Alone Among the Many
Take a table near the window.
See through it—
although the glare may cut
your eyes in half.
See to it—
that you might eat when they eat.
Listen in—pick up some new jokes.
Don’t skimp on dessert.
It’s fun to watch the trash walk by,
licking their dry and swollen lips.
Observe when to use which fork—
and realize when the time is right
to grab a knife.
Ask for the toilet.
Then walk into the kitchen
hoisting a glass of champagne.
Three toasts and four cheers
for the sad sack hanging over the fryer.
Wipe the grease from his nose,
bandage his burned hands,
and burnt-out brain.
When the rest of your party
decides to join you,
don’t be shy.
Simply pull a chair out
from under the nearest moron.
For it was him!
He who was foolish enough
to ask you for your salt.
Insomniac Blues
A thunderclap,
or possibly just a crash
a few streets over,
and then a hundred dogs go off,
and off,
until quiet returns,
but it’s hard to go back
when disaster has already struck.
Is this all without bearing?
Should I just quiet down?
Will you swear it isn’t so?
You hear that?
It’s those dogs again.
Goodwin Anderson writes poetry because he only has a short while between pulling shots of espresso to finish a long-untouched screenplay, and poems are what come to him while constructing a cappuccino. Someday he might finally, in his lifelong quest, discover the greatest album he's never heard, which he'll tell his friends and loved ones about. Someday he might put his film degree back to good use. But for now he loves writing poetry.
