Poetry Issue 1
Jim Daniels
A note from the poetry editor
I’m really pleased to feature the poetry of Jim Daniels in this inaugural issue of Pig in a Poke. Jim’s bio is characteristally modest. For instance, he doesn’t mention that he has won several awards or that his poems have appeared in the Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry anthologies. When I knew Jim back in Pittsburgh, he was a talented guy who loved his wife and playing softball. Judging from our correspondence, I don’t think any of that has changed. Enjoy the poems. I know I did.
World's Largest Pepper Mill
He needed a customized stepladder to pour
the peppercorns in. He needed a hand-tooled
wrench to twist the mill. He needed an assistant
to raise it above the plates of his fellow diners.
He’d always wanted to be a god of some random
thing. No one had certified that his was the largest,
so he certified himself. His wife kept to herself.
Hid in the bathroom during his demonstrations.
She’d loved him for his obsession, but there had
to be more to life than the world’s largest pepper mill.
Somewhere out there was the world’s largest
salt shaker. In the bathroom, she held her head
between her hands
and twisted.
Bragging Rights
After waiting in the long jittery line—
people cutting in front of each other in an end-
less loop of deceit—I posed next to
the world’s largest statue of unhappiness.
She took my picture and handed it to me.
You look natural, she said before
disappearing with my camera
while I waited for development.
I sent her postcards of the giant statue
of unhappiness. I sent her the snow globe
of unhappiness. The shot glass, the thimble,
the spoon of unhappiness. Having a shitty time,
I wrote, but I dotted the i with a heart.
The World's Largest Postcard
held aloft by lost braggarts and lonely travelers
abandoned pets and desperate tour guides with umbrellas
cynical restaurant owners and metaphysical cab drivers
chanting location location location
at the cathedral walls.
The tourists purchase postcards
of the World’s Largest Postcard.
They travel hundreds of miles
to the World’s Largest Pen,
then hundreds more miles
to the World’s Largest Stamp.
Where they purchase postcards.
Dwarfed by their desire
to have a wonderful time,
they visit the world’s smallest
address book. They wait in long lines
at the Having A Wonderful Time Café.
They go home on the Actual Size
tour bus. They exchange addresses
with their fellow travelers.
They send each other postcards.
They live their lives carved
into a single grain of rice.
Impure Thoughts
There’s a time and place for everything
except theoretical sex.
Every time and place is good
for theoretical sex.
Unlike theatrical sex.
Unlike doctoral dissertational sex.
Theoretical sex is making a huge comeback
due to disease and download.
I lost my brain of thought.
It derailed while descending into a lush valley.
Conventional wisdom has nothing to do
with theoretical sex. Just think of boxing
donkeys to make it go away. But why
make it go away? Once, my theoretical undress
was interrupted by a presidential address.
I remember moisture before it had a name
and a long list of misspelled words—
they were never written down.
But I already feel you drifting off
into the gauzy lens of someone else
on stage tapping against the microphone,
asking is this thing on?
Ode to a Wide Brown Belt from 1972
My best friend John’s waist, same as mine.
Some people thought we were brothers.
He had more pimples. We fought and scuffed
and sold each other lame pot and fake downers.
Three metal rods to buckle. I lined them up drunk
after jean-sag sex with Debbie in the BK bathroom.
Working at the beer store, I balanced cases against
its thick buckle and sweat a permanent sag
beneath the back loop of my jeans.
Bought at Hudson’s with his girl Sandy’s discount.
John’s belt, long gone. Busted for dope—
they took it at the station. He didn’t want it back.
He owns a bar now, an honest John.
I might wear it there some day. Order a beer
and see if he spots it in the dim smoky light.
Debbie’s fingers, raw from frying fish nights and weekends.
She sewed me a blue shirt in home ec. and got an A.
I rarely wore it due to yellow buttons. Her fingers
like fish and her hair like fries. I loved her in my
big brown belt. I loved her undoing my
big brown belt. The three clasps jingled when I walked home
from her house late at night dreaming up a story
for the rest of my life.
Now it barely slips through the narrow loops of my pants.
John and I call each other when someone dies.
Belts never last like that one, on discount from Hudson’s,
Sandy smiling at us as if we all knew something together.
We ripped off the tags and strapped them on
and headed out into the world.
Girlfriends. Cool belts.
Jim Daniels’ forthcoming books include Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry, Carnegie Mellon University Press, and From Milltown to Malltown, a collaborative book with photographer Charlee Brodsky and writer Jane McCafferty, Marick Press. He lives in Pittsburgh, near the boyhood homes of Andy Warhol and Dan Marino.
