Every calm that has ever birthed
an epiphany for you was really
sheer ******* chaos you were
too blind to notice.

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

believing it was something
like a nice early 20th century
restaurant is convenient
now that i’m trying to write
about where “I” was before
the doctors forced me back
into my body the other day
at the hospital.

the clink of silver on porcelain
becoming the relentless beeping
of an ECG is imagery that does
all the heavy lifting.

of course, dissociation does come
easy to my generation.

we all do not wear watches either.

only more problems, right?

In the past I would pride myself
on resiling as stylishly as possible.

That Most-High hope climb
choked and died and now I'm here.

No idea why though.

Fossils pulled from the cold cold earth,
their dimensions
meticulously documented,
are locked in filing cabinets
some place way too eager to become the past.

Of course I know now though.
Damage done.

I don't write poetry.

I spill Paul Masson and Pepsi
out of styrofoam cups
on the floors of every theater
within walking distance.

Later, I call it heresy
and start the walk all over again.

But I really don't write poetry.

I fall deeper as I
watch her yawn in the sun.

There better be a fountain
made in her likeness
at the center of all this.