Yellow

Yellow's the color of love
Yellow's the color of love
since I left you

Yellow's the color of love
Yellow's the color of love
since I left you

And since you went away
and I followed
but apart from you

Yellow's the color of love
Yellow's the color of love
since I left you

11

It's that number
Sadie seems to favor,
don't know why,
it's just something
I noticed, at least
from those she could
choose from with
the radios. I started
picking it, too,
when she wasn't
working. I guess
she had to notice.

Now that things
are winding down,
I am forced to
realize I should
have been happy to
see her happy,
because even before
I came around, she was,
even when I said
"I hate Steve"
without knowing him,
or her, at the time.

She seemed to become
happy to be around me,
and I let that play
with my other thoughts,
and I really shouldn't
have, because it was
just work, not her
real life, she never
really needed me, right?
I was just a clown,
and I think she
was amused, so she
humored me.

Two weeks to go,
it seems, and things
must end like this.
I'm happy that she's
happy, and am now
willing to leave it
like that. She seems
like she definitely
deserves that sort
of thing, and she
never needed me to
start mucking around
with it, and here it
took me all this time
to realize that.

I suppose I'm sorry
for that, too. Today,
I took the eleventh radio
again, and it might be
for the last time, just so
she knows. Sadie,
that was your number,
for whatever reason,
and it will be one
more thing you take
with you.

I can live with that.

Damn You, Zodiac!!!

I was reading through
another of those
astrology guides,
this one geared toward
romantic interests,
when it struck me
for the first time
you can either waste
your time reading
these poems, or just
sort of review
the topic of Virgos.
One's quicker than
the other. I'm so
glad I read that book!

We Find Ourselves In Circles

We find ourselves in circles
because we like to define
ourselves by them, in every
possible way. Go ahead,
think about it. I saw a bad
movie and that's what got
me thinking about it, and
everywhere I looked, I saw
people walking in circles,
inside, outside, within them,
defining the world that way,
every facet, just having a ball.

Hope of the States/The Living End/Death and All His Friends

I should know to feel despair,
I should know there is no hope,
I should know what they all say,
but I still feel different.

Into Me I See

Cynical calculation
which negates an
authentic voice
is among the worst
and most common
evils to be found,
and I am constantly
butting up against it.

No matter. I have
distractions, I am
able to reason for
myself, and find
worth where others
wag their dogs.

And I can create
my own trouble as
well, when I find
things that only
exaggerate my
suffering, music,
television, film,
these expressions
that connect me
to the outside
world, and further
delude me to think
I have some chance.

I am sorry, Sadie,
for the things I
have put you through,
whether you quite
realized them or not,
because I have always
known what the result
must be. I experience
these entertainments
and they convince me
that I could have some
part, but I know my role
and you, Sadie, were
cast for something else.
You were, if it must
sound inelegant, the latest
confirmation, is all.

This book, too, must close,
as must always be its fate,
and I for one believe
in happy endings.

James Patterson...!!!

Working at a bookstore
will help you appreciate
a great many things
you never thought of
before, but one of them
has got to be all those
shitty writers people
read and populate bookshelves,
um, for no real reason
except that's what's
easy to do when you
want to pretend you're
literate but still shudder
from the memories of
those teachers forcing
you through three hundred
or so pages in a few weeks
when you had other things
you had to read and try
to replicate, not just...
what was the goal?
intepret or whatver,
listen to what they had
to say and pretend you got
that or at least that you
didn't have something else
you might have thought.
It was easier to just
pretend you read it, because
they were going to tell
you anyway, right? And then
expect you to know the
boring details for tests.

No wonder you now
read Patterson!