Grinderman

Taking my wife to her pre-natal appointment this morning

I wonder what it would be like if I weren’t me

but were Nick Cave instead.

“How are you today?” the doctor will ask my wife.

“Good,” my wife will say.

“And how are you?” the doctor will ask me

and I’ll say, “Doctor there’s death out on the plains,

and in the cities are men and women walking who are thinner than shadows,

their souls are lost like flies.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” the doctor will say

as he turns back to my wife, rubs jelly on her stomach,

then places the sensor on the left side

to listen for the baby’s heartbeat.

“Sounds good,” he’ll say.

I’ll brush my pitch black hair away

from my eyes

and stand straight and tall

like the devil’s pitchfork.

“Doctor,” I’ll say, “I am a shell of a man

in this world, which is not of me,

which hovers above me like a bird of prey

at the end of time. Yet I, alone,

am the one who will not abandon you.”

“Thanks,” he’ll answer.

“Doctor, I once knew a woman who got snake eyes

every time she rolled the dice

down on the bayou.

Every time she picked them up it was

Pow Pow POW!”

“That’s a great story, Nick. It’ll make a great motherfucking song,”

he’ll say—that is, if he’s one of those doctors who uses

the word “motherfucker” with his patients

(there aren’t many, and for that I blame society).

Later, when we’re home, my wife will say,

“Nick, could you pick up some pre-natal vitamins at the store?

I just noticed that I’m all out.”

“Sure, babe,” I’ll say,

and I’ll step out of the house wearing the stubble

on my cheeks, black jeans

and a pink Hello Kitty tee shirt,

and I’ll drive down to the store in a ’64 Cadillac convertible,

staring down everyone who looks my way

as I wait for the light to change.

-Jose Padua

The Sound of Joy Is Enlightenment

Every day I am interrupted by art.

Sometimes it’s a reproduction

of Composition II in Red, Blue,

and Yellow on someone’s wall or

“To restore silence is the role of

objects” when I pick up a book

by my desk, flip through the pages,

and start to read. I welcome the inter-

ruption. But sometimes it’s an ad

for plastic surgery in a magazine

or the car that’s closing in behind

me and as the woman who’s staring

madly and passionately straight ahead

drives past I can see that her bumper

sticker says “And the Lamb (Jesus)

Will Crush the Serpent in the Head.”

You don’t need to open the door

to Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas

Cottage to know that the people

inside are assholes and I don’t need

to parse the words pasted on

the woman’s car or research

the biblical sources of her violent

fantasies to know that I want to stay

far behind her on the road.

Real art can heal you or hurt

you but bad art just fucks you up.

I reach for the dial, turn the music

up loud, and rub my eyes to make

sure that I’m really awake and

the world has not ended.

-Jose Padua