The Missing Bread

This is a sample poem from my upcoming book

"The Customer is Often Wrong."

Even though the book is a poetic comedy act--I do believe that there is a serious philosophy to be had in the argument against the customer being always right--it has created a culture of abused workers and customers who get rewarded for stamping their feet like children. The good customer gets no recognition either--there is more incentive to be a complainer than to be well-mannered. Even though this book is meant to be funny, there is a serious undertone as well that I hope makes it through.

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“Can I get a large loaf of white bread?”
“We're out of bread right now.”
“Out of bread?”
“Yes, out of bread.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“How can you be out of bread?”
“Well...people just kept asking for it, we kept selling it,
and then we didn't get anymore in.”
“Could I get a small loaf of white bread, then?”
“Ma'am, we are out of all kinds of bread, not just the large loaf.”
“Do you have any whole wheat bread?”
“No Ma'am.”
“How about a small whole wheat?”
“Nope.”
“Any Multi-Grain?”
“No ma'am, we are OUT of bread Have none.”
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sure.”
“Maybe a raisin bread?”
“Ma'am, we have no bread, at ALL.”
“Not even a rye bread?”
“No rye, no white, no whole wheat—we have no bread whatsoever in the store at all,
of any kind at all.”
“Could you check the back?”
“There is no back, what you see on these shelves is what we have.
And as you can see, they are empty.”
“Hmmm...” she says finally as if in deep thought.
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“That's alright...I really came here for milk anyway.”
You cross your fingers and pray to God that that you haven't sold out of milk as well.

Crumbling of an Empire

Remember baseball cards?
What the crap happened to them?
Internet…
1999—there was a card shop
hobby shop
comic shop on every corner.
Now? I have to go 5 towns over just to find one.
And it’s small,
Really small,
So small I can’t get by the fat guy in the superman sweater
On my way to the batman rack.
I don’t mind so much, because I know that’s the only
Rack he’s ever going to touch.
But where do you buy cards now?
Target? Walmart?
That’s no fun!
My dad owned a card shop back when
Yu-Gi-Oh Nerds
Starwars Customizable Card kiddos
And Magic The Gathering Gatherers
Would throw away their allowance, birthday, and
Christmas money
In exchange for small pieces of cardboard.
I was never that stupid
I got them for cost!
Cuz my dad owned the store!
I’d buy whole boxes
Sort them out and ran a side business during my lunch hour!
In elementary school I’d trade them for twinkies
By high school I got cold-hard-cash!
I would convince these kids that a 50 cent card was worth
5 dollars! And this was before the internet! What did they know!?
I’d forge autographs to jack up the price
I bought my first car cause of my clever con-artistry.
And now, my empire has crumbled.
No one wants cards anymore
They want facebook credits
And instant downloads
I can’t get those wholesale!
And even if I could, they’d have no resale value whatsoever.
And you can’t forge an autograph on a fart app for your I-phone.
You’ve ruined my personal economy Internet.
You ruined it!
Now I gotta get a job…

A Financial Riddle

 

Originally written for the "Recession Depression and Economic Reflection" event.

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Alright all you financially savvy folk out there—

Let me pose a question.
What do you call a business model
That takes 4-6 years on average to complete
During these 4-6 years you work roughly 12-18 hours a week on sight,
But at least twice that per week—and usually have to take at least one
Maybe two menial part-time jobs to fund your lifestyle during this time as well.
The investment you either put up, or owe amounts to roughly
25 thousand to 100 thousand dollars depending on a variety of factors.
The only interest that might accrue on the investment being the
interest you have to pay off on the loans, you take to make it.
The physical documentation you get in exchange for all of this
has no resale value whatsoever.
And 9 times out of 10 you end up working a second or third
minimum wage job with no benefits to pay off your

Give up?

Business folk would call that a bad investment,

Society calls it a college degree!
I call it the most expensive piece of toilet paper in the entire world.

Yuppie Mobile

She barreled down the street,

turned into my drive through
and quickly crashed into one of the polls.
I ran out, towards the giant
12 foot long, 7 foot wide yuppie mobile to ask
"Are you OK?"
The middle-aged woman with her badly died
flock of seagulls haircut turns to me,
stares at me,
and says,
"Why is your drive-through so narrow?!"
I see the family portrait on the back windshield,
and am happy that none
of her 5 kids
were in the car.

