Cheer Up, Charlie

from Perfect Sleeping Weather by Larry Fulford

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Scrawled into notebooks from the familiar comforts of temporary homes and the passenger seats of mechanically unsound vehicles adrift on the highways and back roads of America, Perfect Sleeping Weather is fifteen years of thoughts, observations, facts, and fictions hammered into a collection of poetry that, according to one reader, "sounds like a sigh."

In this, his first book, writer/drummer/comedian Larry Fulford reflects on the usual -- life, death, love and leaving -- while still managing to name-check Van Halen. Twice.

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lyrics

A newly adopted dog
chained to a table leg
on the patio of a place where
people go for a thing called brunch,
to read the paper and think about
tomorrow and wear pajama pants.

Let’s just call a spade a spade.

This is your kennel now.
These are your wardens here,
dropping overcooked bacon
next to your warm water bowl and into
an ant bed like they’re doing you a favor.

But it’s better than it was before,
when you couldn’t see the dog next door
and could only hear its whimper.

You have a new name now.
Charlie just wasn’t cutting it.
And not because it reminded one of them
of an abusive stepfather
(his name was Jason),
it just wasn’t Jareth
and the first movie they watched together
was Labyrinth.

The morning paper blows around
and eventually into my leg
like a stray cat weaving in and out,
begging for a read,
but I don’t know where it’s been
or if it’s had its shots
or if anything is fixed.
I doubt that it is.

February sputters toward March
like a hand-me-down Chevy Cavalier.
Like the one I used to drive that I never
thought would ever drive me here.

The government’s a guitar out of tune,
playing us all like the three chord song
we are.

And from the orchestra pit,
Christ takes it all in
on a date with the Devil
and the best seat in the house.