Saturday, November 19, 2022


Spinach for Popeye 


There’s a radio tower seen at night—blinking 

rhythmic red bulbs—for miles in all directions 

above 31st and Main Street in Kansas City, 

and below it one night we all piled out of a bar at 

a break between sets of music by They Might Be Giants. 


We smoked in the alley, the sun wasn’t down yet 

so I looked up into the steel tower and told them, 

these women and men pals of mine, that I could climb it; 

I pointed at the straight up ladder, they looked straight up. 


They didn’t go for it

thought it was the smoke talking 

laughed in a nice way, hugged me in a loving way, 

then went back into the bar for more independent music. 


The sun went down and I began to climb. 

The view got better and clearer, longer and farther, if 

at times colder, sometimes hotter, and I haven’t fallen off yet. 




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