Two poems by Michele McDannold

at the tee gee club

bob wants to hear metal

we fumble the
quarter
and change the language
to Spanish but
eventually he
gets it
three songs later
Planet Claire
Elvis Costello
and that one prince song
all the while his fifth wife
and a trip to the phillipines

he gets his quarter
time for a smoke
because today the news

and knowing it’s coming all along
doesn’t grease the wheels for
Soundgarden
doesn’t temper the pain for
Metallica even, old school

iris will watch my drink for me
top it off so i can
say i’m happy
so i can slip and say
i might not be ok

but you know i’ll be fine

____________

west coast notebook entry #2
(if your progress needs a mountain, go)

 

it’s very complicated.

possible i might
not come down
from this
highway crest
in the clouds
here comes the rain, just
a sprinkle
one could feel cold
except the sun-direct
patches of light

you know what it
reminds me of?
as does everything
right now…
when i leave this
mountain
will i leave the memory
of you
here too?

tell me how

Three poems by Michele McDannold

there’ll be time for that later

she began noticing everything
in her world was manilla-
colored. her skin had turned
manilla, the bare mattress on
sheet-changing days… manilla.
the very air filling that room.
yes, manilla. if her life
resembled anything at all,and
perhaps there are more
appropriate words for colors
seen and unseen, but i tell you–
it was every molecule, manilla.

the grainy
the slick
it all tasted the same

she contemplated gold,
soft light,
water shadows,
lampshades.
there is no sound
to manilla

all the laundry turned this color
all the lids
all the unwashed hands
and corners
and every
broken
thing
____________

the facts and details

at some point
you’ll start to wonder
where i left you
and went with those other men
i start to think
and smoke some more drugs
what is the difference
between
instructions and directions

you won’t want to know
his arms worked better than yours
in holding me down

your mouth is the lack of,
i dream–
still…

rinse,
repeat

veer right at the curve
if you have to crash
go to your right
if you have to

this highway leads to
this highway
and nothing else
____________

8 horrible ways the universe can destroy us

and they happened without warning

the fade
the cut and run
the never was what you thought in the first place
the dry, sucking ache of just not right
the disconnect
the gray the gray the gray

it’s about
cutting things down
to the quick
something that
happens
without warning
when you think
too much
& hold it in

i apologize in advance
your metaphors
are like
a sandbag
in a desert

today
is the
beginning
of the end

i have already cried enough