Ode To A Tree

I was sitting in the parking lot of the Ritz trying to write a poem about a tree, some flags, a couple of SUVs, and a few people milling about. Sometimes a couple buses pull in and a baseball team files out. I have been trying to write this poem for years and have gotten pretty close but haven’t been able to close. It’s like driving down a long, well-traveled muddy road. I haven’t given up and that’s something I guess but as I know the truth burns and if this is the best I can do I should quit before someone gets hurt.

I. Busboy

Cigarette

Laughing

Standing

Sidewalk

Seven

Forty

Eight

II. Jet light

Cross

Frozen sky

All night

Nothing moves

III. Red SUV

Under street lamp

Tree

Moon hangs

Mall parking lot

IV. Yellow stumps

Concrete

Block

Loading zone

No one

To

Wait

For

V. A bus pulls in

The Atlanta Braves file out and amble into the lobby

I am reading a stupid book about statutory rape in Mississippi

A pretty girl walks up and asks for a ride downtown

You have cash? I ask

She does

How’s the book? She asks

It’s OK, I say

I take her where she’s going and go back and start over

Tim Hudson and Willie Something Or The Other get in and Hudson asks if I know any good massage parlors

They’re all closed, I say and take them to Bourbon Street, the best strip club in Phoenix

Go back start over

I take Andruw Jones to the Pussy Cat Lounge

He tells me the Braves should have won five World Series

Two would have been good,

I think,

They never should have traded David Justice

VI. Three flags swaying

Under the Ritz

I put down a book

And watch

Two women cross the street