I rolled you up
Your insight, your beauty
And all the love you had to offer me
I threaded you with American Spirit
And tucked you in an origami wrap

From grass and earth...
To clouds
One hit
And the world went silent

All I asked for was a little off the top
And if you could top me off
Now I see stupid people with double chins
I'm with stupid t-shirts and kick me signs on their backs
Completely unaware of the indecent truths of the world
Truck drivers  stopping at greasy spoon diners, ***** dives
Driving down freeways, parkways, highways, turnpikes and interstates
People eating up the **** the press put on us
Augmented *******
Formaldehyde for our loved ones
Pull the plug, push the plunger
On the tobacconist and his eerie broad shoulders
I asked to french kiss, I was rebuffed and left flat alone in a gazebo
The apathetic drive through worker told her to **** her father with an indifferent look
A bead of sweat traveled down her tempted face
Her moral spindle is low on twine
Her meds are wearing off
The roustabout is now a stenographer after his time in the roundabout and a heave **
Into a case of small pox and a bout with shingles
As the biker gets nursed back to health
And we all slowly decompose

I feel inside out.

As if the inside of my flesh is exposed and vulnerable to the outside world,
susceptible to people and circumstance who poke and **** as they often  do- perhaps to test resilience.

Well what if I don't have the strength to endure?
What if it wears on me? drains me? kicks me around?

What if i don't want to get back up after I fall?
What does that make me?
Weak?
Un-stoic?
loser-like?
sensitive?
vulnerable?
tired?
apathetic?
finished?
socially suicidal?
in denial?

If i resist so much and close down so much and let my world shrink so much until i back up into the tightest corner that existence will allow,
until i resist life itself and contemplate death as a alternative to "living"

who am i after the image i've strived to maintain ever since i was taught to upkeep one is utterly obliterated?...

When I'm stripped down to my most basic layer  of inherent humanness

who am i?
Who am I!?

*WHO THE **** AMM I!!!???

We're all ingredients in the humanity stew
The sad clowns
The prescription abusers
The chickens running around without their heads
This dish can never be out done
It's killing me
Ashes from Pompeii
The braces of teenage heart throbs
****** black and blues from abusive relationships
Fill the pots and pans
A homemade meal per say
Chain linked sausage fences
Add some Epsom salt
Some beef chuck
Giblets
And Simonides of Ceos
Daphoenus bones
A dentist and a retainer
Cornets, pirouettes and percocets
Awkward magazine subscriptions
You can buy the cookbook in all its opacity
See it in the Intrepid Museum
There is work to be done on Mount Olympus
Therefore we should go see a movie at the drive in

       -Tommy Johnson

Uncle Sam reclines and unwinds
In his Adirondack chair
The Statue of Liberty reminds the Mater at Arms
Of the time when he was put in a peyote trance
It was only then he caught on
He rammed his head against his headboard every night
Wracking your brain, trying to wrap it around the concept of the excommunication of those who have had their mouths washed out with soap

There will be no fanfare for the stray lambs
They are only meal tickets for the clergy
Concord grapes and word of mouth
Raise the question, "what is in a hot dog?"

Don't latch on to me after I dance with you into mad denial under a brass florescent chandelier in front of all the stock brokers and shareholders
I'll dismantle your silver lining with a spork

The  cow pies disappear due to erosion

It's good to see you, I didn't know burlap sacks were all the rage right now
Stencil your name on it for good measure
How do you feel after your ego death?

Tossing the pigskin
Burrowing and displaying the Ostrich effect
All applause for the chairman of the board of trustees
And all the spiddle on his back up shirt

Mortify them
An incomplete pass
Rally the troops
For unfinished business

Shift gears
Reread the post script

"P.S.  The unzipped flies of store owners trying to replicate the success of their fathers. Piddle about, play with implements of torture, instruments of destruction. Wander in the wilderness, grunt and sigh as your civilized brain rattles. Make way for Plan B, and fill out the forms in triplicate. Fumbling at the controls, emergency landing. The gear shift and crankshaft have given out. Listen to the titillating chatter of the disappointed passengers who all longed for the window seat.

Always your's
Edmund Balthazar "

Take two
I could slap you

I was on the gurney
Belching my guts out
After eating surf and turf
I'll fill you in
I had whooping cough
And a case of the Monday's
I had worn out and overstayed my welcome
My attempt to out eat the local human garbage disposal fell flat
Now they put water from a birdbath in my drip bag
I'll clue you in
All the energy I could muster up was used to say
"I'm off Wednesday, but it's Tuesday but it feels like Friday