The news came into town like the flu,
rubbing the sleep from the eyes of the people,
Clearing them to see the words in pixels of ink
spelling out what had happened.
Mothers dropped plates,
car brakes screeched,
the cats and dogs
stopped in the middle of their whims,
and the gums got to flappin'
in the hospital-sheened caskets on wheels
where forgotten old folks were left
to feel forgotten.
The collective energy of
all this dude’s friends and family
rose and pushed the clouds in a mushroom,
A rude intrusion into the heavens,
where little old ladies
and blindsided grammar schoolers
had convinced themselves
he was sitting, looking down
in somber remembrances,
happy thoughts,
shared joys,
and all that jazz.
They piled into cars
and trooped to the viewing,
to cry and behold a waxinine figure
with a painted smile.

Then they kicked dirt
into the hole in the ground
and left him to rot.

This bed is a comfort,
Much like the sounds of used water
flowing through ninety-year-old pipess,
Soothing me,
while the sounds of the city
are brooding inside of me,
and it’s the same.

It may be the pinnacle
of 1922, pre-collapse Providence,
but it’s the same.

It may be different,
but it’s just the same,
And that's just the way it is
So I cool this brain that's on the fritz
And do my best to keep sane.

The wallpaper is interactive
and there's an infinitude
of pigeons on a television screen
that is worth more than my apartment,
and it’s still the same.

The rug is soaked just the same,
the lingering odor of feet is the same,
and I can feel all the ghosts of guests
from the last century trying to,
dying to speak to me
and through me,
and it’s the same.

The way the sun rises makes me feel like
I have no cause to be awake or asleep,
but I’m awake,
and it’s the same.

The stress of lost cigarettes,
and the blame of untapped digresses into unnecessary depths
is the same.

The way I’m viewing the start
of this day that hasn't yet
is the same,

and it’s a shame.

You do you and I’ll do me;
but if you do me I’ll do you one better.
I’ll set you free or buy you a sweater
or some other **** I think you’d like.
Maybe I’ll just keep sitting here
on this oversized armchair next to Jer,
and continue wondering
what you are up to,
what you are thinking,
how many blinks you are blinking,
how often your neurons are linking.
I’m thinking,
and I’m thinking,
but still the numbers don't add up.
I'm sinking and shrinking and
I’m getting real fed up
with feeding the schlupp
inside my chest with pinings for you;
for the way you look in my favorite dress,
for the way you find beauty in every mess,
for the way you should be here and not there,
or I the reverse,
but you’re there and I’m here
and it feels like I’m cursed,
like I'm Jesus Christ left in the manger
to die of thirst and exposure.
Im a twenty-year-dead motor struggling to turn over,
or maybe just a dude with a storm in his head
that’s getting steadily older
and rapidly sober,
who's missing a shoulder to press against,
and lacking defense against
A soul that grows perpetually colder.

Follow me,
Shirt-brother,
Rise from ripped,
Yellow faces.
Leave behind
This field of death,
The bloodied grass,
The wind that effaces
The wandering souls
With its chemical breath.
This moment will pass,
As you sink into clouds
Streaked with the traces
Of the brave and the proud.

The images of eyes
Burning like coals
In post-partum skies
Will guide you,
Brother,
As you search for peace
From a life you despised,
From all those wasted years.
When you hit the ceiling,
And dive like rain
Onto a landscape stained
With painted tears,
I'll be in the dirt, kneeling,
With my neck bent back,
Screaming upwards
So you hear first
The only words
That I know will work;

"I told you so,
Brother,
For what it's worth."

There's an atm in my neighborhood
That gives out singles,
Or three of them,
Or seven,
And so on.
It sits next to the drywall box
Filled with EBT dinners,
Next to the numbered gas pumps.
It glows in the predawn air,
While I sit on a cement wall
Across the street.
That hunk of junk charged me $3.75 to take out $7.
Next to me a man tells his inquisitive boy
Why the police act as they do.

"They the cops, man.
Not you."

I'm watching with rapt fascination
The ten inch screen
Of some wheelchair-bound woman's
Educational tablet,
While her hand, twisted by palsy,
Taps at a magnified qwerty pad.
She's playing hangman,
And I silently,
Secretly,
Guess along with her for almost fifteen minutes.
The bus arrives, and I'm grateful
It's the doubled kind with the hinge in the middle,
Cuz maybe I won't have to stand.
I take the empty seat next to
A Salvadoreña co-worker
I sometimes ride in to work with.
Our conversations are limited,
As are her English and my Español.
We laugh at the Georgetown gringitas
lining up with their morning runners' clubs,
And lament over the cabrones pobres
Peddling to strangers for jobs
Outside the big box hardware store
That won't hire them.
The sun rises as we cross the Key bridge,
And the wounded Washington Monument,
With its scaffolding and the floodlights leaking through,
Is a diamond-studded phallace
Shining over a town draped in a shroud of humidity.
I close my eyes and try to rest
For the eleven minutes between
Me and my desk.

A full day's work
Has me feeling exhausted,
But as I take hard rights
And skirt the uneven pavement
I am a machine.
I am fused to my seat,
And two spinning plates
And one fork are
Extensions of my will.
The nine point five miles
Seem so much shorter at night,
After the suits have made Their daily rushed exodus,
And the streets and avenues
sleep, quietly.
It rained all day, so the road
Is wearing a blanket of diamonds,
And the motor oil wrinkles shine.
The downpour has filled the world
With fragrance,
And as I pass through
Affluence to arrogance
To intolerance to vagrancy
On my trek across
A divided city
I'm overwhelmed.
Honeysuckle and lilac
Give way to pine and dogwood,
Then car exhaust and a polluted river
Precede wet garbage, dog ****
And marijuana.
I saw my first rat in the District tonight.
Nine months in,
And I've only seen one.
It makes me glad I grew up
Where I did,
Where all you need for
A rat in your apartment
Is a baseball bat
And a Lightning Bolt record.
I'm glad I learned how it feels
To live with two feet
Planted firm to the earth,
To feel harsh 1930s sidewalks
Haphazardly littered
With broken glass
Burn my bare feet
Every summer,
To feel the cool
Narragansett Bay sand
Sleeping just under the surface,
And to feel the sole
Of my five year shoe
Finally give up.
I'm glad I've seen success
From the underside,
So that when my arthritic hands
Finally reach up and grasp it
I'll know what to do with it.
But mostly I'm glad
I get to pull up to my building
At ten past midnight,
Sweaty and tired,
Climb three stories with a
Bike on my shoulder,
Pet my cat, and crawl into
Bed with a warm soul
Who was brought up the same,
With no clouds
For her lovely head
To get lost in.

Part of me
Wants to see
The part of me
That hides beneath
The laurel wreath
Inside of me,
But idly
I blink and breath,
And constantly
Feed the beast.

To watch it eat
Makes me heave,
So I avert my eyes
And grind my teeth,
And patiently
Wait to be
Finally
At peace.