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That last summer
which we greatly enjoyed
feels like the last century,

The mind of man employs distractions
conjures up attractions
to take our minds off the time that it takes
to put on the brakes and remind us
that summer is behind us and autumn falls due.

but it cannot see that Eliot's Starnbergersee
is an illusion, and Marie could be you passsing
by me with a smile on your face
Sat there in a cafe
having coffee
because they only had
English Breakfast tea
and
it's fifteen before three

the coffee came cold
or I forgot it was there
because I'm getting old
and
I'm not sure I care anymore.

Poor me
I really wanted a tea
Assam or Lapsang
or at a push PG
Tips.
I never got to where I am
I was
never seemingly quite
that man
who meant to be
the man
you
supposed me to be
I blame Alan Sugar.
there was a boy(unbuttoned spine: tin)
             who sang bullets through teeth,        
             cough-stitched into boots—                      
             (mother would’ve                never                
                            known him in pieces)    

& you—  
             mustard! you crawling  
                    godless     yellowing yawn-    
             (you churchless warlock vapor  
             shuffling up his gullet  
                         like a borrowed hymn)        

he——  
             (let’s name him no one)              
             swallowed lungs like spoiled pears,      
             vines of cough wrapped around      
                                 his windpipe’s piano      
             & the keys stopped—one by one—        

click

     the music changed  

                                    —not into silence—    
             but into smoke  
                       a wordless opera:  
                 gasp.gasp.gasp.gone    

his eyes were  
             paperboats  
                       folding inward  

& the dirt applauded softly  
       in clouds of not-quiet  
          (a whistle wheezing past his ear)  
                 sergeant said: “keep walking”  
               but his knees said: “no more poems.”    

         (there are no metaphors in hell, just  
                 uniforms  
                         without skin)

:he dreamt once of  
                             lemons
     & a girl who     never      existed, probably—

he tried  
             to say goodbye  
    but found only  
               ash vowels &  
                        consonants with no  
                               consonance  

    (what’s the word for a throat  
               forgetting how to  
                            be?)    

his body un-wrote itself backwards      
             while the war kept  
                          typing    

                                      click
                        
                                            click
                                
             .                                                                                                                                              

             .                                                                                                                                

             .    

& the smoke  
             did not apologize.
Don't worry
it's only with my blood
that I'm crying.

Sunset and my sight is reddened.

There's a canyon in the badlands and
It's Montana that takes hold of my hands
to lead me in deeper.

Only in America
thank the Lord
for small mercies.
It's just the same
but different
and it's a game
we all play.

Individual
invisible
occasionally irascible
but mostly
amenable.

Count to five
hold your breath
another ten
and ten more
then another
smother yourself in the feeling
until your mind is reeling
and exhale.

it's a game, and we're the same
all testing boundaries.

Sunday night  and it might be Monday
tomorrow might be that other day
that we read about.
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