Whale Watch

I was rather captivated by this pretty long and very meandering poem, Whale Watch. Since I couldn't order his book quick enough (plus we have a mail strike in Canada) I've had to search online for now, and this one is actually not from the book I ordered, but couldn't resist it. Its one of his really really less than cohesive ones, he disperses it w/ random things that you just can't quite figure out why they are there. But also some extremely insightful bits of wisdom and psychology that I'm sure I'll always remember. Like:

When someone across the table has a grain of rice
affixed to his nostril, instead of shouting,
Hey, you got rice hanging off your face!
thereby perturbing the mood
as he speaks of his mother one day in the basement,
brush your nose as he watches
and hidden receptors in the brain
will cause him to brush his own nose
ergo freeing the stupid-looking-making rice.
There is so much to say and shut up about. >> * love love love *

And then it just seems to drag on too long, but as your attn. starts to lag, then bam, he throws in shocking bits about suicide. And then all that meandering and dragging makes the shocking bits just pop and shock that much more, and so it works in the end. Its a very affecting and unique style. Here is one of those sections:

You may never get
what you want and feel like you're already a ghost
and a failed ghost at that, unable to walk through walls.
There will be a purple hat. Ice cream.
You may almost ruin the wedding.
You may try to hang yourself but be saved
by a kid come home early from school
or you may be that kid who'll always remember
his mother that day in the basement,