If you can’t handle me when I’m wearing my Van Halen T-shirt, you don’t deserve me when I’m wearing my other Van Halen T-shirt.

If you were there that night at McSwink’s,

when I proclaimed, ‘As God is my witness,

I’ll never mix Sprite and brandy again!’

you may want to skip over this poem.

You may want to accept as blanket

the apologies I offer to those

I mocked for their weaved-leather belts

and dubbed the Weaved-Leather Belt Circle.

The WLBC was nice to me

and, into Lassie, I was glad enough

to lecture about Lassie at McSwink’s,

reading poems I thought Lassie would like.

At some point, you realize validation

is just some toothless editor saying,

‘Looks like somebody special’s going to find

a World War One helmet in their stocking!’