Running for Office-Gabriel Ricard
Running for Office
By Gabriel Ricard
Under the blood moon lights,
I’m stumbling and stuttering
about some of the things
that seemed a lot funnier
when I was working them out
in my head a couple of hours ago.
I’m trying to talk about the way
people have been misspelling
my name for the last twenty years,
and someone tells me to talk
about something that’s actually funny.
I’m trying to get through a bit
about traveling from San Francisco
to Virginia on Greyhound’s
Highway to Hell vibe,
and a couple of guys at the bar
start screaming with insincere laughter.
I’m hoping to make it through
a few words on why a writer
is essentially a wannabe alcoholic
who hates money and a shadow
in the back starts booing me.
Understand,
it’s only my fifth show.
It’s a feeble attempt at an assumption
people have been saying for awhile.
But I’m still thinking to myself,
as I’m standing there under
the lights that have better things
to do than be as hot as Dallas in August,
that I might be better off taking up
a job that involves living and dying on
the streets of Memphis and entertaining
tourists who are too drunk to know better.
Because even that sounds more
appealing to me than the kind of things
my graduating class has been up to lately.
I’m thinking this though,
as I get off the stage
and walk over to the bar
for a bottle of water.
Because,
as though the night
couldn’t be any better,
I didn’t have any photo I.D.
I order my water,
and a drunk skeleton
with chipped marble features
holds a small dog in her lap
and tells me how sorry she was
that I just wasn’t that funny at all.
Her husband grins
and almost chips a tooth.
I give the 80’s metal outcast
behind the bar two dollars for the water,
then I tell the woman and her dog
that I’m sorry too.
Copyright C 2007 Gabriel Ricard