dear
me,
mr
brown — oh

shut up
shut up
shut up
shut up. you are

so full of noise.
of course we are
coming back
around to you as subject.

god. shut up.
why it’s always about you
and your loud, pale reaction
is a mystery. why is it so rarely

a dark red action,
full of your own blood
and justified ire? why is it so 
rarely original,  

rarely worth our time,
rarely worth
anyone’s ears or
eyes — 

shut up
shut up
shut up
shut up.

dear me
mr brown — enough
of your same old
same old same old empty.

shut up
shut up
shut up
shut up.

oh, sorry. not entirely empty.
inside you is a key to
a locked box and inside
that locked box

is a switch
that turns you off
(although you are
apparently more turned on by

such yapping than
by silence so all this
is likely futile) but find that
and shut up shut up shut up

shut up —
for yourself if not
for us — dear me
mr brown.  dear me

you must get so tired in there.
so tired having to speak
all the time even in your
sleep — must be — how could 

any of this
have been done
by a conscious mind?
tell that yapper within

to shut up
shut up
shut up
shut up. 

dear me mr brown —
shhhhhhhh.
that’s enough.
enough. trust 

that it can’t hurt and
how has
the yapping
ever helped? 

shhhh.
shhut.
shut.
shut up.

there is a place of
silence where you
could be better served.
shhh.  enough.

enough.

Born to all 
possibility, then
narrowed
and channeled toward
this.

Delimited by
no plan, in fact — more by
a machine running over all
who are caught in its own
delimited track,

reforming all through
plain force
of weight 
and inexorable 
progress. 

I push back up
towards full height on 
these smashed
legs, pushing up with
these broken arms;

I fail, I keep falling but
more and more often 
I am at least able
to land
on my back:

my eyes
wide open; my face
not crushed
into mud;
in pain but awake

and aware
of a rumbling
as that machine
turns back. I struggle
to stand again

and face it, to fall
again but this time
with full knowledge 
of what has
felled me.

It may be
enough to say after that
that I did not die
in my sleep, that I knew
what crushed me.