Jim Daniels ~ Three Poems

Body Surfing, Spring Break, 1973 

turned into body slamming
in the dark waves’ sud­den shift,
our young invin­ci­ble swim trunks
near­ly yanked off in the sandy swirl,
and if you knew me then, you’d know
I was stoned, squint­ing, mindless
as a punch-drunk dog slogged by salty
waves in Emerald Isle, NC.

That foam­ing ride twist­ed us, luck flinging
our unscarred bod­ies up, then crashing
them down, and giv­en our addiction
to destruc­tion, that was right up
our watery alley of rip­tide logic.

On our side of the world, igno­rance pulled
our legs out from under us in feigned loss,
momen­tary drown­ing. Fierce, we surged
with lack of super­vi­sion and the reckless
sting of boys alone. No one told us to smile
or took pic­tures. We knew we weren’t

get­ting draft­ed. Our long hair whipped
into sea­weed, we lay stunned on shore,
our heads rolling dizzy with complicated
relief and sim­ple stu­pid­i­ty, bel­lies scraped
raw as we twist­ed the rope of our own
sur­vival. The ocean went on and on

all the way to that war
we’d nev­er have to fight.

 ~ 

Money Woke Me Up This Morning

jolt­ed me out of bed into cold hot
pan­ic. How did it sneak in—door locked,
lights off? Money has a way.
If I knew that way, I’d be rich.

Two-fac­tor authen­ti­ca­tion, and I’m missing
a fac­tor or two. I’ve been on hold for years
wait­ing for Money to express interest.
I car­ry pock­et change for its superstitious

music. Money’s been nurs­ing its coffee,
wait­ing for me to sign off on my false moustache.
I click the undo but­ton, on auto pilot
due to a lack of rosary beads and a rainy-day

fund. Too many rainy days, not enough fund.
My life’s caged in paren­the­ses of neg­a­tive assets.
Nothing stuffed in a pil­low, under a mattress.
No menu but­ton for Worry, nor a human being

who isn’t hum­ming muzak. I shape blankets
into what might pass for a body, imag­in­ing escape,
but Money’s seen this before. It’s singing
a lul­la­by to keep me up all night.

 ~

The Mayor Says That in the Future

he will solve the home­less problem.
At the rib­bon cut­ting for a new development
down­town, he’s check­ing his phone.
He doesn’t live in our neighborhood
beside the riv­er, where if you step
into some­thing that’s just goose poop
it’s a relief. Encampment. Encampment.
Excrement. Encampment. Excrement.

A rat crawls across the river­side trail
in no hur­ry to pull up stakes. I hear they’re
putting in a rat lane instead of a bike lane.
A vol­un­teer places tiny one-sip water bottles
beside each encamp­ment based on the latest
home­less cen­sus. Just count the empties.

A fam­i­ly of geese invades an emp­ty tent.
I’m work­ing on a nurs­ery rhyme about geese
and the home­less. Not many rhymes for
encamp­ment. The may­or stut­ters. He coughs.
He wants to move on. He wants the homeless
to move on. Where? No one can answer,

not the may­or, his oppo­nents, or his cronies.
None of them search for votes on the riv­er trail.
At least the home­less say hel­lo. When they’re not
nod­ding to the crooked rhythm of the lat­est mystery
drug spiced with tragedy pow­der. When they’re not
dying. A per­son ahead of me on the trail gestures
and shouts, warm­ing up to greet me when I approach.

Or maybe I’m invis­i­ble to him like he’s invisible
to the may­or. It’s com­pli­cat­ed seems to have won
the sound bite poll. I don’t under­stand how unhoused
is less offen­sive than home­less, so I shouldn’t be
address­ing the issue. But I live with the issue.

We share the river­front. They have no addresses.
I’d pre­fer nev­er to use the word Homeless again.
Unhoused sounds like the name of a haul­ing company.
What’s the name of that one, College Stud Movers?
Unhoused, the name of a box that is not a Banker’s box.

I imag­ine Lewis and Clark pulling up in their canoe
to dis­cov­er the home­less. Maybe they’ll come up
with a bet­ter term. Something not as offensive
as a sports team name. I have offen­sive ideas:
match­ing jer­seys with Homeless in a flu­id script,
per­son­al­ized graf­fi­ti on the back. Or maybe

just their names. Groan all you want.
No one’s vot­ing for me. When I look toward
the future with my binoc­u­lars constructed
with two small water bot­tles taped together
with duck tape (or geese tape) all I see
are blur­ry fig­ures in the distance.
Maybe a flock of may­ors ready to migrate.

~

Jim Daniels received the Michigan Author Award for 2026–27. Late Invocation for Magic: New and Selected Poems was pub­lished in 2026 by Michigan State University Press. An Ignorance of Trees, non­fic­tion, was recent­ly pub­lished by Cornerstone Press. He lives in Pittsburgh and teach­es in the Alma College low-res­i­den­cy MFA program.