Total Poetry 26, “Jackie Never Has a Good Thing to Say”
(November 19, 2002, 5:18 pm to Gladstone, delayed until 5:45 pm)
Jackie comes in
Not high
Not so’s you can tell
Groaning as she walks down the hall
“This place is all fucked up.
“We had so much hope when you came here, still have hope,
but this place is no good. I can’t see what you’re doing.”
“What’re you talking about Jackie?”
“Don’t you know there’s not a single bathroom working in this place?
“In the whole building, not a single one.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“How do you think it feels with the bathrooms broken.
“We gotta live here, you go home at night.”
“Jackie you know not all the bathrooms are broken, plus this is a 100 year old building.
“Things break.”
“Don’t tell me that. That’s not my problem.”
“Okay it’s not your problem.”
“I don’t have to put up with this. Not here. I might be homeless,
“but I don’t have to put up with this.”
“Okay Jackie you don’t have to put up with this.”
“I don’t have to. I’m telling you.
“I don’t have to.”
“Okay you don’t have to.”
“Wanna make a bet, I put a piece of paper on the floor, it won’t get picked up?”
“Wanna make a bet?”
“No Jackie, I don’t want to make a bet,” I said.
Then I put on my jacket and run to the train to dream.
Total Poetry 31, “Thanksgiving”
(November 26, 2002, 5:18 pm to Gladstone)
One Utz Salt-n-Vinegar
One package cheez puffs
In total a dollar
A bowl of vegetable soup
Chicken fingers and one half turkey sandwich
On 43rd Street at 1199 Headquarters
A photo exhibit by the residents of Holland House on 42nd
Part of the Union’s Bread And Roses Project
Poetry by Shadagga
Rhyming, some of it made sense
On the corner, south east
33rd and Eighth Avenue
9:17 a.m. gibberish, angry
Not asking for anything
Next corner 34th
A guy yelling at his friend for
Saying something in front of doctors, counselors
Should’ve known better
At the corner, a line forms for a shoe sale at 9 West
Donna Karan gets out of a limousine
I’m so tired, I fall asleep writing this poem
Margo asks what I would do if I could have any job I want
I say I’d keep this one
But be more successful as a writer
Fanella says she’d be a teacher
Margo would be a politician, the Senator from New York
I say I talk as much as a politician
Margo and Fanella agree.
Total Poetry 32, “Research”
(November 27, 2002, 4:18 pm to Gladstone)
Nobody knows how many homeless
How many people in the street
How many conversations with God
Nobody knows the number of rats
The exact pressure of gravity
On one individual destiny
I’m involved in a meticulous assessment
Related to Eighth Avenue
Peep shows and methadone
I have a relation to all this chaos
Carfume, subway
It didn’t just arrive without planning
It’s not a miracle, a virgin birth
The manhole covers from Harrison
Ray Crock’s McDonald’s
Policemen who were trained in an academy
The perfection of a misery
Jackie bleeding all over my office
HIV, the shouting of prostitutes
Not everyone that shoots gets hepatitis
If you’re too obvious, you land in jail
No matter the lottery there’s always a number
A girl pushed in front of a truck by her boyfriend dies
She lays there with a blanket over her head.
Tom Obrzut lives in Maplewood, N.J. Posted January 2006.
