Bad Hair Day, Revised & Expanded Read online

problem?

  I’ve been considering an extra fold at the tip of the wing.

  Maybe a paper clip here on the nose

  Will send it rising and dipping and soaring

  Through wild blue nouns and sonic verbs,

  Rolling over upside down to warm its belly in the sun,

  Plummeting into a syntax that can barely

  Withstand screaming G-force nosedives.

  Orville, I imagine lines that skim the surface of air,

  A vision that defies both gravity and page margins,

  That shocks boredom out of it’s native complacency,

  That suspends the loneliness for a while,

  And transforms my fear of flying

  Into a vibrant new breath of life.

  ∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞

  Careening into Upheaval

  Helen Wheels

  comes tooling around the bend,

  scoring a thin line

  between creation and destruction,

  coming on plumb loco—

  motives unknown, unaccountable,

  high-stepping, gyrating, satin schmooze.

  When Helen Wheels

  comes wending wondrous wiles,

  she reawakens a primal myth,

  an allegory of craft and vexation,

  each generation recasting

  revised revisions

  of some new subversive notion

  of a dream sublime.

  Helen Wheels

  comes careening into upheaval,

  with Cleopatra black hair

  and mummified wit,

  or Marilyn Monroe blond

  swirling Rubenesque curvature,

  or Asian eyes and creamy chocolate

  complexion like dark confection

  dusting cloaked Romulan cruisers

  suddenly shifting course

  through wide-open landscapes

  of smoldering ruins

  with chances of winning

  this lottery running

  slim to nil.

  ∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞

  Roaches

  Years ago they settled their disputes in bed. Now he’s inclined to drink alone in the basement. As she throws out moldy shit in the fridge, he’s staring down the barrel of a loaded shotgun. She holds her breath, wincing, and opens assorted containers of unrecognizable sludge. Nothing is accomplished this way but it gives them a rest between bouts.

  This isn’t The Days of Wine and Roses, though close enough to smell in grungy sheets and barfing drains. In the basement, he’s piled the empty bottles. This time when she stormed out she took the cookie-jar money and the cookie jar too. She’d been in the shower when the plumbing backed up. “That’s it!” she cried, “I’ve had it. I’m out of here!”

  Cleaning guns always has a calming effect on him. Lately, he’d been cleaning them over and over again, after she’d come shambling in at all hours, and by then he’d be all lubed up and galvanized. No nasty degrading thing she said or did could faze him. The ensuing battles were their own twisted versions of Wounded Knee.

  A shiny coat of oil draws light down the gun barrel which fits just perfect in the crook of his jaw. Last night she came to bed with a belly full of booze and the smell of another man on her raspy breath. Later she got up and stumbled to the bathroom. The sharp pop was followed by a crunchy, sucking sound as exoskeletal material and goopy innards squished up between her naked toes.

  “Fucking roaches!” she yelled as toilet paper unfurled and tore.

  He can only imagine the look on her face then would be the same expression as now, wherever she is, carrying around a suitcase and cookie jar, looking like she just mashed the guts of one of the earth’s most foul and despicable critters.

  He’s cleaned the shotgun enough times to know it better than he knows himself. How the trigger itches to set off gears and levers, and the gun powder longs to do its evil bidding, and when he spots the roach emerging from a bottle the blast is so loud there’s hardly room for the bird shot to spread.

  Bottles leap into tinkling fragments and the roach vanishes. He supposes it’s about time to start packing his own suitcase. He’s low on whiskey, and the shotgun blast burst the drainpipe he hadn’t noticed behind the bottles. Suddenly his basement sanctuary has begun to reek.

  Finishing his drink, he searches the garage for a can of gas. He’s going to miss her and the guns and even this stinking house. Gasoline and sewer water do a dirty dance on the basement floor. On his way out he glances back over his shoulder, sadly assessing the blazing stinkpot of a breached romance. He can almost hear the shuffle of a thousand roach feet scrambling to elude the flames, trying to avoid being entombed in a volcanic glaze of molten glass.

  ∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞

  The Mean Time

  In the mean time a pair of grackles,

  cack cack cack cack cack.

  Bitchy blue-black birds raise a great flap,

  scrambling amid the leaves and branches.

