friday afternoon
two nights i can't
further myself to the factory.
all kinds of people out
on comp. claims & vacation &
suspension & illness &
con -- half the shop seems gone.
i keep going & going like a psychotic,
catatonic-minded rabbit employee,
but then ann says honey
slow down
take a break
fuck the assholes & relax
money can rot in hell.
bourbon bottle & ice-cubes &
air-conditioners & the internet
& our aging bodies &
weary heads -- all the lives
we live thousands of times by moments &
weeks. suddenly a job
is the furthest scenario from view,
it's a phone-call calling off,
it's another phone-call calling off,
at the same time
spending money spending money.
a little anti-amerikan statement?
a little fuck you in the face of zombie death?
a little stupid irresponsible fuckhead,
that's me.
lazy son of a fucking goddamn
bitch.
bourbon makes us lazy.
tired.
but we gulp plenty of water
which is the best thing
for hangovers, &
pig out on barbato's restaurant buffet
(yesterday)
with rachel & dominic.
ann & i with miller lite,
two each.
pizza, garlic wings, rigatoni
& the best meatballs this side of italian
heaven.
i also ate a bowl of very hot
wedding soup.
a cookie before dominic
ate another
cookie. he is 2 years old today.
2 years ago.
ann & i stand outside the door
while rachel is swearing
& yelling & then we hear
a tiny cry.
we cry loud sigh of laughter bliss
embracing.
ann is now at work
until 6.
i'm drinking
water.
(thinking bourbon).
oh goddamn christ
am i drunk. drive our new,
old, red, very red, absolutely red,
jeep cherokee to liberty plaza
state store. whining from under the hood
like the thing is in terrific pain,
can't figure what the hell
the noise is, spray the belts with
belt-dressing & still that whine,
that loud accelerating whine,
fuck. fuck it. whine.
just like humans, cars, jeeps, boxes
of people like volkswagens of
pain. this is what i want to
extrapolate: age creates wisdom
& wisdom is this bliss of chaos,
this disconnectedness from amerikan
socialness -- we are alone.
we are alone
together, it's a song, it's a
ditty on the wide blue sea &
in the wide blue yonder we
shit, hunched, neanderthal
against head of cro-magnon creativeness
you goddamn fucking
fucks. you want a
poem? go kill
a mastodon.
buzz
christ, the fifth of jim
beam is nearly gone. ann
& i have been elbowing up
shot after shot with chasers
of water & lemon-lime soda.
flaming on the little
brass pipe,
i'm a dragonfly embryo
skimming across polarized
turquoise foil.
i was going to write a poem
rolled the red black-dotted ball of the mouse
& got online. i was going to write a poem.
get to pressure press & the blueness of the
writing feeling -- the purpleness -- & read
bill beaver's latest post.
i feel like a homofuckingsexual schoolboy
so giddy,
what a piece of literature.
a great escape of mind,
art, while deterioration occurs
from the inside out
& ridiculous propostions become
perfectly real. i keep seeing
my daughter, i keep hearing her voice,
when she's like 3,
she's a little curly-haired shirley temple,
her eyes are the
winds of the world & the winds of timelessness,
& hell that makes me
still in my 20's...
i keep feeling rachel's 3 year old energy,
& she's 21 & a half now.
how she looked into my 20-something eyes
& how she looks into my 40-something eyes now.
extrapolating on an earlier subject
of talk with ann a few days ago:
wisdom is a product of pain,
of the experience of pain & surviving it
either by degrees or decades
or even situations. nobody wants to be wise
who is wise.
nobody sd life is explainable
or what shld be
shld be & is. i remember how my poor
grandma androla walked with such swollen,
painful legs -- knees the size of oak-tree
trunks -- & this was before medical advances
of the 21st century. all the pain,
i hear all my dead relatives wailing --
i see my dad on his death-bed in kent ohio.
how did cheryl end up having a bookstore
in the same city my father died in the hospital
like how do these occurences of fate
occur? what did i know of kent
but the student killings.
then my dad in the hospital there dying.
my sister & i in shock nodding yes whispering
yes stop the life-support. no chance of
recovery. then cheryl opens a bookstore
in kent ohio. my dad had moved to akron ohio
after his divorce from my mother.
i don't know why kent hospital rather than
akron, but that's
what happened. i see rachel jumping into
my father's lap,
hugging him oh grandpa i luff you! she sings.
bill, this is where i was
in my head,
shit is happening & ann is not here,
having drove the buick down to virginia
to get addison for the summer again,
but i read yr new story, i read yr new post,
& i am remembering doing that
& i am smiling like a slobbering girlyboy
all over
again.
piercings
here i'm all nostalgic thinking
back 21 years
6 pound 4 ounce newborn still wet
from womb in my arms
a few minutes after midnight
seattle time
which i did not realize
changes to eastern time
so really
rachel was born at 3 in the morning
after her dinner with steve
at the hibachi japanese steakhouse
she shows up grinning at our door
she has something to show us
she shows us
belly-button piercing
i am not reacting like she wants
it's gross! metal thru yr intestine!
hole in the stomach with the seepage
of bile & clear enzymes...
buddha's tattoo-parlor is near
the hibachi
& when she mentioned her desire
steve turned the truck around
& pulled in
20 seconds
it was in
weird
& very strange
steve has a nipple pierced
ann doesn't believe it
SHOW ME
he shows her
the active word is
show
the world is a goddamn stage of surreal
days
