Sunrise, Sunset 

I. The agony within

 

I heard the rat bastard weasel’s alarm upstairs

before mine.  My eyes were glued shut

and the electric blanket

was eel’s skin on my legs;

the covers haphazard and strewn

awakening, as it were, came:

another wild night in the covers

alone

 

I was hovering over the toilet

in the twilight of dawn

contemplating prostate cancer

when the alarm sounded

and the smoke alarm chirped! 

signaling for new batteries

I was washing the evening’s

grime and ash and dirty dreams

from my fingers, brushing the gum off the teeth

I—

turn the coffee on

and commence the empty rituals

of vitamins and bed making

and meal preparation

and ignore the cool air, the cleansing fog

and pay mad attention to the calm cool voices

of insurrection  on public radio

I make two trips out the truck

and cringe, thinking my friends are right

that I do and carry and am

too much.

 

I—

lay the clothes out;

the wolf’s clothing that

hides the secret sheep

who pays taxes and worries about retirement

and wonders about stocks and wishes there

was enough money

to start the revolution

and kill the kings and wake

all the sleeping

bastards up

 

I—

climb into the shower and hose the carcass down

and wonder aloud when this will all end

what irony to die on the toilet

or naked under the hot water

or blissfully asleep

under the electric blanket womb

or on the shitter reading The Nation

shaking the balding head in disgust

or on the phone talking to no one

about nothing

or at work trying to undo what it took decades

of Blue Blood and Old Money to do

the ruminations end abruptly

as I don the tired costume

the illusions shattered

with useless reminiscence

to blinder times

 

I—

climb into my car, balancing bag and keys

coffee and insecurities

and a tired angry soul worn thin and bitter

as public radio reminds me

that nothing changes but the date

and that rat bastards

like the weasel upstairs

will remain who they are

that ignorance breeds

and the scary people multiply

and both get elected or appointed

as the case

may

be

 

 

II. The agony without

The drive to work offers no respite

from the murderous mantra

The bumper stickers and flags

and blind fervor and willful ignorance

are every indication needed to discern

the wife beaters from the child molesters

and the Soccer Moms from the religious robots

the grown up Abused to the grown up Abusers

and they’re all carting the little Symptoms

off to church, or school, or day care.

or they’re all dragging

their (lack of) Selves to work

or pining for the wrong things,

or yearning for escape

or drilling for spiritual oil in the barren

wastelands of television

and distraction and ennui

and plumdered, raped landscapes

of child slavery and profits before people,

sports teams before social problems.

blind honking at the blind in traffic

angry about the empty minutiae,

gasping for the thinning air,

reaching for the disappearing sky,

deafened by radio & satellite signals

by incessant digital yapping

and Anytime Minutes

and talking to each other

in traffic on their way to nowhere

about nothing.

Complaining that they feel like

they’re working harder and longer

for less and less

every livelong

fucking

day.

 

And if you hold a sign up or stand for any of it

they throw things, they call you names,

they brand you Un-American

they threaten you with death,

flog you with the emotions they refuse to feel

they hold up Bibles and wave flags,

clench their fists and beat their children

they sit at the bar and philosophize,

patronize the robber barons

they scream and rant, they exclude you,

flip you off and shake their heads

they scowl and rally round the LAKERS flag

and they—

drive, they drive, they drive into the oblivion

and gray clouds and inner vacuums

and they drive

and yell and they scream,

damned to mediocrity

paying for

all of it

on  credit.

–January 2002,  Norwalk, California.

 

[Previously published work in the Chiron Review, ca. 2011].