I Speak Cliche

I Speak Cliché - A Semi-Autobiographical Lie About True Love

Don't come here expecting to learn what true love is.
This is poetry raised on Dr Pepper and real koláče,
the kind your granny made while y'all played farkle
and slammed fingers that cast Czech curses.

This is poetry that fished Lake Palestine
with a man silenced by the ghosts of Korea
and a grandfather who knew more about love
than Greek philosophers and college professors.

This is poetry haunted by the fleeting white doe
my ancestors never quite hit,
and by every love I never quite had.

Most of all,
it's the sound of a 40-year-old East Texas boy with
a graduate degree that hasn't amounted to much,
a dead-end job,
and one last tank of gas
deciding to tell a few lies about true love while he can.

If that sounds like something you need right now, I'd be honored if you bought it. I'm selling the first signed copies myself because I'm flat broke. Every sale keeps the lights on, keeps the poems coming, and keeps me trying again -- consequences be damned.

Thank you for keeping a Texas poet alive.