Got a message from the future but it just said “sorry,” one kind of a thing
that fucks with your head on a Wednesday, to read that in the sunrise
with your tea in the smog, knowing that a hero never comes unless
it’s from within, feeling hollow is a way to avoid the effort stretch out for
a fruitful folly, but all you can smell is the sick scented fart of madman god.
Echoing over nothing, it spreads like wildfire
disease of hearts and minds, rendering impotent
just opinions, silence is a symptom of malaise
as well as its effect, the still mold settles
over the skeletal remnants of the city burnt
proper, for the dead do no chanting.
The sun ups and downs on the regular, shining a light
for all the money men and branded
bandit raiders, near as I can tell, the ones with stopwatches
tick tock at a trouble pace, I’m only an owl with eyes
to see the one hand washing itself, without soap
in a puddle, so the sickness pervades.
The news is a candy prison, but it’s tough
to determine the architect, through the dead eyes
in the mirror, staring nothing at all
right back at me, perplexed at my own seeming
callous nature, having seen it all
from my perch, I can’t even move against it.
Sting sweet, bush sticker, you’ve so rarely taught me
anything at all, because you can’t compare to the crusher
of an empty sky, I’ve come regarding you
fondly in a way, as if you were the toys
of adolescence, flippant with a buzz-off
regard, curling my face in reaction to the madness
of all the observable things, particularly stoops
under the open doors, speckled red dots
from life above, laying warnings down
so no one with eyes will overlook, tattoo’s saying
“NEVER GET A TATTOO” in newsprint
capital letters, lower back burning
the sentiment into my flesh, so I won’t forget.
Real pain has no homeland, it bites the ass
from two months, years, decades ago, but it is
you, as you are pain, it is both the effect
and the cause, recline on the sizzle seeking comfort
in chaos, a factory explosion spreading
disease all across, plague of genocides,
wisdom detracting distractors, an orange balloon
float farting over pigs and sheep,
listen as they scream a limbless rage,
see from their reaction how it’s best not to
listen to the negative, instead just open
your heart, let the sun burn in
because bursting is better than starving,
A recording, unfamiliar, pleading
pathetic parasite, phone booth floor-dwelling
cur, do sixteen pushups and hit the rowing
machine like you used to, it won’t make any
difference in the run, because you fell
in love, and now you know such joy
as you could not have imagined, unless
you were in the middle of a fit or something,
in a paranoid fantasy you may have dreamt up
a story like this, where all you could need
is nearness, getting to know yourself is hard.
Because I’ve never experienced a feeling
like this before, and to have it all the time zapping me
to my reaching out, and to feel a yipe
singe, ya know, so I get over it but goddamn
it feels like a hell bite, like oh shit what did
I do? To let this crazy bitch, with more baggage
than a freight train, into my brain bleeding
ecstasy, making me drunk on it, and I forget
that I sound like a retard, it’s disgusting.
It’s not terrible, I know, and I understand
that you know what I’m saying, but goodamn it
I know what it sounds like, it sounds like
a grocer thinking “oh boy, now I gotta deal with this
shit I don’t need,” but that’s not even accurate,
it can’t be expressed in words because
it is so subtle I can’t really be sure I’ve ever seen it,
the genuine reaction to my glorious voice,
but I am sure, because I feel it the same way you do
staring into space, when you’re shadow is
a lamppost, I can go nowhere but straight
forward, into your arms a thankful grin.
Knowing yourself is worth nothing, for your love
is not you, holding reins with orders
barking, your champion is the spirit of dawn
and dusk, pulling you on chains to the dawning
adventure burning into the sky with a singeing
tail, chattering wordlessly with your old friend
in the darkness, passing out on Theta house lawn
where they don’t talk to you anymore, opening
the door to a knife cut horizon, carving you
a path, downward through time and space.
What kind of revolution lands with a plop, not a passionate
caucus of like minds, but the righteous ho hum
of the revelry, twiddle stash and his minions ruling
with an upturned eyebrow and a question mark, expecting all
but you to know the answer, while none are ever.
to speak it, for reality is a sense of burning tires.
It deposits its waste on the regular, spilling out over
the news every day, concluding hopeless tid bits
and ball scratching posers, for misery is a business too,
like all other things, working a neverending
cycle of tragedy, four digits dead is a jackpot.
Twenty-four hour coverage of the great sense
deadening, somehow survival has become a sport,
on the horrorshow, in and of the horrorshow
also, come to think of it, seems like it’ll be on the news
apocalyptic finality, but Bachelor in Paradise is on.
Regret is a bastard, that smarts as a reflected
sun in the eyes, grinning wet saliva sucking, like,
glowing in a fold of your brain, singing a memory
through grey matter, you close your eyes tight,
“Eric,” you call silently to the wind, “I’m sorry”
mouthing an apology, and he’s not even here
but it’s the best he’ll get, because there’s a voice
in me that is a question mark, calling shame
as it opens my eyes, “I’m sorry, Scott,” I say aloud
because I really did like you, and I would’ve
hung out more often, really I would, but
the myriad of reasons are pointless,
I could’ve pushed past, it is no excuse
for any callous laughter I may have joined
in or created, I was no hero when I was young.
However, in the long view, there were worse
infinitely than I was, I incarnate not just wrath
or a ripping spite, never achieving true big shot
status, which is all that matters in the sandbox,
construction sites and board rooms, quien es mas
macho man, so raise a saber get to death
dealing, cruelty is conflict fungus, growing
within the wines of warriors and refugees
alike, so don’t forget how awful it was, to see simple
justice, because it doesn’t exist in the world
you know, but guidelines exist you’re glad
to know about, like the categorical imperative,
and even with the example, I say my neighbor
had it coming, shouldn’ta been talkin’ shit,
for we all must igloo, humanity seems a torture
storm, grade school is only the beginning.
Is a lesson therein, or herein depending
on which of us is talking, is the lesson
of caution, nihilism, or cautious nihilism,
like a life-art suicide, Harold with a backbone
would’ve made for a short movie, though,
also love is real, glowing technocolor
in the trenches, because even camaraderie
makes life seem like living, for worth it
shines behind clouds, drying us all together
on an upward slope, regret burning
paper puppets in the sky, on the page
and the desk in the desert, because it is lonely
business to recount my wrongs, but worth
it, I suppose, if people know that I’ve tried
at least, this I suppose is not nothing.
