5 & 6

Where are you from?

I am from here. Right here. Seat 21 on this Greyhound bus. This is where my perspective begins. This is my point of view. There is no town nor city nor village No country, no coordinates that can define me No place but here, right here. For here is where I am from, And here is where I am going. 

For the next two hours anyways. 

 

 

 

 

Fat Girl on the back of a Fat Boy 

Tearing by at the Speed of Light 

Holding on to her chubby Hubby's side 

Fat girl on the back of a Fat Boy

4

Fort Dix detour on one of the truly long and winding roads

As I backtrack to Philadelphia, to try and start again
All along the way I sit and count
The McDonald's the Gun Ranges the condominiums
I sit and contemplate the society, the civilization, the Air Force in full regalia

Proud we are of our Tanks and our Guns
Burgers and our Fries
For which we are all willing to die

You see I have experienced the freedom
which they say isn't free
And it didn't cost me a single dime
You see

To pick up
To leave
To escape
To live
Free
Exists

But damned if I could find
A woman who'd agree.

3

She was a big girl,
Six foot three and staring at me.

Her crook'd teeth and her sunburned nose,
Her expanding hips and her oversize breasts
Strangely endearing to the passer-bye.

She came from the tracks
With her punk rock tricks.
Dieing to play her country pop hits.

She was head and shoulders above the crowd.
Her bright dull eyes and long brown hair,
She swayed clumsily as she played her games.
We were all a game,
To this pop country punk rock queen.

The Jersey suburban giant from the railroad tracks,
Stomping around the transmitters,
Playing with dials,
Playing with men.
Playing.

She taught me about dignity and respect.
She taught me about insanity.
She taught me a lesson.

2

My grandmother's head is filled with the Lord.
She fantasizes about her inevitable homecoming.
She lives the rhetoric,
She lives to tell others of the love of the lord.
She considers Muhammad her enemy, which she must love.
She has raised six children and been around for eleven grandchildren.
She has weep'd and prayed over her babes,
She has loved and she has tormented her bairns.
She can be sweet and she can be gentle,
She can tell you what's what from her pious advantage.
She has been around for ninety years,
But my grandmother has never said,
"Son. You've done a fine job raising your own two sons."

1

I have a father.

A man who has dealt with much.
A man who has given me life and then saved it again.
My father has four brothers,
Some that show their love, some that can't or won't.
My father's father was a violent man,
A man of the christian god
Who married a woman of the christian god,
They beat my father and when
My father's father's heart ceased to provide life,
My father returned and took his father's debts.
His sister was gone along with two brothers
But my father came back
Back to carry the burden, back again.
In my life I've never said to him
"You couldn't understand"
For that is the line I use on myself.