Ross Vassilev- Three Poems

everything but the floppy shoes

well, I’m unemployed

I don’t shower as often as I ought to

don’t brush my teeth as often as I ought to

I’m a sad, sad case in the middle of

nowhere America

and I’ve got no one to blame but myself (and my parents)

but all the same, it’s nice lying here in bed

this morning:

white sheets, white walls

a white ceiling with brown water stains

and the sun coming in through the windows

like Eternal Buddha

my friends think I’m crazy

and I suppose maybe I am

but I tell them this head is nothing more

than a half-empty box

(I like to think it’s purple on the inside)

and every once in a while

when some grunge falls out of it

I clean it up

email it to the editor of some magazine

it’s what I do best

all that I can do

so really,

it’s not such a bad life

afterall.

dogma

I’m a slacker

and a loser

and I like to stare at the clouds for hours

I read a lot of books

and don’t know anything at all

I like ladybugs

someone told me

I should put myself

in the hands of

God

but I’d rather be in the hand

of some high school cheerleader

I’d rather be a white birch

in the Russian forest

or a Chinese monk on pilgrimage

to India

and God is

wind chimes when a breeze picks up.

a taste of the Orient

the place had red Chinese lanterns

and a Chinese barmaid

I asked her

how much for a shot of tequila?

she said

fo’ dolla’s

it was dark

and the tequila burned a little

and the sunlight was coming in

from the street

it was just me and the barmaid

and no one else

with the bottles lined up

against the back wall

so that the whole thing looked like

some kind of altar

a bar is a place holy as any other

just without all the dogma

and other bullshit

I even thought I saw

Buddha

sitting under the red-and-blue neon

counting how many drinks

I’d had.