Just a Little While More

Damn it. I don’t want to rely on these pills.

I shouldn’t be online either; in this condition.

Nor should I let you pick me up in your work van.

But I do.

You give me that toothy grin and my nerves begin to dance.

I start to think about missing teens on “America’s Most Wanted”.

As if you know, you reach over and rub your hand over my crotch.

Your freshly showered soap scent mixes with your cologne and filters into my brain.

I can’t resist the smell of your body; I’m hooked.

It doesn’t really matter that your 5, 10, 15 years my senior.

I know what I want and you know how to give it.

Fucking in your car, my bed, your brother’s bed;

We’re so brazen.

I want you to grab me, yeah, just like that.

But not too hard, or I’ll remember why

I shouldn’t be here.

Manhandle me, but don’t call me a Whore.

Don’t connect me with your past,

I have my own.

Don’t talk about your job, your car, your ex-girlfriend.

I just want to feel needed, if only for this one moment.

Don’t you get it? Make me whole:

Just use me while I’m here.

Tell me how you like what I’m doing;

Make me feel like I belong somewhere

For just a little while more.

Death Count

In a foreign country,

One monkey with a lacerated limb sits on the ground beneath the rainforest canopy.

He is no longer excited by bananas or other monkeys that poke and prod and tease him.

Two scarlet orbs glaze over as he begins to ooze mucus and congeal blood from his other orifices.

Three very curious monkeys climb down the tree to investigate, but after seeing their dead friend, run back up to tell four more monkeys.

Five weeks later,

A team of six men in orange biohazard suits arrive,

to investigate seven groups of dead monkeys.

After eight hours on a plane and nine hours of sleep,

Ten monkeys are brought back in quarantined cargo containers.

Eleven scientists and military personnel spend twelve frantic hours in the operating room.

As lucky as the number thirteen, the virus turns out to be hot.

Fourteen calls are made to the White House, the CDC, Fort Detrick, etcetera.

Fifteen news stations find out; sixteen counties in the Virginia/Maryland/DC area are immediately alarmed.

Seventeen safety procedures are drafted; but

in a foreign country,

the death toll rises,

wipes out the total population of one species of monkey,

and goes into hiding

for eighteen years.

Internet Stalker

I’ve hacked computers for as long as I know,

And this time it was a Windows 95 that took the blow.

It belonged to a girl I had met three weeks back,

We had met in Photoshop class; I had showed her my Mac.

I only chatted with her briefly, one day at school,

But that was enough to make me drool.

Unfortunately, she moved away during the semester,

Because her Dad was switching jobs as a corporate investor.

Despite her move, I knew I’d be able to find her on the net,

Hardly anyone else had the name Yvette.

Plus, it is so easy to trace,

Such a bombshell on My Space.

Southern Comfort

Polished belt buckles and boots,
Collared shirts and floral skirts;
Hell, even the preacher had a new cowboy hat.

I saw her step onto the longest aisle.
Red bouquet to match her Chevy.
Magnificent; just like the night we met.

I saw her there swinging on the rodeo gate.
Tossing her long curly hair back.
Waving that bright red ten gallon hat
Makin’ such a hoot an’ hollerin’.

I knew she was meant to be mine.

I walked on over to her, trying to contain my nervousness.
Put my boot up on the fence, crossed my arms on the top rung and said the only thing I could think of.

“Well hi thar' purty lady.”

Her smile could have lit a firecracker.
My heart sputtered like a chainsaw on the first pull.

The music began. All eyes were on her.
That aisle would never end.

Eight months of NASCAR races, bull ridin’, comparin, pick ups and gun collections.
Our love was like fried chicken; good every night but especially with a cold beer.

I’ll never forget our first date. Those cows didn’t know what hit em’.
The look on her face when that farmer fired his gun was just perfect.

I proposed at the Daytona 500.
Nothin’ says romancin’ like havin’ “Loretta…Will You Marry Me” flash across the
Jumbo Tron in letters bigger than a John Deer tractor.

Her smile was sweeter than any tea north or south of the Mason Dixon.


By God, people ask me if that was the best county fair of my life. Well, I say...

I do.