Day 94

Instant Cosmic Cramping. Deep deep
Space. Coffee Caffine, real big
waste. Radiation chipping invisible

at remaining concrete. Casting a twinkling
glow over the brown, windless landscape.
On the horizon, another burning star.

No. There. It’s risin’. Smoke into the air.
Campfire? Calamity? Can of beans?
Other beings? Full blown galaxies
speeding toward infinity?

Circus Ole!

The ceiling fan has motorized this
late night carousel. The music box
conversation looping from pitch
to pitch and back around again.

The fair ground, flashy and bustling,
all around our galloping seats. Each
of us balanced, enjoying the ride.

Lost

I haven’t seen the cat yet tonight, and the smoke
alarm chirps wonderfully in the rhythm of its
exhausted battery life. Sitting inside, a jacket
seems nice, but I’ll let it slide like maybe I can
shake something loose with the shivering. What
can you expect? She’ll show up. She always does.

Nearly to the top of the garage. Honest. She’s
barely a foot tall at the shoulder. All in
the haunches. Windy day that was. Had the
basement door blown open. Lord. That could
have been disastrous. Minor tragedies, though,
the whole business. Nearly skipped the wrong

fence, but life has an odd way of ending up the
same. And straight back in the way she’d
come out. But we all know the rhyme. She’da been back
anyway. Unless, of course, that’s what you’re
hoping for. Running through backyard’s.
The noble search, until finally, acceptance isn’t the word.

Pressing

Hard pressed for breathing. Hard pressed to
figure, find questions leading to answers
that end in questions, rhythmically, like the best
worst pop songs. Hard pressed to shake
this melatonin to keep from heading to
work and hurtin’ my back every night

in my dreams. Hard pressed to stay focused
on sunny days, on the images outside
the box, outside the house, outside my head.
Hard pressed like hard wood floors, newly
installed, the man said. They always say that,
like they’re hard pressed to sell. Hard pressed
to find times of stillness, standing on those boulderous

stones, looking out at the fading wilderness,
they insisted I'd remember this. Hard pressed
to eat well, well, eat right. Can order plenty’a
food for half off at the hotel each night. Hard
pressed to feel, more than the Netflix’d reruns
of My Three Sons streaming continuously while

the tv’s off, but the Wii is on, or these shitty
songs, always calling on the most common clichés
to appeal to the largest audience. Hard pressed
for ambiance, for something real, or something honest.

The Ideal

Claimed as unreachable, until those who’d discredited
it were long lost. Long forgot. The world,
green. Vibrant folks, fed, happy, content. Everyone
getting along. Men and women able to see everything
as it is. All simple and easy goin’s. After a few pictures
of smiling faces, and paintings of lush greenery, and
poems of how great we is, someone had an idea,
why should everyone enjoy the same things that I have?
These others, just as alive as me, are far less deserving,
and the world fell back into place by Monday morning.