Poetry By Jason Youngclaus

Formulanone CC




My Kind of Guy
 
Just as the silhouette is defined 
by the light it blocks,
and the still frame
by the cut;
so are the memories that remain 
distilled 
by those that escape--

For me, it came at the Concord Auto Auction
in a six degree freeze
during a morning trudge 
through jump-starting shitboxes--
from the fervent tongue of a 5’4” Korean War Vet
(with the hat to match) 
—to the crisp, concrete slam of a sliding van door: 
“My Kind of Guy!” 

My kind of guy he wasn’t, exactly, but--

Whenever I see a poet read final lines 
with an easy grace I think:
My Kind of Guy. 

Or if I see some kid wait a good seven seconds
to hold open an exit door for an old couple:
My Kind of Guy.

Or watch someone dissent from prevailing wisdom
and lay their working neck on a conference room table:
My Kind of Guy.

Or watch a weekend golfer stick it close
on a par 3, after a three-putt double bogey
on the previous hole:
My Kind of Guy.

Or watch a comic swim into the awkward
silence of a room she’s half conquered:
My Kind of Guy. 

Or see a waitress who somehow finds a smile
as she nails every accent 
on the specials menu at the diner:
My Kind of Guy. 

Or note a mother in the bedding aisle at Target
who wants to slap her son upside the head 
for being a jackass, but instead
shows him the way:
My Kind of Guy. 

So that little dude, someday--
might slam shut a van door
in the ears of everyone around him, 
who’d rather he walk on eggshells. 
Not everyone’s guy, exactly, but--
My Kind of Guy. 





The Big Difference

Between Tom Waits original
   version of Downtown Train
 and Rod Stewart’s 
                                       is 

Rod’s train arrived clean 
  shaven out of a factory
shined by men who live in 
                                               motels
                   
Tom’s is colored with insurgent 
     graffiti that swells like bent
guitar notes played by a monk with
                                                                   moxie

Tom’s train rattles open
    and shut like the eyelids of someone
with their head cocked—dead tired to
                                                                3 o’clock 
                                        
In Tom’s version they’ll both act like  
    they don’t know each other
despite the obvious impossible 
                                                            fire

That is still lingering in the ether
   and that unless by some act of defiance
one of them stands up 
                                                 like

They’re willing to walk through
   a bayonet charge, or even just
a slim thicket of doubt in the
                                                         mind

And pick up that shiny new dime 
  there to remind them that
the possibility of the miracle still
                                                                      exists…

Rod sings it to make people feel good
  like Gorgias, and that’s cool 
—if you say so
but Tom sings it more like
                                                Socrates. 

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Jason Youngclaus is the author of the poetry collection Little Planet Raisins (Spartan Press, 2020). His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cathexis Northwest Press, Pictura Journal, JMWW Literary Journal, and Jerry Jazz Musician, among others, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. You can find him on Instagram @jyc_music_lyrics.