5 in the morning
in a dark basement
and it’s my birthday
40 years old today
Leonard Cohen just came up
on shuffle with ‘Chelsea Hotel’
I first heard it when john fullbright
played it for me
around the time I was trying
to figure out who ‘TEETH” was
I’m going to turn it down just
a little bit
“I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel…”
I got a bukowski book from amazon
the other day and on the back
was a quote from Leonard Cohen
“bukowski brought us all down to earth. even the angels.”
I was noticing this quote when I heard
my oldest daughter below me
trying to learn how to play Cohen’s “Hallelujah”
on the piano
took a minute for all of it to
come together in my head
all of that and I played
along while skiner sang it
in Louisiana…
he’s all over the house
today and yesterday
and last week
music is brilliant like that
forty years behind me
it feels o.k.
glad I stopped drinking when I did.
not sure if I would even be here
had I kept on
maybe on my 80th birthday
I’ll throw a party and just get
drunker than a monkey
I’ve got 40 years to talk myself
out of that one
Quentin
“Do you know where the Byng Mini-Mart is?”
“The one on the road there?”
“Yeah. Meet me there. You want both of ‘em?”
“No. I only want the one.”
“O.k.”
“Are you leaving now?”
“Yeah.”
I pulled the car into
the mini-mart
off to the side
and out of the way
of the gas pumps
got out
got the cage out of the back
and stood there beside it
a kid, probably 17
pulled up and hopped out
and I looked into the
back of his truck
a moving burlap bag
he pulled out the bag
and handed it to me
not quite sure what to do…
I opened the bag and pulled
out a large, beautiful Buff Orphington
“You want me to unwire his legs?”
“Huh?”
and his feet had been wired
together so I said yes
and he untied the legs
I could hear my youngest daughter
behind me
muttering “whaaaaaat?”
so I shoved the rooster
into our cage
kid grinning….awkward
“Ten on the bird, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How bout $12 and I get the burlap bag?”
“Alright.”
I had actually been wondering
the night before where
I could still find a burlap bag
(I thought about making
a home made punching bag…
made fun of myself for thinking it and
called myself Rocky)
and when was the last time
I had even seen one?
but I didn’t read the bag
until we were letting
Quinten out of the cage
and into our coop
“Homegrown Marijiuana”
HUMBOLT COUNTY
and I stood there with my
two daughters
and we all laughed
reading the bag
and when all are safe
and home and
happy
and healthy
one should thank their God above
because sometimes,
it can all be
just a little much
(two fingers held slightly apart and squinted through)