Paul Dickey


Inviting Albert Einstein to My 13-Year Old’s Birthday 


He said he would try to come, 
although as being dead, 
could problem a schedule.  
I explained to him 
how to get to the house, 
you’ll need to curve, 
left after the intersection 
where it appears 
the street goes straight. 
The party’s time seemed 
little concern to him. 

I told Monica I had a special guest 
for her party, and it was Einstein. 
She could study with him 
and get a scholarship someday. 
She said Petey’s dog Einstein 
was not special, and besides 
he always makes an “atomic” mess.
“Dad, I would prefer a boy 
from the high school, even if he 
plays in the nerdy marching band.” 
I said no, the real Einstein.



The Riddle


He sells it to you as an antique. 
On the streets, it goes for new.

In time, you will claim to have 
had it always. You just forget.

Some come back for refunds 
for love even if it doesn't work.

Others don't take the time, 
write it off on their taxes,

consolidate gains and losses. 
It is expensive, but you might 

buy it at the first store 
selling your brand.

You will find a way to finance it, 
even if you don't want it.

If only you had the time to look, 
it might be cheaper somewhere else. 



Will My Life Support a Spouse?


The sixty-cycle hum in the stereo 
begins at the lips.
Someone might mistake it for love.
Who knows where it all will end? 
Every Saturday night, I carry out 
a bottle-in-a brown paper. bag. 
Sunday morning, a penitent hymnal
lumbers through a stained glass window. 

But I can't help it if I'm lucky.
I tell her, I am not God. 
She herself says is much, 
will marry me anyway. 
She is intelligent, from a good 
family, has health records.
We kiss under the rainbow 
of the sixteen billion hamburger sale.
                                                                      
After being single,
it will be difficult to compromise.
Dear, I smoke cigars.
Lips taste like wine to me.
I live sometimes to excess. 
Consider: What do we know 
of our life blood, flowing

The ABC’s


All my awful life, I admit I have admired and am affectionately in awe of Bonnie from Botany class, as I am with Carolyn from Chemistry. And all times, I am abandoned and alone. I even said to Alex that attractive ladies are audacious and awesome. Yet as I allowed to myself alone this afternoon, I could not have advanced any arrangement with either. It would have been altogether absurd. Bonnie is a Baptist and Carolyn is a Catholic. Bonnie, who is boisterous and bosomy, became in her best years, a rabid baseball fan. Being from the Bronx, she always was a booster of the Bombers. Her voice booms from above the bleachers and broadcasts through the boroughs. Her best friend is a beer vendor, a beloved boob they still call Babe. On the other hand, Carolyn, whom I recall had the cutest and classiest ass in the class but all she cared for was her conservative but comfortable home in Chelsea, her clutter, her cutlery and her cats, and going on vacation each year in the Carolina’s. Before Mom achieved advanced Alzheimer’s, she asked me once why hadn’t I been able to just choose between them, once and for all, and atrophy as an artist all my life, an advantageous and auspicious life that now was absolutely, absolutely … (she couldn’t think of the word.) Your father, God rest his atheist soul, she would screech angrily at me. He always affirmed to her that she was the apple of his eye, even when at times he was an asshole. And I, she added, also was asinine and arrogant. And afterwards, she’d announce how I am an absolute aardvark.


Paul Dickey's new book, Anti-Realism in Shadows at Suppertime, came out in the last few months of last year. His poetry and flash have appeared in Plume, Verse Daily, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, Southern Poetry Review, Potomac Review, Pleaides, 32Poems, Bellevue Literary Review, and Crab Orchard Review, among other online and print publications.

More info is available at the author's new website: https://pauldickey9.wix.com/paul-dickey

 
 

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