poem of the day 02.27.13

inventing abstraction

she sits in the foyer

she says, you’re just the man

that i’ve been waiting for

i tell her that it feels like i’ve been dragged through glass

she hands me a twisted paperclip

says, take this

i tell her that i’m too old for acceptance

she leads me to a window that is open

with a gust of wind blowing in

and says, this has been driving me nuts

i tell her that the insane are closer to god in their way

she says, see if you can get that paper clip

to brace the window shut

and i tell her that there’s no saving us now

she says, a strong guy like you

should be able to jimmy rig that window

so i tell her that i’m just no good anymore

i’m almost a month away from thirty-nine

and i’ve never made a dollar that didn’t try to kill me

that i can’t even get the neighbor across the street

to fix his house alarm

she says, a nice man like you can probably do anything

i tell her that i’m going to get drunk again today

that all of those whiskey and wine bottles in the basement

are my cold sacrifices

but she says, if only you could get that paperclip in there

then things would be so much better

and i think that she probably

doesn’t read the newspapers

she says, there, like that

get that paperclip between those holes

and i try and i try and i try

i hand her back the twisted metal

and tell her that it’s no use

the world is full of broken windows

and broken people

with and without love

wind gusts and paperclips

some who understand what kandinsky was doing

when he had moscow by the balls

and the rest of us

who are just trying to get along

with a quieter kind of death.