aging punk
My friends’ father is smoking sativa
over the kitchen sink, says he can’t
believe I’ve never read Pynchon, not
that one, the other. Insists it used to be
a real city, back when he was young,
back when punk meant something still,
asks me you think you know about
culture? Says you don’t know a goddamn
thing about culture, and then apologizes.
Sighs, rubs his balding head like a magic
8 ball, says the only thing that stayed
the same was all the rats. Now, he’s
ashing in the flowerbox, and, now,
I’m pretending to look the other way.
A minor saint
I was a minor saint of empty time.
Strange men bought me piss poor
beer, spirit forward and blood red
wine, with lights to cherry me
in the dark, in the alleyway, behind
the same old bar we always haunt,
asked to walk me home like a confession,
and a catholic borne guilt when I refuse
them all. It is time now to write your sins
out in sharpie on the bathroom stalls.
I am not a forgiving or merciless god.
This is not a confirmation, and this
is no way to survive; not for long.
reservations about the casino-industrial complex
They don’t want you to go big, they want you
to go home. Everyone’s always pointing out
the fluorescent lighting, and the way it hums.
Matty could never hear it over the ringing
his ears make, his punctured drums hissing
like sunken car tires. But the song reminds me
of cicadas in the summertime: New England’s
white noise. Nostalgic for what, I’m not sure,
but I feel it all, all the same. In the bathroom,
the lighting’s just as harsh. When I catch
my reflection, I look guilty, an interrogation
from behind a two-way mirror. Are all
the leather-skinned white men dropping
cigarette ash on their collared shirts placed
there like decoration? The bottle blonde
broken women with the ash tray rasp
in their throats are putting you on. They hire
them as bad actors to play upon white guilt
and white pride. Matty says they want you
to lose track of time, that’s why there’s no
windows in here, but I’m like, whose time
is it anyway? When you lose, you’re never
closer to winning. But you’re never more
lost than when you think you’ve won.
You’re not getting away with anything
new. You’re not getting away at all.
Bartleby with an email job
Your email finds me howling
at overhead lighting, suspended,
hypertonic, and shrinking. I’m
Bartleby with an email job, please
don’t ever circle back to me, chewing
cud in the break room pasture. I would
prefer to peel back cuticle to flesh,
to type only with the soft pink parts
of me, pressing like braised deli meat
or flowers kept nestled between
the front and back matter. I’m watching
the clock face till it creases crow feet
at the quarter till, till its time migrates
as geese or filler. How could I ever
sign off in a way that matters?
