The heart of nothing

Was left to you

In the barricaded libraries

of old paperbacks 

James Thurber 

and others 

You'd lain there with a friend  

tripping on the barricaded lsd

and saw a pattern on the white wall -

a piece of marble glued above the fireplace 

with sealer used on atomic bombs

your dad said proudly

projectiles with depleted uranium he said 

would penetrate the beveled armor of Russian tanks -

the pattern

Which both you and your friend saw 

were just a ski logo

repeated K2 K2 K2 K2 K2

 Back

     back

     back it up

midwest 

days 

   day-o 

   warm and sunny

and white

cheese curds

 And fragile chips

 wagon wheels

and religious sects speaking German

Corn 

     Corn

    corn

more corn

and beans

   Vintage shops 

antiques

  $4 Charlie Brown mug

 

 

 Tecate moves

in frightful spasms 

reminiscent of your aged father

in the room 

cared for by pinoy workers

so nice

and always so much food

more lumpia?

 

 

 Yesterday

Time

Moved like a young woman's legs

Slippery long 

Encased in a pile of mud

As she screamed for help

 (SAD POEM #1)

                   sadly

grey morns

in spite of you

I slept thru

   times of trouble

mother Mary didn't come 

To you 

Or anyone 

 

 

 Boring

I'll admit it

But watcha gonna do

I've made the bed

Now I'll die in it

I mean lie in it 

Lay in it?

What lies?

Who lies?

I don't lie 

Except to the trees 

and birds

And stories of the streets

Doesn't matter to them 

They don't even notice

They don't need to try to forget

What they don't never knew

And so could you

For 67.99 a month 

With twelve easy payments

You too could be on the road

To a new you

A new person

Dancing with stars

Healthy!

Running up stairs to Mt Olympus!

Driving a late model slightly leased vehicle

 

 Time plays tricks

with our minds

The perpetual reminder

of old wood boards housing chickens

and that man who lives down the road

they say he's part Native American and he drives

an old dark blue stepside pickup

sometimes I'd hitchhike into town 

He'd signal I should jump in the back

no talking to the white boy

Who lives in the fancy house

and they got no livestock 

Times are changin'

 the fools 

catch rain

and play hearts

with their aunt 

sitting in the back of an old storm drain

Singing at the top of their lungs

while synthesizers bang out a delirious scrotum tune

That'll leave you itching with hives

and burying someone's ashes in the old farm

near where the barn imploded 

and the apple tree long burned down

Stop in at Teiffs for some landejaeger 

on your way home

 Sha-nay-nay

 I moved counter clockwise

against the flow

So it seems 

but it wasn't all bad

There were moments;

I found

a twenty dollar bill

In the dorms

at Stanford University when I was nine

also found a Molotov cocktail 

But it was the Sixties

 The talisman of the weary

is old Chinese food restaurants

and sad telegraph operators 

Women with their mothers eating

Cheap Chinese lunch

on a Saturday afternoon

With carts with New Yorker 

Tots bags