6 AM.
You wake up not having to think
about the coming day.

On the drive to work the streets
will be identical
to yesterday’s streets.

At the woolen mill
you will spin yarn
right through overtime.

You will leave
for home
tired and itchy.

On the drive home the streets
will be identical
to yesterday’s streets.

Everything you can think of doing
after work will feel as stale
as the thought of the wool.

You roll out of bed
thinking about
the dream.

You keep having this dream
where you’ve shaved off your beard.
A woman’s voice asks why you’ve done it.

You reply,
“A man can’t sit around
just waiting to die.”

You start thinking,
“What if I did
shave off my beard?”

It’s been twenty years since the last time
you thought about that.
Maybe it’s time you thought about that.

Maybe before you die
you’ll choose to meet your Maker
with (once again) your baby face.

Let the outline
of what you’ve hidden
come up for air.

Let the breeze
lubricate your way
to somewhere beyond

6AM,
Hell’s Ditch,
USA.

When you live here
you never go anywhere.
Even in your head

you only get to places
that aren’t Hell’s Ditch
once in a while.

Once in a while, you get to a place
where there are still two hours
to last call,

and even though
you’re almost sober,
you’ve already hooked up.

The band is playing
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
and for once, it’s not about you.

Once in a while, you get to a place
that looks like an open road glimpsed
from inside a pool hall that was a key location

in the movie
you were meant to make.
The one where the taste on your lips

is Marilyn’s kiss.
You don’t push her away this time.
The President and his brother nod approvingly.

You’ve got “Niagara”
on your mind.
In your version, no one dies

except the scriptwriters
who dreamed up this stuff
to tease guys like you.

If this was
your movie,
you’d call in sick forever.

You’d pick up the razor.
Carve away all that mask of hair.
Gas up the car and go – never bother to pack.

What would you
take with you anyway
beyond a razor?

You’d be thinking,
it’s all for the best
now that my old face

is swirling down the drain.
After that, you’d almost
have to go. They’d never be able

to figure out
what to do with you here
if you were to change.

But then again,
it’s 6 AM
in Hell’s Ditch, USA.

You know that
even if you did shave it all off,
on the way out the door you’d hesitate

as if you had
forgotten something —
and then you would remember,

and you would grab
the rented DVD
on the way out

so that you could return it
to the Red Box
on the way to work, because

there’s no sense paying more
for a movie
you never got around to watching.

When she said
act like ya know
we tried
but couldn’t hide
that we didn’t know

Lucky for us
what we don’t know
can’t exist
unless it has
a link
or a reference
from a preferred source
so we can
look it up and
know

so when she said it
again
act like ya know

we didn’t even
have to listen

Posture.
Height.
Weight.
Pulse.
Blood pressure.
Heart sounds.
Chest sounds.

How is his grip?
Are there tumors?
Is there a rupture?
Will he kick when struck in the knee?

Cholesterol.
Blood sugar.
Proteins in urine.
Parasites in stool.

How is he sleeping?
How is he eating?
From morning to night, what is his diet?
What drugs is he on?
How often is he drunk?

Hearing.
Vision.

Is he sexually active?
How is his sexual performance?

Strength of aura.
Depth of interest.
Scope of experience.

Is he aware of the lion inside him?
When it speaks, does he listen?
How often does it call him?
How loudly?
Can he interpret lion speech?
Does he bear lion scars?
If so, how many?
If so, how deep?

TRI: Talent recovery index.
FDQ: Forgotten dream quotient.
TFFS: Tolerance for freak factor in self.
TFFO:  Tolerance for freak factor in others.

When set on fire, does he run?
Does he drop and roll?
Does he stand and light the room?
Does he offer heat to others?

Number of flotation devices worn (when not in water.)
Number of weapons upon person.
Number of talismans per pocket.

If rejected for inclusion, does he change?
If rebuked for uncaging his lion in public, does he roar?
If approached aggressively, does he spring up?
If some or all of his life is purchased, does he buy it back?
If so, in what currency does he trade most confidently?
If not, what is his expiration date?

Does he consider himself happy?
If so, why?
If so, what makes him happy?
Is he objectively happy (as measured against established standards?)
If so, what percentage of him is happy?
Of what does the remaining percentage consist?

Please make any notes on items not covered above,
or necessary annotations to any of the above,
in the interstitial spaces provided 
for such purposes.  

We’re each other’s
perception, no matter
how we do not fit
into them.

If I appear sweet
to you, you don’t see
how I use sweetness
to carry bile;

if first I taste bile
in your scent, it’s not likely
I will ever
taste sugar.

What point is there
in being close or
trying to be? 
We don’t care much,

do we — better to stick
with those
we have decided
are us at heart.

