​PAST MY BEDTIME SUITE

PAST MY BEDTIME
 
No apologies.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
Serenade you? I can’t even
          spell ukulele.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
bell broken
          fist pounding
at the dream door.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
copy/paste:
 
PAST MY BEDTIME.
 
*
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
In this poem from my blue
phassssssssszzzzzzzzzze
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
but my daughter on stage
          is dancing.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
and even the moon
          yawns.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
A full drink abandoned
          on the bar.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
Call it lack of ambition
          call a spade a spade
and I will fold with my flush.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
I should know better
          but these days
I know worse.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
and the nightlight
          whispers.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
and the committee
          has yet to take a vote.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
and everyone’s a critic.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
the moving van
          half-full.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
and weeping sounds like fun.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
I wish I had a snake jaw
          that unhinged.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
the barber asleep in his own chair.
 
*
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
My paste-on smile
          peels at the edges.
 
PAST MY BEDTIME
 
Did I tell you the one
          about the moon yet?




Jim Daniels’ latest books, Rowing Inland, Wayne State University Press, and Street Calligraphy, Steel Toe Books, will both be published in 2017. He is the writer/producer of a number of short films, including The End of Blessings, 2015. Daniels is the Thomas Stockham Baker University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.