Looking for a job

Tonight I’ll go search for work
at Galway’s on the quay
by the river
where maybe I’ll find a good song
to chant like a sailor on leave
by the harbor.

I got three dogs tattoed on my shoulder
eating each other’s tails
in a circle
that’s my life they humbly represent
the canine trinity going around
for eternity.

Tonight I’ll go search for peace
in a warm dark mug of beer
and pretzels
where maybe I’ll find that a dog’s life
isn’t such a sad song
after all.

 

copyright 2009 © F.K. Needles — all rights reserved

This is a selection from the book “Beer Songs for the Lonely” published by New Belleville Press, as featured on KOOP 91.7 radio show “Writing on the Air” and available in beautifully bound paper-back. You can buy it here; on this website, or you can go to Alibris.com, Authorsbookshop.com, Book People in Austin, Texas, or Sonny’s Vintage also in Austin, Texas.

Where’s the Captain’s Song?

There’s a song in the Captain’s purse
I just gotta find it
before she snatches my hands away
I just gotta find it

There’s a wind in the Captain’s purse
I just gotta find it
before she orders my hands to shore
I just gotta find it

There’s a smile in the Captain’s sway
I just gotta find it
before she makes me walk the board
I just gotta find it
on the planks, in the galleys, you’ll know
you’ll find her yes

The Captain, she’ll sail your eyes to shore.

copyright 2009 © F.K. Needles — all rights reserved

This is a selection from the collection of poetry “Beer Songs for the Lonely” published by New Belleville Press and available in beautifully bound paper-back. You can buy it here on this website, or you can go to Alibris.com, Authorsbookshop.com, Book People in Austin, Texas, or Sonny’s Vintage also in Austin, Texas.

Pancho wakes

Pancho, in spite
of himself
was forced out of his reveries:

grilling foods & fermenting
milk
skin pop popping gurgling
of a baby pig on the spit
apple pies
and praline ice cream
flambé if you please …

woken up
by a large growl
an intestinal brawl
a lament from his sleep
from somewhere
deep inside his bowels!

Pancho was hungry
for breakfast.

copyright 2009 © F.K. Needles — all rights reserved

Sketches of Pancho

1

Buried perhaps?
In a shallow grave or
a not so shallow one
underneath a slab of concrete?
Or perhaps
lost, in a grotto, a hole
someplace far away with stalagmites?
Or a far, far away land
maybe
with free-range chickens
and pork
fed on chestnuts and warm milk …

2

Pancho loved to eat,
he was a large man,
large as a barge,
so large that he stretched any room
he’d walk into, from inside out, he
overtook the air around him
compressed the breathable space
with his presence.

Pancho couldn’t help himself:

He loved to eat.

3 – Slingshooter

I was raised an egg-head.
Am now a lamppost.
Am planning on taking my retirement
inside an old smelly shoe-box
floating through outer space
heading towards Neptune
and beyond:
digitized, caramelized, and electrified …

Fire me away, baby,
into the computerized Far West.

4 – Small Treasure

Smuggled
after a long journey
finally here.

Pancho had forced himself
to stay away
until that morning, waking up
standing in his kitchen, scratching
his balls,
he decided:
This was the morning to be.

Inside the cold box
his latest treasure
rested,
at the risk of many lives,
jail time,
years of trial dates and lawyers;
he had done it.

Humble object, really:

A small wooden box,
round in shape
made of thin material.
It had a lid as deep
as the bottom part
just a little bigger
in circumference
for a tight fit.
The picture of cow and a farm
on the label.
It had small staples
holding its thin
cardboard-like walls
together.

The contents were wrapped
in white greasy paper, a bit
like butcher’s paper with two layers,
and carefully encased to a very snug fit.

The center was soft
to the touch.

Pancho was pushing down
with his right thumb
gently feeling the level of softness.

The sweet smell of a football player’s socks
slowly made its way to Pancho’s nose.

Ahh!
Penisilium Candidum, Camemberti!

copyright 2009 © F.K. Needles — all rights reserved

Fast-order chef

Louis the Fish was his name
why he was called that
nobody ever knew
but that’s the name he answered to
and that’s the name he wanted to hear
whenever anybody
uttered his name and he heard it.

Louis the Fish worked his grill
down in a burger joint
across the street
from my dad’s mechanic.

He didn’t talk much
being too busy most the time
either flipping burgers
or smoking a cigarette
or remembering
the orders he kept in his head.

He worked his grill
like a love song
to the only woman
he could ever think of loving
who had gone
and left him one night long ago
and his masterpiece
was the Philly cheese steak
though he’s hardly ever been out
of his trailer park
and definitely nowhere out of Texas
it was the best damn Philly
outside of Philly.

Nobody touched his grill
he’d light her up in the morning
and scrub her down at night
and nobody would ever have dared
to take that away from him
because he had talent
slithering like his namesake
and he had scales
from head to toe.

He’d fry you some onions and cheese
like a man desperate for something
like a man trying to prove something
like a man figuring on a joker
he swam in heat
which mattered non to him
like a fish and water
he swam in grease and tattered his grill
like a lost child he’d found
one night
and loved her since
brought her to three hundred degrees
lovingly
every day just to repeat himself
again and again.

One night
after he’d washed and scrubbed his grill
he stepped into the grease bin
underneath
and slid inside till he was gone.

Louis the Fish is gone
Louis the Fish is gone.

copyright © 2006 – 2009 F.K. Needles

This is a selection from the book “BEER SONG FOR THE LONELY” available in beautifully bound paper-back. You can buy it here on this website, or you can go to Alibris.com, Authorsbookshop.com, Book People in Austin, Texas, or Sonny’s Vintage also in Austin, Texas.

Evening News April 3rd, 2005

The man
husband of the woman
wife of the man
who killed her
his wife
the woman
wife of the man.

He strangled her
with a simple kitchen wire
you know the kind
simple chicken
tie’em up after you’ve stuffed’em
wire.

He strangled her
his wife
strangled by her man
her husband.

The police came
she was dead
circles around her neck
where her skin fought
the wire
simple chicken wire
you know the kind
to strangle your wife with
in the kitchen.

Domestic violence
they call it
the police in their report
and the night before
when the nosy neighbor called
“potential domestic violence”
they’d whispered
to the police
in the telephone
from behind the curtains
watching the man
and the woman
beat each other up
screaming things like murder.

The police came
too early and then too late
and were asked kindly
to mind their own business
and leave, the man
husband of the woman
said to them
and she
“it’s okay … no … really … go away …
yes … Mr. Policeman …
it’s okay … go away …”
said the woman
wife of the man.

The police came back
the following day
with camera crews
and bright television lights
fifteen minutes of fame
red circles around your neck
the woman
wife of the man
the husband
her man
gone
and her dead
with nothing to add
Mr. Policeman
red circles circling her neck
the police
circling her body
with chalk.

copyright 2009 © F.K. Needles — all rights reserved

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