"a small part of me fell in love with your italian girlfriend" by Jim McGowin

Jim McGowin stepped up to the Chance Operations open-mic on October 25.

The next Chance Operations reading will be Monday, November 22, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End. Cover will be $3.00; doors open at 7:30 p.m.

a small part of me fell in love with your italian girlfriend

it's a pending catastrophe
that part of us that exists
in those narrow passages
where no one really ever hopes
to hear their own foot steps.

we can see,
it's so obvious
where the path is well lit
but there is that other at times
inevitable way
which will always serve to entice us
pay heed to our vices
remind us how nice it is...

manifested
in the curve of a neck
the flip of a curl
a shared breath
a cool pair of glasses
tight pants
the old familiar song
pulling toward the rocks
'it's in our nature' i heard you say.

self destruction
in a simple undulation.

maybe some of us have always been doomed
to want to climb
forbidden hights of someplace
stimulating

and by wanting
we are already guilty
of doing,
succumbing,
to that which realistically
should never be achieved
besides in metaphor,
beyond that which is ritualistic
all because of a shade of lipstick.

the potter's clay is not perfect
but it strives to be.
and, so it strives,
but for the kiln.
sometimes the heat is too much.

and sometimes doom is doom
and sometimes love is love
and sometimes the deed
isn't really what we need.

and there the ingress is ignored.

the destination
diverted and rerouted
into something else,
something safer
but maybe not quite as much fun

something like
a poem.

-- Jim McGowan