WE HAVE MOVED!!!!

Our whole site has moved. We are still at drunkinamidnightchoir.com, with all the same kinds of great work from a lot of your favorite Choir members, as well as a whole lot of new ones. These archives are 3 years old, and packed with all kinds of great stuff. Feel free to look around and enjoy. If you follow us here, please consider following us there. Thank you for being a loyal Drunk. We hope you like our new digs.

How to Lose a Thing

Forget to care about it.
Let your concern catch hurricane wind
and tumble out of thought—
out of mindfulness.
Leave mindfulness to mold and rot.
Leave it lay under piles of dirty dishes,
petty emergencies,
and online notifications.
Become harried and hurried.
Let your keys land where they may.
Let your kisses, hands, and “I love you’s”
land where they may.
Let your bills and wallet land where they may.
You can always find them later.
Right?
If you want to lose something,
lose it thoroughly.
Brush over the steps you take
throughout the day.
Leave no path to retrace—
no chance to figure out how you
got to this point.
Blot out the stars and scramble
your compass.
To lose something is to not
remember the journey.
Is to not remember
how to be found.

Three Poems – Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

 

Your Fucking Tweets

are what I read instead of reading a book, instead of writing
a poem, instead of cooking a meal. Your tweets are the flypaper
I fly into daily. Your tweets are the elevator where all my buttons
are pushed. Your tweets are as subtle as a paper cut, as casual
as a rectal exam, as funny as getting a paper cut while getting
a rectal exam. You are everything I don’t want to be. Your tweets
are a road map to everywhere I don’t want to go. Your tweets
keep happening. I keep hitting refresh and there is always more.
Your tweets.Your fucking tweets. It’s a first world problem,
but you’re a first class douchebag.

A Quiz

1.
Go to where you keep silverware
and pull out all your forks.  Which
was the last one you used
before hearing Michael Brown
had been shot?

2.
How many times
have you washed your sheets
since you first heard the words,
“drone strike?”

3.
True or False:
you have showered
with greater frequency
since September 11, 2001.

4.
a.
How many times
has a single tear
rolled down your cheek
as if in homage to
those icons of your childhood films
who were depicted as
stoic but for that one
brief moment of humanity?
b.
Which eye has served you best
in this regard?
c.
If this has never happened to you,
is it because
you cry such plentiful tears
that there has never been just one?
d.
If this hasn’t happened to you,
is it because you remain
unmoved, even now?

Why the New-Look Warriors Scare Me (And Not in A Good Way)

Consider me like you would an old friend who has watched the Warriors since grade school. I was born and raised in the Bay Area, am based a couple of miles from Oracle Arena, and have followed the team long before Curry or Durant were even college players. Since I was born in 1987, I mostly experienced a turbulent—if not miserable—stretch of fandom. I was too young to follow Run TMC—which was a glimpse of glory for the team in the early 90s before falling into a 12-year slump—so never really experienced any success as a fan. My first season must’ve been around ‘95-96, when I convinced my dad to buy me a #32 Joe Smith jersey. I wore that thing for as long as it fit my growing 5^th grade body. This was back when players like Jordan and Ewing were still in the league, but I was proudly rocking my Warriors gear. The next season, the team switched up to the navy blue thunder uniforms, Antawn Jamison was drafted, and a new era began. I remember this transition vividly, how refreshing the rebranding felt. I also remember when Latrell Sprewell choked PJ Carlisemo in the locker room.

I remember lots of things about my team. For example, without doing a Google search, I can rattle off close to a decade’s worth of Lottery Pick wash ups: guys like Todd Fuller, Chris Porter, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, Ike Diogu, Patrick O’ Bryant, Ekpe Udo; names that were supposed to signify a glorious shift in our team’s reputation from being perennial losers to playoff contenders. It never happened. I grew up literally watching those teams. I recall the years of Adonal Foyle, Vonteego Cummings, Bimbo Coles, Speedy Claxton. I remember Larry Hughes being our go-to scorer. Or, more recently, I can mope about that Monta Ellis trade (still hurts, I admit, even though things worked out for us).

Chicken Thief – Matt Barnett

A few Labor Days ago, some of my union friends insisted that I attend the Cleveland County Democrats Labor Day Picnic held in Andrews Park in Norman, Oklahoma. It cost twenty bucks a plate, and all the money was going toward beating the Republicans in the 2010 election.

“Be sure and be there,” they said.

“We’re going to have a big chicken dinner, with all the fixins, and Jari Askins is going to be there. It’s going to be really great. Don’t miss it,” they said.

They figured Jari Askins stood a good chance to become the first female Governor of Oklahoma. Well, that sounded good to me. Somebody’s got to turn this thing around. So my girlfriend and I piled into the car and headed to the park.

Before 9/11, I worked at this fried chicken place in Seminole County. We all had to wear these pleated blue pants, a Boy Scout belt, a red polo shirt, and a blue snap hat bearing the company’s idiotic cartoon chicken logo. It was humiliating.

From “A Chicken in Every Pot” political ad and rebuttal article in the New York Times, 10/30/1928

“The Republican Party isn’t a “Poor Man’s Party.” Republican prosperity has erased that degrading phrase from our political vocabulary. The Republican Party is equality’s party—opportunity’s party—democracy’s party—the party of national development, not sectional interests—the impartial servant of every State and condition of the Union. Under higher tariff and lower taxation, America has a stabilized output, employment and dividend rates . . . ”

At Andrews Park, high cirrus clouds hovered over a sinking late afternoon sun. Cicadas ratcheted out an end of summer song. Kids chased and screeched around the playground equipment. I saw a few democrats forming a line outside the old pavilion.

Three Poems – JR Mahung

Grindr Troll #20

A Short Film

Two Poems – Jessica Abughattas

 

Jess

Dogs are boys and cats are girls.
No one was looking. I dipped my baby carrots in sugar.
I swam in my pool wearing only underwear.
Girls are not supposed to be shirtless.
I told the girls at pre-school about my older sister and brother.
I don’t have a sister.
At recess time, the swings are my favorite.
My biggest fear is falling.
I found out a way to touch that feels good.
This makes grown ups angry.
Women are really pretty
in my mom’s magazine.
I only dream in the color red.
Circles are girls and squares are boys.
I don’t like to share my crayons because
I love to touch the pointy tips.
The kids color so hard my crayolas return as stubs
Riley said I am too bossy and called me a hippocrip.
I cried and cried.
I had a crush on Riley.