I wish heartbreak was fatal
like a gunshot
or puffer fish.
I wish a doctor would enter the room
and say, ‘I’m sorry, you were
too sad for too long. There’s nothing we can do. You’ve got six weeks.”
Shit, Doc, I only need a day.
I wish heartbreak killed you
without warning like a drunk driver or
falling piano.
I don’t want this burden, this grief.
It’s a tragedy when everyone lives.
48 days numb and rain 3 days,
my car’s small tires slurp through puddled soup.
radios have no news for me.
it’s cold, then not, then cold
as the weather moves furniture.
shaved monkeys ruin every corner of the gym.
weights in my hands lift themselves, counterbalanced by the crush-weight of life.
food tastes like dead fat.
angry shampoo burns my eyes.
my hair keeps getting longer
but not from growth: my brain lowers it dead down the tower of my head
to make its escape.
Richard Brautigan brought a gun to The End.
one day he’ll be dead as long as he was alive.
one day I’ll have lived without you
the exact number of days I knew you.
For 7 days a Band-Aid covers a minor scrape on my right elbow.
I’m afraid to remove it, afraid to find the wound
healed.
tired of torn tickets
sneak previews
waiting for others’ suffering to catch up.
words can’t bridge the gap.
I should be asleep
but sleep means the end of freedom and
sticking out my chin for the
fist of another day.
trying to skip
to the end of suffering
is like trying to commit suicide
with a slingshot.
I just shouldn’t be here no more
grammar
be
damned.
broken over the knees of phantoms
bleeding resentment
angry at what can’t be changed
angrier at what can,
not giving a fuck or taking one
hearts afloat in bitterness
like sponges at a high school car wash
raising funds for the funeral of hope.
they don’t want to hear it
they already know it
they’re eating themselves
with needless rage,
fine,
except they always
chew so loudly.
“There’s nothing to write,” he said,
sounding like
a teenager scanning the cupboard for snacks.
And it’s true,
there’s nothing in here
out there
even over yon where Shakespeare shits quill pens.
nothing.
No inspiration
No motivation
Not even
(wait for it)
masturbation.
There’s nothing to do, write or say.
There are no E-Z snacks
anymore.
You’re finished, all that’s left is to
Die,
bitter that someone else
will get paid to
write about it.
Eh, this one’s
O-K,
solid in places
but
I kind of liked
the first one
better.
I wish this was more like the older piece
and things were like before
when the first piece you’d written was
your latest one.
You know?
guts torn one way then the next
heart slinging blood like hot cards in the alley
you are the fly here
in a spider’s web of crosshairs
as time swings on a chain
as bats dip their wings in splashing blood.
hope runs out like cut rope falling
skin refusing to hold this fury,
bursting like a Styrofoam cup of gasoline
creeping toward flames
as guns empty arguments into meat
as glass breaks over skulls across town.
you wonder are your hands killers
fingers chattering keys, pulling cigs from a pack,
ordinary everyday horrors
the frightened manager asking you to
please leave
as the moon falls into the laughing ocean
as the sun throws knives at blind-folded earth
as this
as that
as is
is
is.
when it goes to shit
you will feel the teeth in each drop of rain
you will see steel shine
as bones filled with blood
break against it,
you will see a flower killed in battle, now floating down the gutter
toward the sewers.
you will think of her and put meat in her memory
but your hand will pass right through her.
you will never keep a movie stub again.
you will look in the mirror and wish for something else
you will see rain in the small frosted window above;
pattering paws
on cold glass
and think, ‘that has nothing to do with me.’
you will quietly put the lesson away
as a wrinkle, scar or gray hair.
you will never keep a movie stub again.
a bone lies stripped on the sidewalk
Match-dot-com
has video ads
that start with the camera (who is “you”)
focused on a woman’s
legs, tits or ass.
When the action starts
you’ve just been “caught” staring.
As the camera moves reluctantly away from the areas of interest
to their faces, the actresses act playfully outraged.
I quite enjoy it until the girl
says, “Look, if you want to get to know me, you’re going to have to talk to me.”
Our relationship goes south after that,
and there’s no way to rewind to the
legs, tits or ass.
Just like the videos
there’s no good or clever way to end this poem,
(if that’s what it is)
a website won’t help
so let’s recall with fondness a few seconds ago when the
legs, tits or ass
were ours,
then move on
to the next love.
19 Apr 07
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