Bucket List by Jeremiah Walton
Learn to play harmonica
Drive across the country
Change something.
Go to San Francisco,
New Orleans,
Chicago.
Leave the country.
Mexico or Canada.
Burn more gas & shoes than cigarettes.
Waltz naked in the Merrimack.
Dodge coffins’
closing hinges, creaky
oyster lips sealing.
Ride freight from Manchester to Boston.
Backpack the East coast
without having to pull a knife.
Dodge cops at Pumpkin Fest.
Learn to be humble
not just act it.
Save a life
Save Afghanistan, save Iraq, save sores of shackles from being sore
But Boston, I cannot save you
New York, I cannot save you
You want too badly to be saved.
Kiss a French woman.
Abstain from indulgence for a day
Have a chapbook on City Light’s shelves
Spray paint “dreamer” cross a cop car
Make love with a woman of drunken consequences
but when I wake up and turn to face her
just smile.
Clean out the ghosts in my gutters
I choose them. I choose my problems years ago.
Befriend someone
who needs people more than most.
Not a savior, just people.
I probably will never save anyone’s life
maybe never even leave the country
but
I will never become apathetic.
& I will learn to play the harmonica.
_
From Smile W/ Sparks (of a shotgun shot)