wind chimes
and chimpanzees
swaying in the same
ebb and flow
while someone’s grandmother
balances a checkbook
and the reader inputs
the writer’s
same-old output
calmly pissing
and whining
line
after line
rattling against ourselves
through that sweet anxiety
of the space between notes
i hear someone
walk through the door
and keep staring
at my drink,
expecting another old man
in the dive bar
so I’m surprised
to see nice legs and a skirt
walk up next to me,
wait patiently
for the bartender on the phone
and when she asks for
whiskey on the rocks,
i feel my imagination run
to the end of its leash
pull,
pull,
but I’m sturdy
going back to my beer.
she downs her whiskey and leaves.
somebody says,
“did you see that girl?
what was she doing here?”
american monotony
yawns another
stretch of sky
for me to
dwell in.
it’s noon
on a saturday.
i’ve had my coffee
and jerked off,
only to put on
Brahms no. 3
and ride the violins
toward my own
horizon.
they say
everybody needs
a hobby.
i just like
being alone.
there is
no normal,
so we’re all
fucked up anyway.
it’s any drunk’s guess
how lost the world is,
and the ones
in big mansions
don’t know any more
than the ones
sleeping in
a doorway.
the student
is as mortal
as the teacher,
the silence
is another song,
and tomorrow
is just another
comparison
to now.
having a cookie
with my coffee
and enduring
the obvious wait
on the rest of my life,
countless hours
fulfilling dull tasks
for money that’s never enough–
open skies with no room
for your soul.
all those bodies
stuffed into the train
and not one mind.
everything going,
going,
going,
and we can’t
say where.
when the booze
starts working
and the stomach
is empty,
as the brain
echoes into
its own image–
i suffer
leopard farts
and greek drama:
persona coming out
another hole
twisted like turd cursive.
i put it
in a frame
and ask you
to hang it
on your bathroom wall.
you don’t want to offend…
may we both
get this shit
over with.
and i have nothing
to look forward to
so i might as well enjoy
this page right now
as the coffee
sits in the cup
as my ass
sits in the chair
i haven’t looked
out the window
because i’m sure
it’s the same bush
waiting for me:
sharp, dry,
and violent against
my getting over it
rooted like the weekdays
the hours and the wages–
it’s there rain or shine
twelve feet out
my back-door
and no escape.
i can’t tell
if i even care
but i suppose
that’s the approach
to writing
unless you want
to try.
no, no,
i know better
than that.
this drink
and this smoke
is all
it has to be.
as the 3am sky
folds in on itself
only to laugh rain
on the already homeless
and horizons line
impossibility
to the length
that we can see,
i’d say this
written accident
has gone
far enough.
i stare
down the center
of the sink
spitting blood,
letting the stomach make up the mind
as to which way
dinner
should go.
i taste the iron.
i am patient
as the body
decides to keep
its contents.
a glass
gets filled with water
and here we are,
words to the page
after a near-accident
that never connected:
business as usual.
