Thursday, December 14, 2017

day THREE HUNDRED and TWENTY NIINE


"I had a picture of another man's wife tattooed on my arm"
---John Prine


Jesus, Patricia Rodriguez

i’m thinking about the people who clean grain silos while i’m reading

my friend's novel and he's teaching me you can always circle back into a

word again if the writing is good enough
and now i’m in the shower

taken by surprise sounds like something
that waves at us while we

pass and i wonder if silo men are taken by surprise when their safety

harnesses fail but i’m late for an appointment in the future with my

great great grandchildren who want me to explain why we gave all the

clean water to the frac-ers to make earthquakes and sinkholes and bank

accounts and hong kong phooey cartoons but there haven't been bank accounts

since the paper revolution so they can't relate to the feel of a real

leather buggy whip in their hands and pay phones and horses and the

sound of carriage wheels rolling in the morning air any more than a

die apart america

so now i’m walking around all the
blue bikes and the pink bikes

tipped over on all the broken
sidewalks and in all the yellow yards

and as i hear dad's yelling
or television men forgotten on

i turn a complete circle
screaming out loud

where have all the people gone

amerigo vespucci promised
desperate europeans rivers of gold

and horny native girls to board broad ships and cross over broader seas

but at this moment i'm in
an art gallery in dallas texas

kissing the girl i love
pressing her tight to me

one hand on the small of her back
the other on her neck
and we're moving like we invented kissing 10,000 years ago to live

forever and with one word from her swollen lips i'd kill all the men on all

the ships in the history of the world
but i'm looking over my baby's

shoulder and damn jesus patricia rodriguez you're standing by a pool

holding that drink like a cock wearing those black sunglasses

monica bellucci cool in nothing but a
bikini talking about godzillas and i

know jesus patricia rodriguez amerigo vespucci is rolling over in

his grave listening to me moan in my baby's ear and i'm sure i'll be your

fukushima disaster if you'd just tip those glasses down and look at me

the maps are burning
the apps are blank

the sign in the hands standing
on the side of the road says

nil by mouth

like grain in a silo
nowhere to circle

nowhere to turn
in america

--Paul Koniecki

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