Author: Aaron Weber

Today’s poem: Barnacles

Barnacles
These are not accomplishments:
Surviving a year, falling in love, making a promise, taking a loan.
Born in the right place with an inclination to books and worry,
taught in proper schools, passed by luck
(and care and wealth, not mine)
through the shoals of idiot youth,
I’ve done precious little of my own.

A man who’s thirtyish, married and mortgaged
hardly deserves more celebration than a barnacle who’s found a hull.
And yet no less: We’ve found our place, latched on, and won’t let go.

Keystone on Special

Don’t claim there’s nothing left for the working man
not when two hours off the books at Y-Not
gets you a 30-pack of Keystone for the weekend,
not when Frank and the boys get off work at the house of pizza
and come by with a pie and a dimebag,

and say Pat knows a guy at the garage who can hook you up
with a shady reg sticker and some new used tires.
It’s not much and it’s not easy,
but listen to Tony’s dad some time when he’s drunk
and starts to talk about the old days.
It never was much, never was easy,
but if you’re not too proud to do what needs done
you’ll have a case for the weekend
and bullshit to tell the boys at work on Monday.

Two poems about getting married

On Gratitude
These thank-you cards get more sincere each time –
Not that I know what to do with crystal candlesticks
but that someone moved enough to give them
and their motion moved me in turn
to put my gratitude in ink, affix a stamp and formally thank
my great aunt, my parents, hers,
the barber and tailor, bar-back and busboy
each passer-by in each picture’s background become a celebrant,
each stamp a solemnizer of the gratitude I feel
for gifts, for luck, for making it this far, for promises of more to come.

On Settling Down
It’s our special day, and as days go it’s fine
It’s good enough for me, and I’m good enough for you.
And you’ll do, as you’d have done unto.
And so proceed to winter evenings on the couch,
whiskey with honey and crock-pot weeknight meals,
to takeout and paperbacks, chores divided
and the kettle on to keep us warm,
To the security of tax returns and joint accounts,
my only fear that all the days of my life
outlast the days of yours.
But that bridge I can cross half-way
if I get there alone.

Not quite weekly poetry update

Here’s the latest, continuing in the vein of writing about things and people I see on the way to or from work:

When the voice speaks

How’s a dreadlocked and wrinkled Caribbean woman
wind up outside the subway in Boston
dancing and swaying in cowboy boots with
“Everybody Loves An Irish Girl?” printed on her shirt?

How’d you come three thousand miles to wind up
holding a cup of change and five or eight creased cardboard signs
block-printed small and crammed with text that nobody pauses to read?

I ask what it says and she says, softly
“which one, honey?”
The sign tied to her forehead begins
SEEK ENLIGHTENED GIVER SEND DONATION TO UNIVERSE –
ATTN VIP TAXPAYER BACK BAY BOSTON –
I can’t tell what she means, what she needs
apart from cash and Risperdal.
But I know what she’s telling me: when the voice speaks
you have to listen.

A Brief Trip To Free-Market Paradise of State-Owned Enterprises

On the way back from a wedding in Deerfield, the lady and I decided we’d swing by New Hampshire and check out the prices at the libertarian liquor store. Of course, we realized only after several miles of deserted, potholed highway that the store in Winchester NH was closed on Sundays. We tried to see if other stores might be open, but there was no cell service! No 3G, no Edge, nothing!

(Now that I’m back in-network, I’ve learned that some of the other locations are indeed open Sundays. Just not the one we dropped by. Poor planning, that.)

On the bumpy ride back toward Athol, I got to thinking. People here in the nanny state to the south love to complain about socialism. But in tax-free New Hampshire, home of limited government, it’s the state that decides when liquor stores are open. Not through zoning or neighborhood input to set regulations, the way we do it here. The state liquor board picks where the stores are, when to open them, what goods are sold, and how to price them. If socialism is state ownership of businesses, New Hampshire is the most socialistic state we’ve got up here. Sure, the Mass lotto is state-run, but tickets are sold in a variety of places, which can compete on convenience and amenities if not on price. Only in New Hampshire does the state actually own and operate such a major business that is, elsewhere, left entirely to private enterprise.

What’s this world coming to?

Weekly poem: Adequate Expectations

Adequate expectations
The papers had the notice prepped for weeks,
An evergreen for interns since sixty-nine
polished by senior staff this month and last
and the one before.

The old man himself, I’m sure, offered
more than a few suggestions.
His fans, old lovers, enemies –
all readied signs to hold some time last year.

And so, through fervent preparation,
death finally came, and with it the expected rituals
of expected death, and prayers:
let us believe we know what’s next,
let us believe we’ve years yet left to be.