I’ve seen you pull the coins
off your own eyes
to feed the parking meter.

I’ve seen you and the hemlock vendor
chatting idly by the door
to the stadium.

I’ve smelled a hint of cyanide on your breath
just before you popped a mint
and smiled weakly back at this life.

Maybe in your mind you always skipped the denouement
to get to the wake where people
congratulated you on how great you looked

in your someday best and painted skin.
So now, when we pull you blue and white from the water
and see you bloated here and shriveled there,

now when it’s clear that this time
it’ll be a closed box we’ll sit around
to speak of you, now I have to ask:

did all that dress rehearsal make it easier
to go down to the lake this last time,
or were you as scared for yourself

as we always were for you? Did you wonder
what we’d be saying now, or did it all pale
to white light as you sank away?

This is not the way I thought you’d go.
I expected us to laugh bitterly together
at all those attempted escapes one day.

And I may yet laugh
at you, at us, at this —
but not now, and not soon;

not as long as I can still imagine
your body, a sack of empty gestures,
pulled out to dry under a waning moon.

Is growing on me.

I may have to dig out my King Crimson “Red” album to go along with it.

I’ve never been a prog-rock fan, but there are certain albums that defy an easy genre label and my accompanying bias, and I think this one (like the KC album) is going to become one of them.

Of course, I’ve been chasing this all with a generous helping of GYBE and Sonic Youth’s “Daydream Nation” so it may just be the total sonic wash aspect that’s getting me.

In other music news, my cube mate has absconded with my new Hem album. Damn her! (I did hear it before it vanished…oh, “Redwing”! What a great song.)

Switching to poetry — SPEAK was fun if a little disheveled last night. badgary read cool new poems from his forthcoming chapbook, Walt premiered a new poem about a 30-.30 rifle called “The Winchester Verses” (cough), and in general things were moony and fun. New themes were picked and will be headed to the Asylum website shortly…

Meanwhile, the shifting tempos and Zep-esque vocals of The Mars Volta continue to shred the office air…