It's A Suck Day For Chickadees

It's a suck day for chickadees
   and for people who live outside
      and for you, maybe, all alone inside

I'm watching them through my window
   after a night of snow, followed now by rain
      and ice, that bastard, turning foul weather into cruel

Clearing the feeders of crusted snow, adding sunflower seeds
   I can hear them tweeting up in the bare trees
      I think to offer them food out of the palm of my hand
         Half realize the vanity and stop

I thought about the roosting shelter seen in a catalogue and not purchased
   And about the people living in tents under the Houston overpasses I walked by
      And those little smirking shits gathered around that Native elder drumming and
          Singing for their healing, all alone

Koro

A hotel along the highway and the accompanying sound of cars and trucks in motion. Misty in the parking lot, neither warm or cold exactly. This town is downwind from a paper mill, but only outsiders smell it. Wondered if they'd rob me outside the convenience store, those kids getting high and harassing the check out girl with the big scar on her forehead. Remembered the video of the guy on K2 freaking out in the hospital. I've developed a beer belly all of a sudden, or I'm just getting around to noticing. Song on the rental car radio makes me feel remote, even from my memories. If I had more energy, maybe I'd panic about all that's disappearing.

Country Torta

He came with his family from Guadalajara where he'd been police. Now he runs a restaurant with his wife and children in Arkansas. This is their second one. He says he thinks they burned the first one down. 

Party Guy

A small box of red wine and a bag of powdered sugar donuts from CVS. Dinner was too-salty-tacos which didn't agree with me. A night in a Northeast Texas hotel and a dream of a party where my friends were merely acquaintances and the younger-than-I ones gradually coupled up and moved off leaving me staring into the embers of dawn. 

Born Into The Waves

Seasonably Cold

I know now it was joy brought the birds and
Not you

I know it's coincidence there are no birds
Here now

Despite the fact that it's zero degrees and
Harsh conditions

I put the bowl of the broken bird bath beside the grave of
Your dog

I added corn, seeds and peanuts to it this morning and
Squirrels came

I like to think of your dog chasing them without malice and
You smiling

January

Contenting myself maybe
With paying for a young woman's beer
In secret because the boy she lives with
Was hanging out on their couch
With the girl he is cheating with

I don't want anything
Like that
This silence, this bed
My self
Not so bad

Feast and fast

A squirrel's been casing my house the last few days
and I've been thinking of the birds again so I bought food
to put out for both parties. Something came
and ate the two dozen eggs I composted after being in my
refrigerator for at least a year. I emptied the cabinets of oats and
grits and instant potatoes from another time period, nearly five
years ago, and put that outside too.
One long ass coma to have been in.