25¢ One Dollar Tuesdays
Robert Neill ©2000

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In this city of LA where you
can walk sidewalks
paved with stars
and get fresh tacos and
sad stories of failed
celebrity on just about any corner,
image rules rain or sun-
day afternoons and riding
the bus just isn’t cool.

I rode the bus again today
home across Sunset
The whole time watched a roach,
who’d obviously been stepped on,
linger—
Twitching fighting toward his next meal
the discarded Pollo Loco bag on the floor.

Days off are all like this somehow:

There’s a run on dryers
at the goddamn laundramat
in Silverlake;

My clothes are waiting for
fifteen minutes of speed queen dry time,
a spring softener supplemental,
ready for a quarter dollar tumble.

It’s my laundry day.
Fresh spring day.
It’s Taco Tuesday.
Taco Tuesday.

I’ve got two chicken dollar soft tacos.
In a little grease spotty bag
two corn tortillas filled
with chicken & guacamole happiness
gonna set me up
set me up bueno, baby!

Power tacos; taco power;

Taco Tuesday.  Dry the laundry

I need a quarter.
I check my pockets.
Nothing.

It’s four.
I go next door to the 99¢ store parking lot
to pickup up the pennies I
heard hung out there;

You wouldn’t think that I
would meet my future wife
at the parking lot of the 99¢ store—
you’d be right,

but 27¢ and a red bic lighter later
I am ready to dry and burn things;
I am ready to cry ‘I’ll learn to sing—
Taco Tuesday. Taco Tuesday.’;
I am ready to rely on what brings
the power
to me
today—

two dollar soft chicken taco delta tacos
that lay laundra-nestled in paper sack safety
behind the black basket of my clean
wet clothes that sit on the folding table
beneath the free soap sign—‘Jabon gratis’.

It’s time
Taco Tuesday
it is time.

For a Taco Tuesday pick me up
powering my future hours today up
my 4:15 taco fix
My tummy love taco kiss
my tacos, my tacos,
my tacos,
are gone!

When I was 7,
Declared it waffle Wednesday
and while getting juice from the fridge
our misnamed dog, ‘Muffin’,
ate my whole plate of waffles.

At 15—Fish Stick Friday
Cory Callen pulled the fire alarm,
hid under the monitor’s desk, while
we all froze on Wisconsin November
ice slick sidewalks, he, warmin up,
ate, 7 lunches including mine,
by the time ‘All clear’ was declared.

Oh, where oh where
Oh where is the justice?
Should we all just sit down, discuss this?
Where is the power?
My Taco Tuesday two taco power.

Oh god, I am lost, lost and cursed here!
This is the worst Taco Tuesday this year.
Taco Tuesday.
Taco Shakespeare

Versed in King Lear,
‘You may appear to have lost everything, but as long as you can say,
“This is the worst.”;
it is not the worst it can get.’

Taco Bandits, Cory Callens
Waffle Dogs will always be
trying to hog our special days
into their thieving victories.

Through ancient poet
and feisty roach I now see,
there’s worse than losing the
‘Taco’ of your ‘Taco Tuesday’,

Though you’ve been crushed
by the unkind foot of fate,
twitch on, fight, kick on
toward  that pollo loco sanctuary.

For there it is warm and
gentle breezes of cilantro
blow away the harsh monotony
of other days
and all your enemies
and the great taco god sends
the taco saints and angles
to sing among the people,
and it is Taco Tuesday
everyday!