She Doesn’t like the Ramones

by John Rocco

She always has a hangover
bartending the Sunday morning shift
a tough gig
especially because of last night
when she got into a fight in
Hoboken with a girl and she
told me she poured a bottle of beer
on her yelling: “Take this, bitch!”

She knocks back 4 aspirin with a beer
and eats an Almond Joy only for the almonds.

I’m the only customer
in the joint
and if I had guts and talent and ghosts
I’d pull a William Blake
and create a mythology
around her with pounding Angels
and coked-up Devils
but the truth is in the clouds:
She doesn’t like the Ramones
so damn her and all of country music to Hell.

She spends too much
time moving beer boxes
and looking at the clock
telling me I’m not wanted
because some guy is coming
over to give her notes from class
I know she’ll never read even
if they existed. I forgive her
because she doesn’t really know
the Ramones how I saw them
17 times, the best time the first time
in Flushing Meadows Park in the middle of the
day when I was working for a camp
the sphere of the Earth from the ‘69
World’s Fair hanging over us
arts and crafts still on our hands.

They played 12 songs in 20 minutes
me and the kids growing up real fast.
She doesn’t know this and doesn’t know
that Joey and Johnny
didn’t talk for years
over a woman
but they’re both dead now
and probably still not talking.


*John Rocco at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/292819823