Piss and Bad Poetry

I step outside to pick up the morning paper.
It’s at the end of the driveway, by the curb.
Damned paper boy always leaves it way out in centerfield.
The hot, textured grain of the cement licks my heels along the way.
My paper is wet.
I scan the driveway; the curb, the entire street is dry.
This was no fucking accident.
The sprinklers don’t go on Sundays.
I pick up the soggy clump of paper by its crisp edges.
There’s a puddle underneath.
A stinky puddle of dog piss.
This is fucking poetic.
Fact is, I live in a puddle of piss.
Don’t get me wrong.
San Clemente has been good to me as a writer.
Ever see one of those dream catchers?
Yeah?
Well, check this out.
Words stick to the fronds of the palm trees,
and if I listen really hard, by the open window to the street,
I can hear voices over the swaying of those fronds.
I know what the dog-walkers think about Mexicans.
I know what they drink, what they smoke, what they whisper to one another.
I know what churches the bastards attend.
They talk that gringo-talk in the middle of the street
while the Mexican gardeners trim their lawns
and the dogs stop resisting
the restraining hand
of their owners constricting their throats.
No sir, this was no fucking accident.
I ain’t seen no stray dogs in this neighborhood.
This community has rules.
It enforces order and restraint.
I flip through the paper.
The Business section is soaked.
So is the Sunday Styles and the Sunday Review.
Somehow The New York Magazine repelled the piss.
Just shows you.
It’s a quality publication.
The neighbors across the street are a bunch of hicks from Kentucky.
A whole bunch of them are crammed into that house.
They never say anything to me,
but I can hear them yelling at each other.
They have a dog.
A big one.
But I don’t think it was him.
They never wake up before 10 a.m. on Sundays.
The Book Review, Sunday Sports, Arts & Leisure.
They’re all wet.
This dog didn’t just lift a leg to sprinkle.
He squatted his ass on the paper.
But like I said, I don’t blame the dog.
I consider trashing the paper,
but I’m not going to let some piss stop me from reading.
So, I spread the pages on the bricks of the backyard patio
and put a rock on top of each section.
Truth is, the piss doesn’t smell so bad.
Maybe it’s grown on me.
Those Kentucky hicks stuck a “Make America Great Again” sign
on their artificial lawn.
Every time I opened the front door, I could see it.
I wanted to walk across the street and snap that damned thing in half.
But I followed the guidelines,
my guidelines.
I take a seat at patio table and open The New York Times Magazine.
Wouldn’t you know it?
There’s nothing interesting to read.
Even the selected poem is for shit.
I hear a dog barking in the distance.
I look over the bugambilia toward the blue horizon.
The front yards of all these homes will have signs
with the names of Republican candidates, come election time.
At the far end of the street,
that white Labrador with a brown circle around its eye
— the one that reminds me of Petey the Pup from The Little Rascals —
is barking at some birds while his owner puffs on a cigar.
It’s that guy who always says the same thing to me:
“Another day in Paradise.”
I unzip my pants,
take a leak on my rosemary bush
and keep an eye on them.
Most of the dog walkers say hello to me when we cross paths.
Some of them even seem like nice people.
I still don’t know what to make of that guy.
Sometimes, his dog approaches me.
The guy keeps a tight leash on his Lab.
Keeps on walking and chomping on his cigar.
“Another day in Paradise.”
Truth is, piss and bad poetry don’t smell so bad when it’s your own,
or for that matter,
when the piss is from a dog you’ve grown fond of over time.
