Wednesday, February 5, 2014

poem of the day 02.05.14


poem in which i’m mad at the world

i’m mad
because it’s five o’clock in the morning
and i’m sitting here trying to make art
with the rest of brooklyn asleep
when i’m not even sure that i believe in art anymore

i’m mad at myself for feeling like that

and for drinking yesterday
when i said i wasn’t going to

but there was shit with the bank
shit with my parents
shit with my wife’s parents
shit with the refrigerator that i punched

there’s always shit that makes me mad

so i drank the poison on another sunday
and it felt great

so i’m mad at that
and this brutal winter
slipping in the snow and cracking a rib
falling in the shower and bruising my ass
catching a cold and staying up all night coughing
moaning over my ribs and ass

this winter needs to go the fuck away

like this government needs to go the fuck away
packs of privileged, splintered, whining rich diplomats
who’s forgotten the plight of the common man

i don’t even have enough room in this poem
to talk about how mad they make me

let’s just say i’m mad at america

for tossing people away like garbage
for bootstrap bullshit and runny egg dreams

i’m mad because i’m losing my mind
for eight hours a day five days a week
stuck doing nothing but counting
the months, the years, the decades until this ends

i wish i’d learned a trade instead
but what good what it do me in post-industrial america?

i’m mad because without this job
i’d be asking some asshole
do you want fries with that?
like millions of others have been forced to

i’m mad because here i’m considered
one of the lucky ones

i’m mad because i’m almost 40 years old
mad when i fall asleep at 9:30 on the couch
mad when friday night feels like a wake instead of a party

i’m mad because i’ve always hated parties

something about sitting at tables with more than four people
that always makes me feel like christ at the last supper

i’m mad that a 40th birthday
is something worth celebrating to begin with

you’re on your way down at 40
no matter what the self-help books and celebrities say
no matter how you think and feel

because all the good shit has come and gone
and the small pleasures you have now
have probably taken too long to arrive

if it were up to me they’d take us out
and shoot us once we hit the big 4-0

i know i’m ready are you?

but no one listens to me
when i tell them this

they think i’m being foolish
they say dumb shit like lighten up

which, of course, just makes me mad                           

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