DOUG PAUL CASE / 3 POEMS

May 22, 2018 / Always Crashing

Inevitable Heat Death

I almost called this BACKSEAT DRIVER POEM

I’m right

I’m not anymore but you still could have gone

This is why we’re never moving to Los Angeles

This is why you wear sunglasses in the car

Never taking them off would make it easier

Never taking anything off would be inconvenient

Of course

Of course the stars don’t look the same when you’re naked in the pool with him

How high a fence can you jump

There are clouds then there aren’t then there are again

The moon between like an eye

In the future this is where we will have been

Will we remember to put this in our memoirs

Will they both get published

I hope it’s yours and not mine

No really

You’ve worked really hard

Settling Is Natural

Okay orange juice you got me

You can’t escape packaging telling you shit you already know

Never mind my confusing everything for dating advice these days

Never mind having no reason to need it

If this were a play I’d write, [heavy sigh]

My favorite orange juice has mango mixed in

Somehow it tastes better when it’s on sale

Yesterday I went to the grocery

It wasn’t

I had to use the restroom so I did

There was an empty single shot bottle of Three Olives vodka sitting on the urinal

I thought, hey what a party

I took a picture of it with my iPhone

I thought, maybe this would work in a poem

I thought, good thing no one can see me taking pictures at the urinal

Then I realized there was a guy in the stall because he said, nice shoes

Which was weird but also correct

They’re my red and black checked Vans slip-ons

I like to wear them with skinny jeans and my oversized gray sweatshirt

There’s a tiger on it

I think it looks cute

Which is apparently something I’m still concerned about at age twenty-seven

I said thanks

I zipped up

When I got home I thought about writing a missed connection

I didn’t

This was probably the right decision because I couldn’t get a good look at him through the crack in the door

He could’ve been anyone

And his shoes weren’t that interesting

And he totally saw me trying to look at him

And only now am I realizing what a bad idea that was

And anyway who knows maybe he’ll read this someday

Add me on Facebook or something

Ensemble and Selection Effect

I don’t believe in controversial statements

You should have sex with more people

If the song’s hard to dance to pretend you’re in a lava lamp

Who doesn’t love being told what to do with his arms

Someone wrote a book about why we sleep but why

People used to wake up for a few hours at two

What else is there to do but fuck or pray

With a million options let’s always pick love

Only your shadow knows the truth of where you’ve been

The supermoon is enough and also here for good

Doug Paul Case is a photographer and writer based in Bloomington, IN, where he recently received his MFA from Indiana University. He is the author of the 2015 chapbooks Something to Hide My Face In (Seven Kitchens) and College Town (Porkbelly Press). His work has appeared in Hobart, Salt Hill, Voicemail Poems, and The Adroit Journal.

0 Likes