So I get a call.
Somebody found out where I am hiding
and wants my political advice.
Somebody must be fucking desperate.
Apparently, the fecal matter hit the ventilation system
and when the air cleared,
this guy ended up in charge.
***
And he’s heard I am a genius.
Let’s just savor that.
I tell him he’s heard right.
The genius part is
he heard it from me.
So, I lower my voice,
confidential like,
and say in a milky way,
seems these opportunities
are best examined in the quiet
of a small dark bar in the middle of the afternoon.
Over drinks. Probably a couple of beers.
***
Hope I’m the only one who thinks I am beginning
to sound like an old pervert.
That’s how I used to meet with the Chief of Police.
Bald and brilliant, I could never convince him to pander.
As his top aide I took this charismatic straight-arrow
with a kid in jail
on drug charges
from the top of the polls
to right below ‘None of The Above.’
Thinking about myself on television every night
as the Chief Spokesman for the Mayor of a major city,
one of the coolest,
kinda gives me a stiffy, to be honest.
***
Used to write anti-drug speeches
while completely stoned out of my mind.
They say, write what you know, right?
Learned that in English Composition.
But that’s a trick, see,
that’s how they getcha,
cause I wrote about all the many, numerous,
sensual different ways I was thinking
of how I could seduce my buddy Billy’s little sister
with the mountainous bonkers. The other buddy Billy’s sister
with the bodacious bazoomz was older.
***
Apparently, there were some uptight censors
working overtime in the admissions office
at a small Methodist liberal arts college
in Western Pennsylvania in the Fall of 1964.
For gosh sake’s, don’t actually tell us
how a 18-year-old male spent ‘My Summer Vacation.’
But it’s okay,
Remember screaming silently to stone ears
“But I am here on a literature scholarship!”
Really. I am so over flunking my Allegheny College entrance essay.
Really, I am.
Go Alligators!
***
Maybe if I turn this into a poem
and mention how I always suggest something
from Rogue Brewery, maybe they’ll send me a free case
of Santa’s Private Reserve or Shakespeare Oatmeal or..
.or… dare I even think it…
the Voodoo Doughnut Chocolate Peanut Butter & Banana Ale.
Just try to tell me that last brew don’t sound like
the perfect food in a bottle. http://www.rogue.com/
I call BULLSHIT on coconut milk.
. Something like that.
***
Don’t know what got into me for a second.
Been on the wagon for a while,
okay, three days,
and the wagon is headed for the ditch.
Sometimes my mind wanders.
But I can get it together for a couple of hours mid-afternoon.
For a couple of beers.
Which is all I can handle away from the house.
Love my license.
***
That’s what I told him. That was my advice.
Do unto others as they are trying to do to you and do it first.
I am confident this is solid counsel.
And I don’t even charge cash money for this wisdom.
A couple of beers
and a four-figure gift card, I’m good.
One more thing. Mandatory national service for all.
A draft. No exceptions. None whatsoever. A draft.
The boots on the ground will be everybody’s children,
everybody’s friend. Let them campaign on that.
***
How about next Wednesday. fifteen hundred hours?
At that place off Barclay?
Next to the Beer Frog.
Yeah, just like a candy store.
As your new best friend, I can promise
I will love it.