Michael Frissore: Two Poems

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 This Train is for Cockfosters

This is what it said on the train

from Heathrow to the hotel.

Whether this was the last stop

on the train or I was being insulted,

I’m still repeating the phrase

and calling everyone a cockfoster.

A Night in Amsterdam

Three English soccer hooligans

accost us whilst we’re trying

to pick up two American girls

at a live sex show.

They asked for volunteers,

but I had stage fright

(the people running the

sex show, not the hooligans

or the American girls).

The Englishmen follow

us around, shouting,

“Hey, Americans!”

whilst my comrade

tells them to beat it

and I alternate between the

scary, silent type and

the jokester, trying to

keep things lighthearted

so we don’t get trounced

amid this handicapped

tag team match in the waiting,

because you know the

girls don’t have our backs.

Three A.M.,

we stop for French fries,

with ketchup or catsup,

I discuss my comrade’s

shagging chances with

the other American girl,

and a hooligan calls to us,

“Hey, Americans,

your chips are all bloody!”

But that’s how we like ‘em.

In the end we part ways,

three separate factions,

no one gets the girl,

no one takes a punch,

just another night in

the Venice of the North.

Back to our quarters

for what I think will be sleep,

but our friends are waiting,

ready to go out again

to yet another techno club.

It’s Five A.M.,

I resist, but they hand me some

Ecstasy and I take it.

“Now, you have to

go out,” they say.

I don’t think so, but we do,

four more hours in the city.

I try to dance, try to have fun,

the Ecstasy not fully kicked in,

but everything’s blurry,

which could be fatigue,

or claustrophobia,

or social phobia.

All I want is out,

fight or flight,

and I fight for some reason,

standing, pretending to dance,

and thinking I might die here.

When it all ends,

happy, tired, confused,

we get back to our quarters,

it’s Nine A.M.,

I want some breakfast,

I want to sleep,

but what I truly want is you,

somewhere in Columbus, Ohio

or Worcester, Mass.

you are missing me

like I’m missing you

and I wonder

how your evening was.