Temple Of Manhood

This poem ironically was really popular in Russia over youtube. *shrug*
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Ladies,

social direction might dictate,
that I have to hold the door open for you,
might have to pay for you if I took you on a date,
and if you slap me, I'm a baby for whining, but if I slap you it's domestic violence.
And you might get the house and the kids even though you were the one
who wanted the divorce.
But the last laugh is still mine.
Because while we're waiting in court,
and you're bleeding me for every cent I have,
and we take our breaks to go to the bathroom,
your wait--will be an hour long,
and I'll walk right in,
no wait whatsoever,
to the sacred temple of manhood.
You can have the kids,
the house, the car,
and all my money.
But the urinal is mine,
And you will never have it!!

Deficit Attention Disorder

This is my second poem in the first Perspectives, Poetry Concerning Autism and Other Disabilities Anthology.

www.perspectivesanthology.com

www.localgemspoetrypress.com

 

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You say I have a disorder that constitutes a deficit of attention,
I appear, unable to stare,
for countless hours
forcing my focus on the frivolous frustrating formulas floundering before me,
on the black board.
Can’t do it without, shaking the leg,
bobbing the head,
looking around aimlessly,
My disorder constitutes a deficit of attention?
Perhaps the deficit is in what you would have me be paying attention to?
Biologically speaking,

omnivores have carnivorous tendencies,
like a cat shoots after a mouse
or a mole,
or a bird,
darting by faster than eyes can register.
What if those adolescent young men who make up the majority of the diagnosed
are just in conflict with their
personal primal personas?
Calling them beyond the classroom window into the no longer existing wild,
itching to move,
run,
chase and catch the quarry fleeing before them.
The leg, shaking,
the head, bobbing,
body moving,
the pent up, unused energy nature intended for us to use to spring out,
obtain and bring back our catch to the clan.
Your contradicting class room etiquette,
rules designed for simplicity of the structure rather than the welfare of the students is no match for mother nature.
And mother nature tells me,
I want to be outside…
That the answer is out there!

Not on your blackboard.

That’s one possibility, for the lack of attention.
Maybe…it’s your boring monotone,
your pitiful pedantic postulations presuming to judge a mind
on a number

that has lost our interest.
Or the fact you have us memorizing minute miniscule details
micro and macro
learning not for knowledge sake,
but to not fudge the statistics
on the tests decreed to be handed down to us by who gives a crap from
who the heck even knows land?
Now that,
could lose anyone’s interest.
But of course, that’s where our focus should be right?
not outside, at why the temperature is changing,
or looking at the oil spills.
Not at the billions
going hungry,
or the countless people below the poverty line, right here in our backyards.
Not at the fact that more than two and a half million people are incarcerated in the land
of the free,
Or that people are too afraid of lawsuits to help each other in the home
of the brave,
Not at the hunger or hatred,
the unemployment,
the pollution,
or the war.
Not at everything happening right here, right now, under our noses,
all of it going by, unnoticed and ignored,
for staring at the board 8 hours a day,
or at the computer screens in the cubicles, focused in on a single solitary
task with all the focus in the world,
ignorant of what’s going on out there in the real world,
and we,
the ones with A.D.D.
are the ones not paying attention? You say, I have a disorder constituting a deficit of attention.
Well, maybe, just maybe
the deficit, is in what you would have me, be paying attention to.

 

Aspiring Biology Major

She was only 5 foot 5
But she had double d's!
Or at least I think she did.
When she got up and walked over to me,
and they were bobbing up and down in that tank top
my ADD went out the window
And I paid good attention,
debating with myself,
whether those double D's were in fact double D's, or just plain old regular D's.
As she stood there in front of me, muttering little nothings in her native tongue,
something like "Hi, how are you, I'm blah blah," or something,
I couldn't help it,
the science major in me that didn't matriculate at any university I know of
wanted to test his hypothosis
see those milk producing jugs just a little bit closer.
Purely for scientific research reasons, of course.
But I never got the chance.
Apparently I hadn't learned the approach rituals for this species,
it involves something to do with...eye contact?
And after that cat claw turned bear paw,
knocking my glasses...I mean...scientific lenses off my face,
she turned to head back to her habitat.
I never got a closer look at those double D's,
but as she left, my eyes found their way,
to another point of inquiry,
one that you can only get a good look at, from the rear.
I sighed
and wished it wasn't too late to change my major
to biology.