Andrew Shields as a Human Bench, as a Witness to a Tom Waits' Homicide, and as Thunder in the Sun

Bench

Most of the time, nobody sits on me
or even notices I'm offering
everyone a chance to take a break
on their way from someplace to someplace.

I'm used to it by now. I take what comes:
two teenagers who scratch their names on my back.
An overweight old man with a tiny dog.
A Dad who sits to watch his children playing

in the cul de sac. The sunshine of
the early spring that warmed my slats last week.
And now more snow than I have ever had
weighing me down after a late-winter storm.

Like everyone else, it, too, will leave me soon.
Even that Dad has stopped coming by for a rest,
his children now older and playing other games.
Like I said, I'm used to it by now.
 
I Dreamed Tom Waits Killed His Brother

accompanied by
a walking bass
and a little high hat

Took him out in a canoe to the lake's center
and there under the full moon
offered him the choice of death
or murder and in the drowning
shooting knifing or strangling
one of them died and the other
the other rowed back to shore
climbed in the car but the keys
were at the bottom of the lake
he had to hotwire the car which
fortunately he knew how to do

and while he was driving home
a cop pulled him over for going
a bit too fast down the road
cop didn't like the look of this guy
noticed he didn't have any keys
took him out of the car and cuffed him
he's doing time for stealing his own car
after killing his brother

but nobody ever found out about this
until I had this dream one night
wrote it down Tom Waits
killed his brother and is doing time
for stealing his own car
stealing his own car
stealing his own car
 
Thunder

The thunder rolls from clouds on the horizon,
although the sky above is hazy blue.
No rain is falling, but the wind is rising;
the leaves are talking, but not to me and you.

Let's sit down and listen to the thunder.
We cannot see the lightning for the sun.
But now a flash begins to make me wonder
whether we'll be dry when this is done.

Let's leave the yard and make our way inside.
The weather's good to watch behind the glass.
The branches sure are bending in this gale!
Twigs and leaves are blowing across the grass.
Pity those without a place to hide
from the torrent and the pounding of the hail!


Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His collection of poems "Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong" was published by Eyewear in 2015. His band Human Shields released the album "Somebody's Hometown" in 2015 and the EP "Défense de jouer" in 2016.

Twitter: @ShieldsAndrew
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrewshieldspoems/