tenth entry

I had this great quote from the Larry Rivers biography, What Did I Do? (love that title) but I seem to have misplaced the book and it's really starting to irk me. Irk irk irk.

I'm in the new Earshot chapbook, so everybody go to the next Earshot reading (do some detective work and find out about it on your own) and buy the thing, it's awesome, full of good poetry, and for whatever reason my poem is the first in there.

Today's poem's title comes from something Anne Tardos said that I liked.

Here's my poem:

I TRUST THE WATER BUT NOT THE PIPES

Not even the water, really. Where does it come from and what’s living there?
Even the tidiest of reservoirs once had someone fall down the well.
The poem “Lady In Kicking Horse Reservoir” by Richard Hugo comes to mind.
Poems written near reservoirs tend to be happily dropped in them as well.
Written in 1602, Sir Cyrus Farrow’s ‘How to Reservoirize’ was flatly unpopular.
In my glass from the tap today I found fourteen burn-blackened fingers.
My heart rose: finally I could complete my burnt finger sculpture!
Heart is not all a reservoir supervisor needs, but it’s all a plumber needs.
Is a combination of all your fears and hopes sunk beneath the reservoir? Yes.
A thank you should be given to the builders of the hoover dam, but by whom?
Thank your mom, too. Even if she wasn’t Rosie the Riveter she did her part.
Your pipes can’t be cleaned, even by that white furry muppet thing.
Pipes shouldn’t ever be trusted, in the fifties they had communist ties.
Shouldn’t the Bubonic Plague be showing up in our water? I always liked that plague.
The plague should be a red plague in our inflamed organs, but not black.
Plague, unlike gingivitis, exists. Don’t believe animated toothpaste shuckers.
Unlike poems, pipes are actually full of disgusting indescribable things.
Poems about reservoirs are best, pure and clean and with a bit of sun.
About now you want tap water no matter what I said.
Now is when the bubonic boogeymen sneak to clog your throat.