Poetry by Everett Baker

now

sitting on cement steps,
cold ass and feet,
I sip bad coffee
smoke home-rolled cigarettes
and smile
with a straight face

everything is as it is
the trees stand as trees,
not stone-crackled pillars.
slight wind moves the leaves,
but it's not music.

the houses are houses, not modest castles
holding everyday king and queens,
not passageways to the unknown
and unseen.

I breath the air
feel it fill my lungs
and vacate them leisurely.

I feel blood pump
through my thighs.

I don't think of memories
or plans—I have neither.
I don't consider emptiness
or satiation—I couldn't.
they have no meaning just now.

there is no sadness this morning,
there is no love,
there's hardly a morning at all.

I take another drag
another sip
I sit



Everett Baker is a dead beat traveling around the country with no plans. He takes solace in a general lack of success by thinking himself a poet.