12 years old, not able to drive, but furious fingers tug on the rotary phone dialing again and again, the pontiac fiero will go to the 107th caller, says the Q107 DJ, as he cues up sweet dreams are made of these, frantic to somehow win, knowing the radio station won’t give it to me anyway, but the chase is everything, like sitting in a boat doing nothing but waiting, like scratching lottery cards, like betting everything on the yankees, busy signal, busy signal, time wasted, finally, you are the 94th caller, busy signal, i lost the car, i never had it.
Author: @DwPolk
Sports Card Investing. Photography. Poetry.
She Drives Real Fast
don’t call her old
or elderly, foot on the
accelerator, doing 73 mph
on a south carolina highway
near myrtle beach, my
91-year old grandmother
in her pontiac, like the
jan and dean song about
the lady from pasadena
she died a year later
left me the car
determined to follow her
lead and never stop
moving forward
National Parents’ Day
Photo of a photo, salvaged from a stack found in one of those white envelopes, buried in the basement of the house that I grew up in. Summer blonde, with the Izod grin, mobile, ready to camp anywhere in the Volkswagen. That was freedom, when others drove the bus. Today, my kids are about to turn 17 and 13, and I’m a parent. Did you know that July 23rd is National Parents’ Day? I’m probably going to be offline that day, so here’s to an early celebration. BIG thank you, Mom and Dad!
Thinking About Marc Chagall
how to write about chagall? feels impossible to describe an unending dream of color, sky, moon, donkeys, chickens, man/woman sailing/flying through skies, love is so much of his world with flowers and everything magic, magical, to imagine, mystical, that feeling, when you pretend to be in the painting, who/what would you be? the tree? the violin? the rooster? the angel? the dancer? the sun? what/who? where will he take you? away, where have you been? inside his mind, your mind, our mind, our universe, marc chagall with a key, a brush, some paint, opens the door
My Favorite Writers/Poets
mitch albom, jimmy santiago baca, sylvia boorstein, ray bradbury, raymond carver, pema chodron, ta-nehisi coates, pat conroy, e.e. cummings, emily dickinson, william faulkner, william finnegan, norman fischer, f. scott fitzgerald, nick flynn, natalie goldberg, richard grant, doris grumbach, thich nhat hahn, ernest hemingway, tony hoagland, zora neale hurston, jon kabat-zinn, mary karr, jane kenyon, ted kooser, stanley kunitz, anne lamont, li-young lee, philip levine, patrica lockwood, gabriel garcia marquez, peter matthiessen, frank mccourt, john mcphee, thomas merton, w.s. merwin, joseph millar, marianne moore, john muir, tim o’brien, sharon olds, mary oliver, pablo neruda, jd salinger, suzanne scanlon, shel silverstein, isaac bashevis singer, john steinbeck, wislawa szmborska, richard wilbur, c.k. williams, thomas wolfe, tobias wolff, richard wright
I Have Fleas
i also have a borrowed walkman with one cassette, phish, rift, when you’re there, i sleep lengthwise, and when you’re gone, i sleep diagonal in my bed. july, 1993, and i’m in ojaca, honduras, you won’t find it on a map. i have fleas. listen to rift over and over again, itching in my sleeping bag, while looking for fleas by flashlight. 2am, i give up on sleeping because i have to be up at 4am to hitchhike back to gracias, a smallish town that is on a map. and you’d never believe it, but it was a great night, sometimes suffering is like that. PS-i don’t even really like phish
Writer as Quaker
so much of life is waiting, for lunch, for the uber to arrive, for the plane to land, for night to begin, for graduation, you get the drift. and then there are quakers who wait to hear from god, sit in silence, just waiting. and this is me too, some days the words just arrive and I say, hello words, and we are happy together, one word emerging after the next. other days, i just read and read and stare and stare, sort of hoping that my fingers start typing something, but glad to be waiting. because, i don’t agree with tom petty, the waiting isn’t the hardest part, the waiting is everything.
Neruda and War Addiction
somewhere in neruda’s memoir he speaks about addiction, war addiction and che guevara, ecstatic life on a constant journey toward death, craved knowing he might die, was going to die, unity with the greatest unknown, heaven maybe, or not, but on the way, violence, machine gun eruption, mortar explosions, deafening everything, all thought becoming sound, becoming silence, perhaps the final silence, and now, instead of fear, there is oneness, war, when we are really in it, makes us whole
A Rattlesnake Story
the rattlesnake doesn’t care, has heard the stories about sucking out venom and survival, how the young can’t control the release of poison, sun is out, languid, or perhaps curled up as if, but no, the rattlesnake doesn’t care, sits there on the trail, the protagonist in your story, the one where you fear the fangs, as if that would actually happen, and it could, you claim, show everyone the video of that one man, his hand swollen, they are dangerous, see, i told you, but the rattlesnake doesn’t care, the ground is just the ground, dirt, rocks, summer heat on hillside home, your story is just your story, the rattlesnake doesn’t care, slithers away
20 One-Liners After Reading Joe Brainard
Winter
Ice is more likely than snow.
Summer
Sun, sand, and shore, what you thought.
Writing
Is only part of what I am thinking.
Today
Will be like tomorrow, but different.
In the country
Deer cross roads and sometimes die.
Recipe
One part chocolate, one part graham cracker, one part marshmallow, add flame first.
That feeling
When you just know.
Ecuador
The place where a cow fell on me but missed.
Happiness
Is a good Beatles song or a warm puppy.
Money
Do pennies really matter anymore?
Lake
Powell, Crater, Radnor, Tahoe, Champlain
The Sky
Isn’t falling, although it sometimes feels that way.
Carrots
Taste best with hummus.
Modern Times
Everyone has the answer, no one has the answer.
Real life
When your tooth is being extracted.
Loyalty
Is canceling all of your plans.
Something to think about
If you are really really quiet, you probably already know.
Virginia
I am always a young person there.
Human nature
To believe in the divine.
Stars
The phosphorescent paint in constellation stories.
