It’s silly of me
to be weepy
when the talk show host
gives a luxury car
to a needy audience member,

really.  I know the reality —
that the car was provided
for promotional consideration,
will be hugely expensive to insure
and drive.  That the applause
for the gesture
is bait for the ratings beast.

But here I am,
weeping
at the weeping.  Happy
in a passing moment
to feel something beyond cynicism
about a good thing happening
to someone.

Don’t worry,
or do,
because this, too,
will surely pass.

draw it
from your mother
upon entering

draw it from yourself upon leaving

leave it
on an embalming table
or the floor

you cannot get in or out

without spilling some
and owning the stain
as your own doing

you think you can get away clean?

get over yourself
you’re a nest of harm
and you will come in and go out

wet

I awoke and rose
61 minutes later
thinking I’d just looked at the clock
a minute before.  I must have
spent a minute
thinking about why I was awake,
then fallen back to sleep.

It’s as if I stopped
for a whole hour.
Only the memory
of having seen the time
tells me I’d existed then
in a time before
this groggy chain-smoking moment on the couch
in front of a screen waiting to be filled
with proof that I do maintain a presence
during the moments
when I am unconscious.

It is 7:15 AM, EDT, 8/29/09.
All hail 4:59 AM, EDT, 8/29/09.

It was raining then, as it is now;
I was hungry then, as I am now;
the urge to rise and work and smoke
were all the same back then.
Nothing’s changed except the time,
the light in the windows,
and this documentation.

If I go back to bed now,
(and I will)
will I even wake up
again?  If I do, won’t my first thought
likely be the memory of this moment?

How, exactly, does the future ever arrive?

The ragged hair of the unkempt lawn
offers a mixed message:

cut me, restore order;
let me grow, keep a wildness in the city.

I imagine all the possibilities:
then, with a sigh,

pull the mower from the shed
and begin to hold my small place in the world.

In every Paradise —
and there are many,
despite what you’ve been told —
there is a weathered door
or shabby gate
for letting in the things
that are alleged to be anathema
to Paradise. 

It’s no mistake or oversight.
It’s part of the plan to make things
perfect there.
It’s not a Paradise unless
it takes into account
that human need for
energy expended against
threat, and
also offers comfort
for those residents who are not happy
unless some taint of the Other
is possible. 

The existence of the door
is known to all,

and in the gambling dens of Paradise
there is always action, heavy action,
on the exact moment when the hinges
will creak.  Breathless with anticipation,
the happiest people in the universe

always hover silently
around the monitors,
hoping for that sound.