It used to be Gemini who were my friends. Now I am surrounded by Leos. As life took a different turn the people around me also changed. Leos—the sunny, passionate, positive thinking ones—seem to like the watery Pisces fine. Since the end of July I have been celebrating friends’ birthdays.
We celebrated Sacred Grounds reading host Dan Brady’s sixtieth (actual day is tomorrow) with cake and candle. His bubbly personality certainly livens up the reading. Tonight of all nights he read a poem on turd! For all the hard work he puts in by showing up on Wednesday week after week he gets this poem from me:
Dan Brady is arriving
at the big six-O and diving
into moments of insanity
with a tickle of profanity
Sixty is a tough milestone, my friend. I remember writing this in San Francisco, back about the time we met, when my sixtieth was six months away, but coming on fast.
SONNET FOR MY NEXT BIRTHDAY
I can hear sixty coming, more a fist
in the face than a distant train whistle—
coming, in fact, like sixty, & I fear
that speed. My cracked chassis already creaks,
& my testosterone slow-leaked some time
back, like brake fluid from an Indy car
just before it somersaulted & flat-
lined the wall, half the crowd, & the driver.
I want twenty back, or forty—even
forty acres & a mule, recompense
for the slavery of this sagging skin,
banking fire, slow slide into senseless,
toothless gnawing. I was a bang, but all
I can now croak is this parchment whimper.
29 OCTOBER 2007
GGGGGGGGGGWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!
(friendly Leo growl!…especially since I know your fondness for cats!)