(Texts of poems read at Comedy on Parade, 2/25/08)

ONE STAR

Of star-crossed lovers and cross-eyed lovers,

fate favors the latter; at least they're together,

even if they can't see each other's faces very well.

I once had a cross-eyed lover, back in Nam,

and I called her My Little Postage Stamp.

She called me Big Texas. We took breakfast

at the Viet Thanh hotel for a dollar each

then went down to the beach at Xuan Huong.

"I'd like to get away from earth for awhile

And then come back to it and begin over,"

I told her as she put Bain de Soleil on my back.

She shook her head and said, "Damn,

Big Texas, you make me laugh." We had

but one star in our never ending sky—lone

it hung over Xuan Huong, all day long

and into the night. My girl couldn't see it

on account of her sight, but I, in my mind,

kept voyaging there—and not coming back.

CRITIQUE

That's not very good.

Try doing that differently.

That's not very good either.

You're not very good at this.

ACTION MOVIE

Like continuity gaps

in an action movie,

so are the days of our lives—

one moment I'm wearing

a pink blouse, the next

it's sort of salmon

and without the pleats.

Your can of beer

moves inexplicably

from your left hand

to your right, your face

now only partly bloody,

which might explain

how you survived.

The dialog doesn't matter

now any more than when

you said you loved me

the first time or when,

shocked at the sight

of your best friend

disemboweled on the patio,

you screamed, or when

I rolled your Navigator

and we both emerged

with minor cuts. Alas,

but these are matters

more of credibility

than continuity, aren't they?

So are the days of our lives.

REGRET

"I can't bear to look at you,"

she said, as she ate

a banana she had

named Stephen.

TAUTOLOGY

A car has

sides and a top.

A milkshake has

sides and a top.

A milkshake

is a car.

THREE DOLLARS

I looked in the mirror

and liked what I saw.

I thought, if I could bottle this,

I would be a rich man.

I did bottle it

and set up a stand

in front of my house.

A dwarf walked up.

"How much?"

he asked.

I raised my eyebrows.

"You could never afford it."

"Oh yeah?"

he raised his eyebrows back.

"Three dollars,"

I said.

He shook his head

and walked away.

ONE CANNOT BE A GOOD WRITER

One cannot be a good writer

without being a good person.

One can, however, be a bad writer

without necessarily not being

a good person. Allow me

to analogize: Say for instance

you're a pendulum. You swing,

according to your design,

from side to side, increasingly

slowly. Every once in awhile

someone winds you up.

Perhaps, then, it begins to rain.

Perhaps, on the other hand,

it does not. Perhaps, in fact,

it alternates between raining

and not raining, increasingly

slowly. Do you see what I mean?

One does not necessarily swing

from side to side, or be a bad

writer, without also being

either a good or a bad person,

alternately. One cannot. Such

a feat is absolutely impossible.

THE POINT OF LIFE

What is the point of life?

People keep asking me.

So I keep asking people,

Isn't there just something neat about life?

Then I say, ha ha, no seriously,

What's not to love?

There are people, cars, and buildings,

and as if that's not enough, dogs and cats!

Dogs and cats, people, as if the

other stuff were not enough!

ETHICAL DILEMMA

You enter a restaurant.

On the menu are two choices:

HOT DOG

HAMBURGER

Should you order

a cheeseburger?

ON THE LOSS OF A FINGER

There is no way to describe how sad

I was when I discovered my fingers

had fallen off. I mean, you find one

stub in the bed sheets—okay, you

can live with that. But three, four,

seven? And this morning, the tenth?

It was like when my toes fell off,

only worse, because I didn’t use toes.

What are toes? But I had even named

my fingers: Edith, Marlene, Gretchen,

Bethany, and so on. Gwen. Ten

was named Marylou on account

of her inordinately diminutive size

and occasional bouts with dyspepsia.

When I found Marylou this morning

I laid her upon an unused limestone

soap dish in a shroud of serviceberry leaves

and sprinkled her in body powder

and prayed, then, for her quick ascension

through perdition, manual labor,

and through the finger puppet angels

up into her final glorification,

no longer tiny or sour-stomached,

but long, smooth, and incredibly sexy,

crowned with a perfect halo of a nail…

but when I opened my eyes I could see

she was just a dead digit, nothing more.

What is with this after-death fantasy

humans entertain when loved ones die?

We think our fingers will just go on and on?

SAD AND HAPPY PARTS OF ME

As usual, I dined alone.

I went to pay the bill

and saw a printed sign:

"We don't split checks."

I told the woman at the till

that the sad and happy

parts of me wanted to

go Dutch today,

and could she make an exception?

She suggested, "Perhaps

the happy part could treat."

I said, "He's broke."

She seemed to understand

but still refused to split

the check. I stole

the toothpick dispenser.