You-Know-Whats... All Alone in the Moonlight...

I wrote this ten years ago on Spring Break - me and another guy rode in my friend Sam's Ford Windstar.  We unloaded at Sam's parent's place in Destin, Florida and went out to get some coffee at about the only place in town that seemed open. We came out a few hours later to find that a palm tree branch had obscured the "No Parking, Offenders Will Be Towed" sign and the Windstar was nowhere to be found. Sam's dad had to come pick us up. That was a priceless moment.

As I recall, the next day Janet Reno ordered the FBI to take Elian Gonzalez into custody and return him to Cuba. Alright, now I feel old.

Good Friday. 2000. Sitting in the Java Pit.

Matt Quarterman

Two Catholic boys count down hours of Lent
as Tom Petty mumbles and the X-Men tousle. 
Marlene Dietrich cozies up to Sachmo or Kurt Russell.
The three of us ignore her, and ask what the magazine meant.

Pool balls rub shoulders, "Pardon," gallantly tip their hats
to the flow of conversation on getting laid from the bar.
The back-room band covers versions of anthems on girls and cars.
My friends discuss new movies like the other hep cats.

I discuss a little religion, politics, conspiracies with a stranger.
Our eyes water in the smoke, but I relax in my blue jeans
and silently say a prayer to the hovering Unseen
because I love us sub-intellectuals and raspy singers.

And because between Han Solo, the Stooges, Miami Vice
is a portrait of the suffering, crucified Christ. 




I wrote this tonight after realizing it had been a decade since the above.

Good Friday. 2010. Trabant Coffee & Chai.

Matt Quarterman

Oh yes, now I remember. Years ago
(ten to be exact) I wound up here:
a notebook and a dirty coffee shop,
a pen just like this - same blue, same fine point,


the Lenten hours tick down and then they stop.
Of course I've aged, but I don't think they did:
the ink, the paper, coffee grinding loud
and strangers' conversations I don't join.


And he's still in the background somewhere here,
though now I'm writing from the other coast.
I think I hear him breathing down my neck
in exhalations of the Holy Ghost.


I long ago stopped looking everywhere
for God, but now I wish he'd break his stare.