Hear the author read the piece! 3.3 megs
I am sick of this runny nose and sick of nothing to do so I do nothing while waiting to go home to wait in the orange armchair where this morning I decided it would be a good night to clean the kitchen floor rather than wait for it to clean itself but now I think I'll just move my books from the upstairs bookshelf to the one downstairs so I can stare at all those names gone insane and dead from their honesty and drink my heart intoxicated to have a date on Friday night with a complete stranger who likes my poems and wonder what personality she will respond best to—I know if she doesn't respond to the Smiarowski side of me then all will be for naught yet still I wonder What the girl I once had sex with who works at the restaurant this one wants to go to will think and which of them is better looking—I wonder if I'll be the drunken philosopher or the narcissistic poet although we are all one in the same
and if it'll even matter because she probably just wants to fuck me
anyway—someway—
what then will my excuse be for not having a condom besides the fact that I don't get laid by enough women to worry about that shit because once I lay the pipe—she'll be back—
Do you think she'll fall for a line like that?—that I only have long term relationships except for a dozen or so but they were all friends on some level even if only for the moment—and what of the orange armchair in my living waiting room with the tv on and the radio on and the refrigerator right next to me exposing every white Hotpoint stain under the blistering bare bulb sun within the damn box of bacteria—but oh fuck and fuck oh—wait and wait and send and wait and wait to wait which I can't wait to do—wait to write waiting for something good enough to come my way and send my head off in some direction not known by my self direction I've intrinsically been waiting for—but the wait is on so I'll sit back with a beer and more beer and get drunk without waiting another minute for those pages to read themselves or those girls to fuck themselves and I'll be out there waiting to hear some report from either of them hoping the report isn't from a slug into my waiting brain but instead some sort of new interesting way to wait for something else to wait for
And the problem with drinking is waiting for the buzz to kick in and later waiting for the hangover to evaporate like a broken space shuttle—NASA and me got something in common which is the risks don't outweigh the action so we endure the breaking and proceed with the plan after honoring the dead with hymns and wreaths because they died a steeplejacks death and what an exceptional death it was and will be for those of us who continue to pursue the meaning of the space inside and around all that glows with life as each thing that ever glowed left charred embers that have known the glory of living with purpose as their meaning
for some reason I am prepared to give it all but what is the reason for that —what is all if all is not the wasted times driving me to fill the emptiness of every soiled romance? of every poor me poem—of every bullshit competition that kills the spirit which I can understand because I can't stand competing for women which is so fucking dishonest it creates more periwinkle commercialism that is all malls, hair salons, and cell phones
I mean FUCK. Waiting is just another reason to write about the in congruencies of my heart and mind sitting in the putrid orange armchair in their particular order which makes no sense like quitting this poetry bullshit because it's got me all wrapped up in a world where i still don't belong and could give two fucks to plus four reasons why I should stick out disenchantment like believing poetry might get me laid or at least find sum equal incongruent that likes my poems because this one sure as damp water doesn't or is it asking a friend how the ten year reunion went and his answer being "don't worry. nobody asked about you." Or is to continue flaunting my tarred feathers in the face of all those studiers but where in me does this masochism come from? Must be because I know I'm right—poetry is a jizz stain on the carpet. Lap it up little doggies.
Eric says, "I graduated from University at Albany with a BA. I left NY a year later with a duffle bag and my laptop. Four years later I'm 33 and live in Wilmington, NC. I've published infrequently. Mostly in small presses like Screed in Albany or Butcher Shop Press. I've published online at thundersandwich.com and the now defunct outsiderink.com. I read at Bowery Poetry Club in NYC. That was a good time. Most recently I won a competition at Bottega Art Gallery in Wilmington. I've been writing poems seriously for about thirteen years." "Waiting" originally appeared in a different form at the old Unlikely Stories.