Wednesday, April 22, 2009

That's The Fourteenth Time I've Never Heard That Before

short hair, skinny,
he smokes a rollie
by a white van
on the corner

looks at me, passing,
calls me jesus,
and everyone
around him laughs

his eyes are glassy
like the surface
of a lake
before it snows.

envoi
my hair is long
my beard is thick
your waxy cropped
head makes me sick.

3 comments:

Holly said...

Nice Bruce. He may have called you Jesus, perhaps that was his inner conciousness wanting to identify with him, wanting to reach out from his seemingly pitiful existance. Take it as a compliment.

All This Trouble... said...

Very nice...this poem is your miracle.

I'm with Holly. There are worse things to be called. But I understand the tone wasn't what it should've been.

Bruce Hodder said...

Yeah, I don't mind being called Jesus. Jesus was a dude. Jesus was the original poet. It's just the predictability of the comment and the conformist impulse underneath it really. I can't understand why everybody wants to look the same. Even when I was a kid I looked different from everybody else -- I mean, out of choice. They were listening to punk and ska and I was listening to Willie Nelson. Thinking it would be a great thing to grow a beard as soon as I could muster enough beard hair.