first love

he called
at 4 in the
morning
crying into
the phone
telling me
she’d left
him and
asking for
my advice.
i told him
to take a
nice hot bath,
clean his
apartment
of all her things,
listen to some
jazz (Miles Davis
if he had any),
take the phone off
the hook, lock
his door, fix himself
something to eat, &
go the fuck
back to bed.

Budget Meeting

I put in a comma
break the 4 lines
into 2 stanzas,
while I talk to my wife
about economics.
I finish it and read
the poem aloud to her.
She looks up at me from
our stack of bills,
and smiles gently.

“That’s very interesting, honey.
And, oh, thanks for reminding
me. I forgot to budget in
the $25 you made this
month from your writing
career.”

————

Doug Draime emerged as a presence in the ‘underground’ literary movement in Los Angeles in the late 1960’s. Most recent books include: “Knox County” (Kendra Steiner Editions) and “Los Angeles Terminal” (Covert Press). Forthcoming are two large collected volumes: “Transmissions From The Underground” (d/e/a/d/b/e/a/t press) and “Farrago Soup” (Coatlism Press). Also, coming out in 2009, “Boulevards of Oblivion” from Tainted Coffee Press. His diverse range of writing continues to appear in publications worldwide. He moved to the foothills of Oregon in 1981, where he still resides.