and I often wonder
why I come back
to you like I do
when all you do
is get up
and leave
me like an
old wet towel
that's gotten
too many
stains and
rips and not
enough
fibers
for you to
use.

they do what they say
and they pick at all two
hundred and six plus bones
until I am left with no poles
to stand firm upon.
No limbs. No cartlidge.
they do what they say and
they alienate me into
a spineless coward.

What's my name?
Take that universal,
that yeah yeah, that
ohm and play it backwards.
I'm that undercurrent,
the invisible force that pushes the hand, that pushes
the red button, that levels seven stories--for?

What's my name?
Take that post-post-modern literature,
that self-serving academia-meets-nihilism,
and think as far opposite, Herculaneum/Uruk,
and you might just find it, my name,
carved in Aramaic or Latin in a dark wet cave,
forgotten, misspelled in a dead language.

What's my name?
Look just past that buffering screen,
right before the pixelated beheading starts.
I'm between the zeroes and ones in that heaven-place,
the Internet, where people go when the final death takes.

What's my name?
Take that ever so subtle airport terminal muzak,
and listen for the counterpoint, the competing rhythm.
It, my name, swirls and mingles with that ever flowing
crowd, weary and reduced to numbered tickets and departure times,
speaking fifty different languages, a flattened and recurring Babel.
Take that ohm, and play it, play it backwards.

We don't speak.

We look into each other's eyes.

We don't nod.

We acknowledge each other's presence with silence and calm swarms along with it.

He fixes his tie and walks away.

We don't speak.

We don't speak.

We don't speak.