Andrew Patterson
Poems
ISSUE 43 | BAR | AUG 2014
Reminder
 
I was saving a receipt
when the French made history
 
I must have been out parking the car
when the heat set in
 
and when the world discovered turning
for the third time and all the fish fell to land
recall that I was in the mountains
underdressed, with my thighs around my hands
 
I was standing in line
when martial law was declared
 
flexing an ice cube tray
as the disenfranchised made their way westward en masse
 
distracted by the minutiae of my face
I was lost in a mirror
on the last day of Spring
 
If you remember anything about me remember
that when the revolutionaries came
with their sharpened jawline lingo
and let themselves in
 
I was down on my knees
looking for a pin
 
 
Line Of Work
 
Strikebreakers have mouths to feed
and policemen are doubtless unfamiliar
with the tedium of state made lit
 
there are hard lines stamped
in the outskirts
 
desires drawn out in the city
 
But you
 
I can’t believe you let that
job take you again
 
 
Buyer's Remorse Remorse
 
Christine made me regret purchasing what I thought
was to become my defining feature.
 
I needed to destroy it now. Somehow go back
and unjoke the cashier, unstroll the boulevard;
 
get back to my frugal and disappointed self
who clung tight to the false memory
 
of having once travelled lightly.
 
 
Ear Complaint, Uneven
 
The barroom,
Dec. 7th:
 
I stand myself
 
too still
 
dispirited by the thought
that
 
the most shocking thing
I will ever say (and truly
mean) is
 
that I don't like Neil
Young that much.
 
 
Possible Ending
 
Crying
 
I am
bad at that