My room, the suite, seemed too small.
I felt like I’d been in my room forever.
I’d developed a scratchy sense of stuckness
and a fresh, itchy awareness of dust particles
floating in the stifling, still air that made me
want to stop breathing in so much.

But I didn’t, categorically, have the energy
to get up and focusing seemed like a lot of effort.
I had a big midterm test, first thing this morning
and it laid me to waste, mentally. I think I did well
but it was a feat. Whenever I feel lifeless and weak,
I start to fear I’m coming down with something.

But then, everyone’s tired. The suite seems unnaturally
quiet, as if no one even has the energy to command
our ever-listening AI to play a playlist, so silence
ruled by exhausted default. It’s as if a low-pressure area had
descended to hold off a brush of refreshing ozone and rain.

Could I rouse my posse of symbiotic sort-of siblings
for an outing somewhere - like Toad’s bar - just across the street?
My door was open, so I called out, rather weakly, “Let’s go out!”
Someone, (Lisa sprawled out on the red corduroy couch?)
groaned listlessly from the common area. “My treat!” I updogged.

Five minutes later, it was showers all around. I love a good shower.
A shower’s where I ponder over the big questions, because
answers seem to come quickly there. I imagine I’d be wise
beyond words if I had a house with a waterfall running through it,
like one of those amazing, Frank Loid Wright masterpieces.
.
.
Songs for this:
The Duke Is Gone by Chuck Senrick
Cannock Chase by Labi Siffre

Death is my own covetous possession,
A hand-me-down with the worn edges
Of a closed, burnished keepsake box.

Death is the memory of a tree-lined walk,
A daguerreotype, a trompe-l'oiel des bois,
Sight itself turned within, but without end,
A forest of unstirring eyelashes, like long uncut grass,

Death is the stillness of pewter leaves,
And sorrow is sadness in love with itself.

OVER YOU

A bust
of Beethoven

has fallen

in love with
a tiny statuette

of the Venus
De Milo

who has also
lost her head.

Beethoven with his
shattered hair

admires what is there
of her body

Christ!
with his left arm

snapped off
comes between them

keeping them apart.

Christianity
is harsh.

I pass & leave them
to their broken hearts.

Buy an egg
timer

made of brass

from a man
who looks like

a monkey
even more

than a monkey
do.

I turn the sands
of time

upside down
& then again

upside down
again

and with much fuss
catch the packed bus

in the non-stop
rain.

Home again
I boil an egg

that is neither
hard nor soft

hum Tchaikovsky
as I chew burnt toast

and cry

over you.