poem of the day 06.11.09

going to new orleans, so this is it until next tuesday because i don't have iPhones etc and will be unable to communicate with the digital world...thank the gods.

can’t be pleased

i sit on this couch
drinking a cold beer
with a week off from work
with brooklyn outside my window
in a gray gloom
and the cats asleep on the kitchen floor
trying to stay cool
and i am depressed
and i don’t know why
last night i drank four beers and five scotches
and i couldn’t even get drunk
i slept for shit
pulling every muscle in my body
as it stormed outside
as lightening illuminated the bedroom
and i wrestled with the sheets
poetry alludes me
literature alludes me
peace and beauty cannot be found
this morning i wandered manhattan
with the ghost of walt whitman
saddened by the closing
of a music mega-store in union square
walt and i disgusted by the people
going from aisle to aisle
picking away at the merchandise
like the last bits of meat off the bone
i asked walt who wails for conspicuous consumption
when ten percent of the people can’t even
get a job
and he told me to go and moan for myself
ah, what in the hell is the matter with me?
a day like today
and i don’t even want to go to the bar
a whole week off and i just sit here in the afternoon dark
watching the rain, brooding over everything
and nothing
i think i can’t be pleased anymore
that nothing is good enough for me
i’m worried that i’m becoming one of them
the dull and the trivial
the ones who need a constant entertainment
it makes me sick
i never thought i’d turn out like this
but then one of the cats comes into the living room
she stands in front of me and meows
i pet her
then rest my beer can on my chest
after i take another long drink
as the sun finally comes out over brooklyn
and the perfect family walks by
my window with a cooler full of soda
and music and frisbees
and loud kids, screaming about mcdonald’s hamburgers
and going to the park
so i get up and close the blinds
and i think
okay, maybe i’m just having a bad day here
maybe i’m doing all right
i mean it could be worse
i could be those assholes outside
smiling at each other like dumbfucks
wondering where they put the suntan lotion
and the bottled water.