I once had
to choose between
dinner, potatoes, maybe
a steak, or
art. The food
salty with skin
drips of sauce
or Goya’s bulging
eyes. I only
had enough money
for one or
the other, before
flying back to
Dulles. You may
have guessed it
but El Greco
had his way
with shadows, that
light in darkness
and me hungry.
Tag: Food
The Day He Couldn’t Write
he tried to remember 1986, the 7-11 with
rolling hot dogs glistening on metal
smell of slurpee sugar, spoon straws
filled with red frozen slush, playboy magazines
covered, cloistered in the corner
laffy taffy, baseball cards in wax wrappers
but then he forgot why it mattered, and moved on
to dancing, prancing, using words like dazzle and
bob dylan, but it still wouldn’t happen
wouldn’t congeal into anything
just looking for truth, he thought
looking is the problem, let them find you
play hard to get, but sometimes that just means
you are alone, like a rolling stone
a complete unknown, a themeless writer
who couldn’t make it happen
not today
Daniel W. Polk 