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?