I’m sitting sipping late night raspberry tea to calm the asthmatic phlegm. it’s something I’m beginning to accept as a ritual. the same goes for work. soon the whole Monday morning sacrifice will crawl up and dig in its claws. she laughs and calls it exaggeration. it’s to get the pin man’s eyes stabbed out once and for all. I feel less innocent. I start wishing ill on them. supply me advice if you can. save me from the rage in me boiling up over the bad luck days.
it felt good tonight lying in bed reading Henry Miller and the first few pages of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style. puzzle pieces started fitting.
fit your
words
into place
make sense
of your mind
and soul
don’t
sell out
in the
name of
quenching
your thirst
I am coughing
up late like this
keeping
my wife up
the cats are
practicing some
serious destruction
back and forth
from bedroom
to kitchen
innocent little
beings.
the smaller with
so much energy
and the larger
sheltered with me
on the pillow . . .
I bat the bunny rabbit
away when he comes to
bother us
NPR: San Francisco has
a 200 car pile up;
Alaskan earthquake
expect more.
my small sentences
add up with the
claw marks on the
tops of my hands and
forearms
fun domestic wars
Miller in the 20’s
pages I read
these grown men
behaving like children
confused like children too
writing and speaking well
rabid tangents in Europe
rich women in hotels who will
listen, push away
dried up husbands
run off to new countries
let it all go to hell –
dispense with you!
we will eat fresh pastries
and enjoy existence
to the last drop!
these figures fall over
as if they were propped up
against the wall
for a long time collecting dust
(dust is not fodder)
sliding sliding . . . thunk.
then biodegrade into the earth.
always on the verge of
something
but when will it
take flight and happen?
one needs more of
a worldly know-how
an adult gets a business
license and opens up a shop
what’s my equivalent as
an earnest writer?
who would I write for?
how would it all make sense? where would I collect my check? would I tour? would I have an agent? would it be more fun doing stand up comedy? should I merge writing skills with other talents to do bigger things? has America stopped reading?
the adventure is always up ahead. I think you’re wretched. maybe you’re reading into this. simply that you’re altogether wretched, mindless, and unoriginal. all your jokes are recycled over and over. to be around you makes me cringe. you show your true self in no time. most of all, I hate how you don’t care about anything.
this whole paragraph was . . . I can turn it back on myself. I hate you. I hate you. watch me bash my own skull into the siding of the house and the neighbors can come along with a hose later and spray everything into the storm drain. look deep within. look into it.
my head is spinning. the concerns are basic. I work for you and help your damn company make so much money; I simply ask that I be taken care of. why, after all the hours I put in, should I be short on rent, bills, dinner, books I want to buy? what kind of life is that, with socks wearing out, knees torn out of my pants from the constant wear?
I’m glad not to be sitting out in the cold. we have shelter from the harsh winds and rain, also snow, sleet, ice. we get to sleep in beds and type slash / / marks / / / / / as much as we want. the internet guarantees there will be at least one reader. and tea is ready if I can’t sleep.
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