[New-Poetry] from today's Writer's Almanac

[Anny Ballardini]

Poem: "Where Else Can You Go" by Jim Daniels from Blessing the House. © University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Where Else Can You Go 

to get those wonderful T-shirts
with the pocket for your smokes
the pocket for your smokes?

In all colors all sizes
blue and dark blue and light blue
and black   and brown   green and red
light brown   dark red    all colors.

Where else can you go
for the blue light   the blue light
     the blue light specials?

You know what I'm talking about
that place    that savings place
you've been there
wandering the aisles dazed.
You have to be I the right mood
to go in. you have to be slow
and happy   and sad.

I am buying T-shirts and basketball shoes
I am buying a Hula Hoop and a can of oil
I am buying a travel alarm and an eraser
in the shape of Mr. T's head-
oh, Mr. T where are you now?

Good cheap stuff, don't you love it
cheeseballs and vitamins
a bag of cement   a light-up fish

a lightbulb with three speeds
a lightbulb that lasts forever.
It's cotton candy on my tongue-
it disappears   yet is so sweet
yet is so sickening.

Why did I come here, what did I really need?
I am lonely and it is raining. 
I am tired of flossing.
I want to wander these cluttered aisles
till what brought me here
slides off into shoe boxes and dish drainers
into stale bags of caramel corn

and circus peanuts, into disposable lighters
and sugar-free gum. I want to be emptied
emptied of it all, I want to pass through 
the checkout counter past the security guard
having mumbled all my sins to the plastic dolls.
I want to be purified by the smells of ammonia
and Colorforms, the taste of junk America
the sweet sweet blues-I hope I can afford it. 






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Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star! 
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