Hard Drive Poems

Hard Drive Poems by Stephen Darjeeling

Hard Drive Haircut

First day out of school Chanute Kansas 1963
Thirteen year old given money
Looks perplexed
Get your haircut on the way home
Make sure you get a buck and a quarters worth
Which meant the military buzz cut where
The Barber makes out like a fat rat
There is some pushback
Because of meeting girls at the movies
It’s Friday night, time to party
No dice, get it buzzed
There is no argument from that point on,

First day of basic training Fort Leonard Wood 1969
How did you want that cut, troop?
Long sideburns, leave some on the top, blocked in back?
No problem as the shears bite into the flesh next to the skull
Blood runs on the temples, boils in the brain
There you go, you look a lot better now
Nose and ears look grotesque, eyes bulge under
Horn rim glasses that look like insect eyes
The drill sergeant in the Smoky hat laughs
Get outside, hambone, get outside, jarhead
There is no argument from that point on

First day back in basecamp Cu Chi Vietnam 1970
Coming back from the boonies
Barbershop is the first stop
Vietnamese barbers practice cultural integration
By working at the P X, humping mortars at night
Holding straight razor to the throat, laughing
Then lightly shaving the sideburns and neck
Captain in the next chair over has his 45 ACP
On his lap, finger in the finger guard just in case
The Barber makes a mistake
Watch out with that razor he tells him
There is no argument from that point on

First day of Summer Olathe Kansas 2011
Leaving work early, Solstice at twelve sixteen
Wondering about who shaves the Barber
In this case, Mary, who checks her computer
Last time you were here was six months ago
Make an appointment for six months from now
Fingers fidget under the Barber’s drape
Silver gray hair falls to the floor.

Hard Drive Memory #69

There are a lot of Highway 69 route signs
Missing in Kansas,
The one on 335th Street disappears
On a regular basis,
I know Pigpen of the Grateful Dead had one
On the wall of his room where he played fiddle,
I asked my friend Marcia C. why the signs disappeared,
She told me the square root of sixty-nine
Is eight something, a cryptic response I thought,
I have a Route 66 sign that I bought as a souvenir,
Perhaps people like the Route 69 signs because
The second six is upside down, I don’t know,
The year 69 (LXIX) (Gregorian) is when St. Peter died,
The number 69 is odd,
It is also “odious” because it has an odd number
Of ones in its binary representation (Wikipedia),
The Arabic number can be rotated and remain the same,
The Messier Object M69 is a globular cluster,
French for sixty nine is soixante neuf,
There are hidden meanings, colloquialisms, naivete
Built into the myth of sixty nine,
Where the highway signs point in opposite directions,
Where when you reach the age of sixty nine
The Age of Aquarius is over,
Let the sun shine in. (1969).

Hard Drive Memory #59

Out on the Bush City Shoestring
Pulling wells with Earl French,
Drenched in crude oil,
Please don’t smoke around me,
My friend Chuck
Painting everything Tin Woodsman silver,
Wide-eyed at the salt water gusher
When the Oklahoma Oil Men came,
Dennis telling us,
“Number 59 is out on the Ware,
Jackhead sticking up in the air,
Watch out for those rattlers, boys,”
So me and Earl drive in a dense fog,
Earl at the wheel of the ’67 flatbed Ford,
Just then hearing a roar behind us
Of his boy’s ’55 Chevy,
Screaming by and disappearing
Into the dream of rural oilfield Kansas,
Earl turns to me and says,
“Kid just went by,” then went back to driving,
Past Gus Weiss’ watermelon patch,
Down through Spotsville,
Across the low water bridge at Keyhole,
Finally getting to the well with the bad valve,
An eight hundred foot long soda straw that
Slurped up the sticky crude,
While we ate our lunch
Playing thirteen point pitch,
Beneath a comic strip thumbtacked to the wall,
A picture of a catapult with little cartoon Roman soldiers
Holding their sides and laughing at the banner
On the end of the catapult arm that said,
“Twang!”
“Give seven,” my partner Chuck says in a fake drawl,
“Moon,” I said, “Layin’ em down here, boys.”

Hard Drive Memory #32

We laid there in the Sun for hours,
Turning over like meat on a spit,
None of us had ever been sunburned,
We were Sun Worshippers,
We were experienced,
The Beach Boys singing “I Get Around,”
On the loudspeaker,
Daddy Jack in charge of the swimming pool,
It was Garnett, Kansas 1968 66032,
We all knew what to do,
I turned to my girl lying next to me, saying,
“Do you think we will ever make physical contact?”
“I thought you’d never get around to it,”
She said dreamily from her leopard skin two-piece,
As she got up, wrapping her beach towel around her,
I sang the song, following her out the door,
Over to the park, then down the railroad tracks,
To Flatiron Curve on the Lake Garnett Grand Prix,
Hearing Van Morrison in the now distance,
“Makin’ love in the green grass,
Behind the Stadium with you,
My brown-eyed girl,”
You, my leopard skin two-piece
Brown-eyed girl and me,
Making it back to the pool,
To lie down in the Sun,
“With aliens from outer space?”
I finished my sentence.

Darjeeling Unlimited Do Nothing Committee

Darjeeling Unlimited Do Nothing Committee


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This is a great opportunity for anyone who is interested to join the Darjeeling Unlimited Do Nothing Committee. The Do Nothing Committee is designed for you to do just that: Nothing. To get started all you have to do is fill out our user friendly offline three page paper application which you must request by mail. While you are patiently waiting for your application you can begin now by crafting a ten page report on why you think you would be a good candidate for the Do Nothing Committee. Please take a few days to reflect on this while you are doing nothing in preparation for being accepted into this highly specialized field of like-minded people such as yourself who prefer to do nothing rather than doing something. Next, create a space for yourself in your own home or office where you can practice doing nothing. Move furniture, go shopping for special items that will help you do nothing and place them in a strategic location in your spatial area. You may want to go to the library and check out some Feng Shui books about creating a positive space. Phone, text, and email all of your friends and see what they think about the fact that you are now doing absolutely nothing. Plant a garden and contemplate doing nothing while you hoe weeds, water the plants, and keep predators away. If you are in Kansas, get a carry and conceal license (with special “Noise Suppression” device rider) so that you can be rest assured that you are totally safe in doing nothing. Contribute to the Do Nothing Donation Fund so that your gift can be used to help us all do nothing. And remember the Do Nothing Motto: It’s really something to be doing nothing.