Better to cleave to
the tribe and nation and 
so on.  Better than
the one on one, the discovery,

the potential betrayal.
To know another
past the first look
is as dangerous

as the angel with the sword
who guarded Eden,
who in one stroke cut down
the Tower.

Sloganophobia:

if it does not mean
the fear of 
modern culture,

it should. 

I killed
my idols, my darlings,
my television 
hoping to get away from it.
I ate the rich. I seized
the day. I chose life
and believed in change
and looked to
the shining city on the hill
in the national morning,

and all I have now
are thin T-shirts full of block print,
their melodious words rocks
on a knotted up
tongue —

and really,
I mean it
when I say
that is all 
I have.

Too easily lulled
into belief
that happiness comes
from the coatings within

I suck down
bone fat and gristle
trying to get past hungry
(but I don’t feel less hungry)

Sucking down
single malt nerve tonic
just to get some peace
(still I feel little peace)

Sucking magic from screens
and music from dessicated air
trying to learn something
(feel no smarter)

Trying to pull in
what I most want
I become a vacuum
for what I least need

In this sunset
of national satisfaction
the perfect consumers
all starve with their bellies full

He scolded me
for using what he called a cliche.
He scolded me
for reinforcing a fear
of the dark of the moon.
He scolded me
for accepting that a Devil
offers deals at a crossroads.
He scolded me
for not including the harder Deal
that Jesus offers,

and I replied

that we shouldn’t lie about
cliches
that are
both trite
and true.

We all know a crossroads
where the Devil can be found.
Those spaces
only exist
under a dark moon,

and if Jesus
tries to set up
there
where roads meet
he has to know
that at such a crossroads
he will always be
second in line:

“Wait your turn,
man-God,
wait your turn.
Out of all places
this is the one
that will never be
securely yours.”

After I was done
I waited for a reply
but all I could see
was him shrinking from view
as he walked back down
the road he’d taken
to get here.

Near the intersection
of “doing not at all well”
and “better off than most;”

leaning into that crossroads,
waiting for company.
Of course it’s well known

who’s coming. Of course;
it’s dark of the moon.
And — don’t care. So tired,

can’t imagine
how it could be
otherwise

with this head like a post
of iron, solid dead inside
and bound to draw lightning;

pour that fire
on, it’s flame bath time;
time to get some

of that sweet burn.
Hear that engine, blown,
bored, coming closer?

That’s the Flamethrower
himself. He is getting
out of the car now.

It’s getting ugly now.
Not doing well at all and
only doing better than most

because most
already have been here
and done that;

can’t imagine how it is possible
that here I stand, ready to shake
his slim warm hand.

This drunken poem
was written to prove
it can be done.

It can be done:
a word at a time
is laid into place.

A small set
of letters
pressed into service here,

a longer string there,
and all at once
it’s done.

Only then
is it permitted
for me to fall asleep,

the labor perhaps
to be dismantled
in the morning

but it was worth doing, if only
to make a boast about control and
the nature of art:

the Work
is there for the doing
no matter your mood

or what myths
you tell yourself or others
about inspiration.

Carve first,
explain later — and
watch the poem

stagger over
and spit into the face
of the self-important Muse.

If you keep smearing me,
if you again and again
draw your angry hand across me
and pull me flat and messy over
the ground where I’m trying to stand,
you will just get me all over you.

As sick as it seems,
that might be OK,
as a certain level of disdain,
a reasonable helping of hatred,
and generous verbal abuse
are so familiar to me
I don’t know
if anything else
could feel normal.

I shall not be  
a sainted victim, of course;
I can give you 
ammunition. Subtle digs,
not so subtle betrayals,
suspicions, backhanded 
proof, vicious howling
now and then.

We should agree
that now and then
we shall ease up enough on each other
to see that good is possible,
as those glimpses
will make the anguish
sharper.

You may be stuck with me
but since you like 
giving me what works for me
and I can easily
be there for you as well
in that regard,

let us make a go of this.

Here, they say,
there was once
a great stoneworking
civilization.

It wasn’t a white one
so it must have been
installed here
for the natives’ sake 
by advanced beings
from the very white Atlantis or
a likely pale planet or galaxy.
There’s not much left to go on,
they say.
What’s left is a mystery,
they say.
More than what meets the eye
went on here,
they say.

I turn away nodding
from the lecture
and stretch my hands;
I can feel the tombs
of its builders in my blood.
More than what meets
the eye going on here still;

you should thank your God
that you cannot understand
how my teeth
back up my smile.

Ever, never;
now, always;
stuffed, hungry;
white, not-white;
manic, depressed.
I am entirely built from
pairs of words
and therefore
in all my many centers,
no matter
which ones 
you choose
to see, 
there shall be 
an observable
void.