Friday, August 22, 2014
dialectalogue (1)
A: “man
best you can say of everything
is that I’m sick of these days,
these days nothing changes,
it’s sick man nothing changes here
best you can say.
B: man I don’t even know these days,
If it ain’t everything changing though
that’s the best you can say.
Man, I’m sick of these days,
feels like nothing is the same,
no changes man I don’t even know these days
feels like everything is best as the same old nothing.
A: I mean CHANGES, though!
Though man I feel like everything is the same these days and
I don’t even know nothing these days,
I don’t know these days, don’t know nothing
Except I’m sick of these days
same old changes here
best you can say.
B: every change is the same old nothing
and nothing changes, these days change nothing
and change changes nothing.
nothing? nothing changes everything these days,
I don’t even know nothing these days
Change done come through and changed everything,
And nothing doing is the best you can say.
(At the same time)
A: but I sure am sick of how everything these days stays the same and nothing changes and
I don’t even know,
don’t even know nothing
Best you can say is that the old changes need changing
B: but changes done changed nothing and everything done these days changed nothing and
I don’t even know,
Don’t even know nothing
Best you can say is that nothing needed changing
(Together)
A&B: and I’m sick of it.”
capitalist publishing llc
So many love Lermontov
praise Pushkin, adore Dostoevsky,
place a translator’s prose on top of
the delicate, the most fetching
truly sublime verse ever written.
With a population so very smitten
By simple words, written plainly so
I submit our new product: annotated sparknotes.
paycheck
Eyes red, bleeding inside
Like I worked a damn day.
I did. I sat like a squeaky robot
Knees creaky, wrists carping, elbows rusted
joints arranged according to
company policy. Knuckles cracked
on their keyboard, at their labor.
I think that they think that I think that I
walked off the victor, because today is a Friday
and they owed me money. And I got it.
But it’s not the good kind of getting
what you’re owed, like on the big screen,
where you’ve got the Louisville slugger
and the guy has the whimpering fear.
It’s the other kind, the kind where
you wake up sweating about
an empty envelope and
an HR lady who has heard it all
before, heard every idiot
fret out an hour
behind that company grin.
And that is the real question, better
Than “to be or not to be”
Or “am I my brother’s keeper”
Or even “what does it all mean?”
The real question
You ask into the mirror with
Eyes wide and reddening
is
"“What am I going to pay the lawyer with
If they don’t give me my paycheck?”
man of steal
“Just the facts, Ms. Lane,”
And he was again a blue wall of silence
Guns poking out of his sleeves
And holster. She wiped paint from her eyes.
“Well, the psycho wore glasses, officer.
Tall, white, handsome -
I would’ve said a newscaster, but too tan.
I would’ve said a golf-pro, but too many muscles.
I would’ve said a lunk, but he set his lips like a scholar.
I would’ve said a librarian, but he glared.
I would’ve said a soldier, but his eyes were too wild.
I would’ve said a revolutionary,
But I don’t think he had anything to say.
I would’ve said a police officer,
But then he’d be you, Officer Kent.”
Officer Kent’s learned lips
Spread across his sun-darkened face
As he moved his powerful, taut arm up
To scratch his perfect straight nose
where glasses did not sit.
“Ms. Lane, I don’t think
You have to worry about the police
Dipping a raccoon in whitewash
and swinging it around your house
and we sure don’t have the time
to repaper your powder room
with copies of the Internationale.
Besides, I don’t wear glasses.”
She sighed. He was right, glasses
Were an inescapable blemish
An unsightly mark
That immediately confirmed
one’s identity. “I suppose
you’re right.” Officer Kent
smiled. “I’ll stick around
tonight, ma’am, to give you a
little peace of mind. There’s
no telling whose out and about
these days.” Lois smiled.
“My hero. You know,
I’ve got the funniest feeling
That something is wrong.
There’s too many yahoos,
Bank robbers, low burglars, human cats,
Face-painted villains, reds, and evil-geniuses
around. I can’t help but think
That things shouldn’t be so rowdy,
So loud, so exciting. Listen to me
Prattling on. Thank you, officer.
Goodbye, now.” She closed the door.
This superman,
Satisfied that he was alone
Turned to his cruiser.
He opened his trunk
And pushed the dead, dripping raccoon
Onto the stack of papers in French,
Leaving a white smear. He pressed a hidden panel
In the wheel well of his trunk
took out his glasses, and made for the driver’s side door.
He unbuttoned his shirt with each step,
dragged the blue curtains away and
on stage beneath his glittery grin
was tattooed the anarchy A
garbage
The basket tinkles, jingles, squishes full of, charmingly shreds
Memos, mission statements, mid-life crises
Calendars, calipers, Christmas portraits,
Post-its, pencils, performance reviews
Rave reviews of restaurants, resumes, rolodexes (still?)
Staples, stationary, stock-sharing options
Overtime, overtime, overtime (fuck!)
Flexing folders, full files, faded memories
My id (accidentally), my paystub and my life.
But
My interests, my politics, my ideas,
My conscience, my clothes,
My objections
And my time
Clang, ring, rock back and forth
Into the bucket.
Everything I throw in the garbage
is too loud and people are starting to
guess about me.
I will have to be more careful
About what I throw away
and more quiet.
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