurt
was inside.
 
it wasn’t
anything you could see,
 
except
maybe in his eyes.
 
they were the kind of eyes
that made you feel sad.
 
you wanted to look away,
and you didn’t know why,
 
but,
 you knew you had to.
 
he wore a hat
and a black coat
and a tie that was
too short for him.
 
he sat there,
in the bus station,
looking odd, and disheveled
and elegant
and queer.
 
he needed Morocco…
 
he needed Tangier.
 
he needed jazz and a
gold watch bought on a
street corner from a guy named
Jimmy
who had a club foot,
a glass eye
and a gold ring.
 
what he didn’t need
was a bus ticket
and a cold-ass chair
and these memories
that made him hurt
like a broke-dick dog.


 
 © John Yamrus. His new book, Shoot the Moon is available from amazon.com. You can visit John's website at http://johnyamrus.tripod.com/