poem of the day 07.28.10

employed

come home to the mail
some benevolent stranger
has decided to let me keep my job
ending months of financial madness
crammed between the bottles
of wine, beer, and scotch

and i sit there for a moment
thinking of all the time
that has been wasted
all the nerves that have been shot

then shot again

i tell my wife
that we are becoming members
of the modern art museum
attending concerts, films,
doing everything else that i can think of

buying this
buying that
laying down so much conspicuous consumption

enough to make thornton veblem blush

we’re going to be dandies
i tell her
we’re going to paint the apartment
and the town red
we’ll get drunk on the best wine
and fart in everyone’s face

i’m going to be a man about town
this fall
squiring you everywhere

before this misery comes around again
next spring

but first
i have to kill all of the flies
that have been buzzing around the wine bottles
the wine bottles like carcasses
stacked up in this acrid oblivion
collecting a thick haze of dust

the two of us prostrate from the months
of gloom
.