December 12-18, 2016: Poetry from Randolph Bridgeman and Douglas Richardson

stepfathers

joseph must have had the toughest
daddy issues not that every kid
doesn’t think their father is God
but what if he actually is
and when the holy ghosts
been in your woman
how do you stack up to that
most men would have dumped her
and no one would have blamed him
or my father who came home
from the war to a pregnant wife
but like joseph he wanted to
do the right thing too
and still it ate away at him
every argument my parents
had ended with my father saying
oh yeah well you fucked
the next door neighbor
and i wonder if it ate away
at joseph too
with the father
the son
the holy ghost
and marry too
he must have felt like a fifth wheel
like most of us stepfathers do
joseph with his honorable mention
and the rest of us with no
mention at all

Mean and Nice

I’d like to roll Wes Anderson’s
windows down, so the bees can fly
in and around

I’d like to give Van Gogh
an audio tour
of the Musee d’Orsay

I’d like to thank Ed Ruscha
for undiscovering the country

I’d like to sit with Lady Di
and watch Amelie

The Street-Art Oil Painting

The street-art oil painting from Venice Beach, California,
contained a hidden image meant just for him,
told him he was a chosen one
from the western wall of his studio apartment,
seduced him, said he belonged among philosopher kings
or rock stars on late-night talk shows,
then turned on him, got him mocked in pretentious bars,
erased good, simple memories like the morning newspaper
on the porch of his childhood home;
so he shredded it with a box cutter
and scattered it across the street
with the neighbors watching.
Now he has humility, notoriety,
a wizard’s beard that whistles in the dark.

Bishop, California

I’d like to be in Bishop, California
In the Eastern Sierra Nevada
In the aisles of a hardware store
In the season of blue jeans and flannel
Buying tools for home improvement
Turning a nickel for a gumball on my way out the door

I’d like to be in a booth in a diner looking at the snowy mountains
My fingers through the ear of a cup of coffee
Green pines, hot breakfast, close family
Living the life of a builder and a fixer
New wrenches in the back of my truck
And not a thief for miles around

MIB

Men in black beanies sit in a Jack in the Box
where no one over the age of forty
has ever smiled. Ask them whether
the moon is new or full and they couldn’t say
because the sky no longer captivates them,
or perhaps it does hold them captive
and so the light they see might as well be
the light in this room, cool, even, anemic.
Moody devils, lonesome beauties,
if only I could lead them out the door
and into their ideal worlds.