It has occurred to me<\/p>\n
that I’ve written more poems<\/p>\n
in a probation office<\/p>\n
than any other American poet.<\/p>\n
Did I just call myself a poet?<\/p>\n
First time for that.<\/p>\n
First time for everything<\/p>\n
in a probation office.<\/p>\n
Why does the probation office<\/p>\n
compel the poem<\/p>\n
and not the essay or editorial?<\/p>\n
The screenplay or short story?<\/p>\n
I think it’s because<\/p>\n
I can’t help notice<\/p>\n
the staccato of nothingness<\/p>\n
that happens in the room.<\/p>\n
I wrote another poem this morning:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Probation Office 8-28-17<\/strong><\/p>\n The air conditioner conditions<\/p>\n The Coke machine hums<\/p>\n The gray carpet carpets.<\/p>\n I sit down next to a man.<\/p>\n He says:<\/p>\n \u201cI went to jail for three days,<\/p>\n for drinking on my birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n That’s a country song right there.<\/p>\n I am surrounded by country songs in here.<\/p>\n Am I one?<\/p>\n We wait, Waiting For The Man.<\/p>\n That is not a country song.<\/p>\n A young woman walks in<\/p>\n wearing a bra and jean shorts.<\/p>\n \u201cBubba\u201d is tattooed on her right thigh.<\/p>\n She sits down and fills out forms.<\/p>\n The man brings up the Green River killer.<\/p>\n The Green River killer!<\/i><\/p>\n I make a note of it.<\/p>\n He just gave me a great tip<\/p>\n for my new detective novel!<\/p>\n I tell him that.<\/p>\n He shakes with joy.<\/p>\n He reads the newspaper,<\/p>\n the police log.<\/p>\n There he is.<\/p>\n He gives a little laugh.<\/p>\n (If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It has occurred to me that I’ve written more poems in a probation office than any other American poet. Did I just call myself a poet? First time for that. First time for everything in a probation office. Why does the probation office compel the poem and not the essay or editorial? The screenplay or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[333,88,253,332],"class_list":["post-3132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","tag-green-river-killer","tag-poetry","tag-probation","tag-probation-office","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3134,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3132\/revisions\/3134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}