a poem by Dean Young

Clam Ode

One attempts to be significant on a grand scale
in the knockdown battle of life
but settles.
It is clammy today, meaning wet and gray,
not having a hard, calciniferous shell.
I love the expression "happy as a clam,"
how it imparts buoyant emotion
to a rather, when you get down to it,
nonexpressive creature. In piles of ice
it awaits its doom pretty much the same
as on the ocean floor it awaits
life's bouquet and banquet and sexual joys.
Some barncles we know are eggs dropped from outer space
but clams, who has a clue how they reproduce?
By trading clouds?
The Chinese thought them capable of prolonging life
while clams doubtlessly considered
the Chinese the opposite.
I remember the jawbreakers my dad would buy me
on the wharf at Stone Harbor, New Jersey;
every thirty seconds you'd take out
the one in your mouth
to check what color it turned.
What does this have to do with clams?
A feeling.
States of feeling, unlike the states of the upper midwest,
are difficult to name.
That is why music was invented
which caused a whole new slew of feelings
and is why since,
people have had more feelings than they know what to do with
so you can see it sorta backfired
like a fire extinguisher that turns out to be a flamethrower.
They look alike, don't they?
So if you're buying one be sure
you don't get the other,
the boys in the stockroom are stoners
who wear their pants falling down
and deserve their own Gulliver's Travels island.
The clam however remains calm.
Green is the color of the kelp it rests on
having a helluva wingding calm.
I am going to kill you in butter and white wine
so forgive me, great clam spirit,
join yourself to me through the emissary
of this al dente fettuccine
so I may be as qualmless and happy as you.

absurdities of day to day life.

Yesterday, my roommate, Andrew, alerted me to the fact that there was some dog shit on his balcony. I thought, that's odd...why would Luna  choose his balcony to go? I was home all day--she would have just let me know she had to go in her normal fashion. Or if anything, she would have gone up to the roof.

As it turns out, there is a bag of shit hanging in the tree over Andrew's balcony. What does this mean? Someone took the effort to throw it up there from the street, wtf. The real question is, WHY? Someone trying to mess with the foreigners? Hmm.

And I thought I was Bohemian.

Twenty-six days in Buenos Aires to go. I wish I could say the way I phrased that is misleading, but it’s not. Slashing the calendar with fat sharpie X’s isn’t what I actually do, but there is something like that going on in my head. During the sweaty, humid hours of the afternoon, I can often be found mentally packing my suitcases, deciding which books to sell to the local English bookstore, which clothes I cannot possibly bear to wear for another summer and will leave in a bag on the curb for the cartoneros to discover, with more dueling excitement and fear than I can handle about restarting my life yet again.

Almost out of money, I think that while I hang out in Milwaukee for a month or two before moving to Portland, I inevitably need a job. Maybe I’ll find a job serving somewhere in the suburbs, or delivering pizza for six weeks. Is it worth the hassle of training and finding a job for such a short period of time? Yes. Aside from money, I’m also bored out of my mind. There is only so much reading and writing a person can do in a day, every day. I don’t think I can take it anymore.  The life that I want to lead outside of writing, full of hanging out with friends and thrift shopping and whatever I want to do at any given time requires not only a respectable bank account, but some contrast. My life as all play and no work has kind of dulled my edges. I want to work seven days a week eight hours a day at some shitty job for awhile until I can fully appreciate time off again. Sheesh. Buenos Aires has done me right on several accounts (great tan, a little self-discovery, writing time, inspiration, good old overall life experience)but now I’m ready to move on. More than ready.

As it turns out, I’m sick of restarting my life. I just want to live in a place and stay there. I want some stability, a car, a dog park for Luna to chase squirrels, a comfortable bed, maybe an internship at a local literary journal on top of the job I plan to have, be it teaching for 13 weeks at a summer reading institute or serving at a posh sushi restaurant.  

En route to all that, I even get some more quality time with my family, which I felt was cut off right when I started to get to know all of them again. I know I shouldn’t be counting down the days left in South America, because who knows when I will be back.   I’m not counting them down, exactly, but I can’t wait to go home.