Tuesday, March 20, 2012

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.

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