D.W. Lichtenberg
Two Poems
Four Dudes in a Hot Tub: The Poem
It was cold that day. I remember it clearly.There was a handle of Wild Turkey that didn’t last the full half hour (time limit) and someone said: Don’t get fugueish on me. And someone else said (not in response): All the boys at Shelter Rock had crushes on her. This is not a one night stand story though. This one’s for the word that was never good enough, one of them shouted into the ocean.
When their skin was wrinkled, they left the hot tub behind.
It was cold that day. I remember it clearly.Someone was drinking out of a coffee mug that read:
There’s a sexy spot in my heart for you.But how come every time I see a full moon I can think nothing but:
What am I missing right now?
Everything happens over full moons
and I am not even close to everything.And I feel like I am drunkenly falling in love with this girl. Like in a Las Vegas kinda way. In a Las Vegas kinda way I wasn’t paying any real attention to her but still falling in love with her. And I remember I remember that hot tub was right on the edge of the ocean and there was a school of suicide fish and they were flopping on the concrete around the edges of the hot tub. We were laughing then we were laughing at the school of suicidefish but we didn’t know then whatweknownow. She was doing something else that day and so what if I drunkenly fellinlovewithher in a LasVegaskindaway? The so what is that the endresult of fallinginlove LasVegas is the same as fallinginlove anyotherway so be careful because love is a convenience.
And after all that, it was picking up my laundry from the laundromat that really did me in. It was Kundera trying to convince me that kitsch was a folding screen set up to curtain off death.
Fuck the Identity Poem
Fuck the identity poem
this kid shouts at me.I have no idea
what he’s talking about.
But I can’t hold back
my overwhelming desire
to agree with him.I think he’s drunk.
Is he drunk?
Maybe he isn’t drunk.
Maybe he’s more real
than I’d first thought.
Maybe he’s the one
I am in love with
after all.I nod my head enthusiastically.
He punches the door.
Josh, the bartender, walks out.
Is everything decent? he says to me.
I nod my head enthusiastically.The next sunrise, the kid goes on,
is nowhere to be found.
Josh & I both look at the kid.It’s dark. Is it always this dark?
I respond after a moment.
