Hi?

I met Fred P. on a mid-afternoon
elevator ride.
I know because of his nametag...
"Hello, my name is ________!"
His name was Fred P.

I didn't mind his style.
That name tag got to the point quicker
than any amount of bumper stickers
or clever license plates ever could.

I don't blame him either,
his name did have a nice ring to it.
I figured he was either just proud
or really friendly.
At any rate, he was already
one-up on me,
and I didn't know whether it was still a
hand-shaking situation,
or if a hug would now be required,
so I decided to just pretend
like I hadn't heard the introduction
stuck to his left breast pocket.

My biggest struggle now was that
I had to fight off his introduction alone
because everyone else in the building
decided that it would suddenly be a good time
not to use the elevator.

But, inevitably, when you skip
the second half of an introduction,
one person is left open and vulnerable,
and the other gets to
disturb the pulsing silence
with a 12-story attempt
at looking for something important in their
empty backpack;
which I did end up finding,
along with a Tic Tac container and paper clips,
by secretly peeking up at him
through my dark sunglasses.

And this is what I found out...

I could tell that he liked shoes
because he was wearing 2 of them,
and he also liked briefcases and clothes,
and probably socks.

I could tell that his audible voice,
not similar to the
messy upper case bold sharpie strokes he flaunted,
would be more like a
300 lb cat-loving widow
falling down a long flight of stairs.

He looked like a man of undistinguished tastes
and a bland palette,
to whom the term "Haute Couture" was French.
His hobbies probably included
driving in traffic
and blending into very small crowds.

The lines on his face revealed a life of
facial muscles working,
but not too hard.
He did seem to always be thinking,
at least while I knew him,
on the elevator,
long and hard,
mainly because he had to,
like a bored secretary
rummaging through an endless stack
of un-alphabetized index cards.

This was Fred P.
Most people don't know him like I do.
Most people aren't so scared of small talk.

Hot Tub

I was sitting in my hot tub the other night
drinking a cold root beer,
watching the stars peek in and out
between wisps of stretched cotton clouds
like some mother-baby peek-a-boo game,
trying not to giggle
as the jets spit water between my toes.

I closed my eyes and began to ponder...
"Hmm, I wonder what I'd be doing right now
if I was sitting in this hot tub without my cold
draft of sassafras?"

I sat there for a while
pondering this conundrum
when it suddenly dawned on me...
I would be doing just that,
just sitting in that hot tub,
without a root beer!

It was so simple!
So simple, in fact, that it occurred to me
that I had been soaking
in what now felt like a lukewarm bath
for a few hours too long,
and that I was now bordering on the edge
of thought
of that
of a 3 year old,
floating dangerously close
to insanity,
and what used to be a perfectly crisp
Slim Jim.

Till We Have Faces

It's a puppet show!
Try on the different faces.
Discard the ones you're jealous of,
the ones that remind you of your old self.
Find the ones that stand out,
the unique ones,
the ones that make you someone
in the eyes of someone else.
Let the masks meld into an unholy deity,
a two-faced, three-faced,
many-faced monster
disguised in botox and cover-up.

A marionette given false hope
of invisible strings.

All the unique individuals
dancing the same dance
not noticing the choreography.

All lies of poets and priests
till we cut the strings
till we give ourselves a good scrubbing
till we have faces.

Echoes

All I’ve known
I now know no longer.
I long for the
Whispering hints of remnants
Creaking through these old bones,
The clarity fading with decaying memories
While the only monuments
That haven’t crumbled
Are the weathered lines
Etched on my face
Branching out like dried up streams;
A winding open grave of sun-scorched limestone
Lying lifeless
Listening to the withered roots below
Tell tales of old
Of melting snow
Flowing from distant storms.

The thunder rumbles in the distance,
But even the echoes are welcome now.