It Wasn'T Your Birthday Al Poem by Mike Finley

I told Mary, we never know what
goes on in relationships,
the thoughts that swim
in other people's pools.

But we can say that if a person
is crabbing plays in a score book,
that he is likely
interested in the game.

She said, you got that right.
We wrap the years in blankets
of myth, and I am the guy
who stood up to the tear gas!

High-minded, but hardly an elitist.
Down to earth yet fecund like nobody’s
business, the way a fishtail found
on a mountaintop flops.

It goes away with the crack
of the bat, the daze of days
best unremembered, with sons
twisting around me like corn,

and the women who could never
leave me alone,
what part of ‘uh’
is so hard to understand?

They hunted down the alleys of my life,
stung on the feet till I kinda shrugged,
and slumped in the crack
of the La-Z-Boy chair.

It says here the meek will inherit
the earth, but I have options
leaving that in the dust,
I’m talking brute-fisted reign,

benevolent for the most part
but still scary if you aren't accustomed
to flinching, and as we were saying,
we would be the last to know.

Many things are churning
inside of me,
mad spatula patchouli
mambo tutti frutti,

desire in the afternoon,
the moaning for peace,
the lip-biting rage at being misunderstood
and always, I don’t know,

Hey you know I can be
a mean sumbitch with half a mind,
and I promise you, I do –
ask anybody.

Cuz when the last bell sounds
you know where to find me,
in some argument I have
no actual business being in,

but somehow invincible and daftly grinning
because I decided way back not
to listen to what you have to say,
tell me I have vanquished every shame.

Because I am Al,
and I am not one of the puny things,
which have all been considered
more than was considerable.

And the allegory of greatness
is a fist of greasy confetti,
in every cry and hue,
thrown into the air,

and blowing back at you
like a paper sneeze
so back off human muthas
the big man is ambling thru