Relief of My Symptoms
49 poems about family, Batman, baseball, depression, America, and other timeless subjects.
The Curse
Turn on the tea and let it brew -Michael Hurley
My best friend was a large man who would often shake with laughter, like a washing machine that loved you. One day, after telling him a joke about two dogs caught in a lightning storm, he shook so hard his heart stopped. I was drinking a cup of tea. I remember the tea burned my tongue quite badly, and I was upset - with myself, but mostly with the tea. I cursed the day we ever crossed paths, the tea and I. At his funeral, I got up and told the joke. Everyone’s tears of sadness got mixed up with their tears of laughter. Blood and milk. It’s funny because it’s true. The dogs always come back, but they’re never the same.
Pipes
Yesterday, Tony Paranoia pulled me aside and said he was thinking about taking up the uilleann pipes. I said “Well, T, I think uilleann pipes are sort of a life’s project. Not just like picking up the ukulele and learning the chords to Rocky Raccoon.”
He looked at me like I was nuts.
“Rocky Raccoon? It’s from the White Album. Remember the White Album?”
But it was too late. He was already wandering the green fields of Sligo. His hands were ascending. His body was music. I rested my head on a Gideons bible and said, “How could you do this to me, T?”
Inheritance
A woman and her two dogs were standing at the gate to a ranch in Texas. They had been walking all day. It was hot. The voice of dehydration said “a truck is coming this way.” A truck was coming that way, from inside the ranch. The dogs saw some wild pigs and took off after them. She was relieved. The pigs would put the fear of God into them. Dogs need religion. She wished she had the time. The truck was getting closer. It was red. It slowed down for a roadrunner. The roadrunner paused and looked up at the sky. The woman looked up at the sky. Then the truck disappeared, like a ghost walking into a wall. She whistled for the dogs, and their new holy friends, the pigs.