  I’m still half asleep and groggy

  until a Rottweiler starts barking down the way.

  I’m holding one end of a long white string

  leading all the way back

  into a labyrinthine dreamscape I’ve already forgotten,

  except for the afterglow,

  accompanied by that goddamned, infernal alarm clock.

  My initial thought of the day: Oh, shit!

  Can’t we just leave me out of it?

  The sheets, cool and smooth all around me,

  My tennis elbow causes only a meager wince of pain,

  My bum knee isn’t throbbing

  but the lower back is stiffer than usual.

  After forty-six years of waking up every day,

  I’m somewhat put off by the notion that

  reality is little more than a circus sideshow,

  Sandwiched inbetween sweet savory dreams.

  Better get a move on.

  As little as I care to get involved,

  I have to drag my sorry ass

  out of this bed right now.

  Meanwhile, grackles bitch and squabble in the treetops,

  the Rottweiler yelps for breakfast,

  and a jet airliner thunders overhead,

  as if in anticipation of some dreary tragic harbinger

  of police sirens or wailing fire engines.

  I hate to wish my life away but in the mean time,

  as I set the burglar alarm and lock the door,

  I’m already looking forward

  to a nice little nap after work

  with today’s TV newscast

  droning whiplash in the background.

  ∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞

  Snow Jobs

  Outside the window a cold otherworldly glow, a luminous violet-gray swirl of white unleashes flurries of crystal flecks.

  Inside, a miniature frame of warm colorful TV reflections on the glass softly beat a war drum of corporate broadcast voices busily sanitizing the news of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

  Gazing out, I contemplate the brutality of winter storms, the possible impacts of opposing snow jobs on a single pane of ordinary window glass.

  On the yard underneath an overburdened cypress tree, a fallen branch has assumed the woeful posture of a distended angel’s wing.

  As two-foot drifts steadily accumulate, the holly bushes prostrate themselves like Muslims at prayer in a blizzard of soap flakes.

  ∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•
∞•∞•∞•∞•∞

  stonewalled

  you just have to ask a simple direct question,

  something like: “where’s that raise you promised me?”

  and you’ll see the boss’s face twist and warp

  like a disjointed contortionist

  as she’s miraculously transformed

  into a spineless mealy mouthed bureaucrat

  and the ethical compassion of human interaction

  is reduced to a carnival shell game

  and in an instant it becomes abundantly clear

  you won’t be getting a simple or direct answer

  instead you can expect a deflection, a diversion

  maybe some finger pointing or blame gaming

  or, if she deems it necessary, a bald-faced lie

  sometimes she’ll simply change the subject

  supplying the answer to a question you didn’t ask

  if she can’t dazzle you with her brilliance

  she may try to bamboozle you with bullshit

  maybe even take a stab at gas lighting

  just for good measure

  it’s truly uncanny how

  obstructions pop up in every direction

  invincible ramparts that surround and box out

  any hope of constructive discussion

  there will be no attempt at rational discourse

  there will be no dickering back & forth

  in an effort to achieve a delicate balance

  no tilting toward some golden mean

  her expression is a rock-and-mortar embodiment of stony silence

  as the sky fades gradually to dusk

  and all-encompassing obfuscation

  descends over the field of discourse

  like a shrewd calculated passive aggression

  rife with absurdity and laughable

  as Kafka’s worst nightmare

  but you won’t be too disappointed

  if you set your expectations very low

  you can go ahead and call her out on her lies

  but only if you’re prepared for repercussions

  it’s probably wiser to just remind her:

  “that’s exactly what you said last time”

  and watch her squirm in her executive’s chair

  as she averts her eyes and casts

  a silent gaze upon a clear spot on the desk

  and asks dismissively “will that be all?”

  ∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞

  TWEAK!

  What was that?

  A glass door riding stressed-out hinges?

  An old boiler valve calling for repairs?

  TWEAK!

  Like a motor bearing about to seize up,

  The locomotive fixing to explode,

  The final shriek of a throat-cut pig.

  TWEAK!

  Nobody else seems to notice my patience

  Straining like an old brick building

  Tilting in the midst of a six-point earthquake,

  A bum knee slightly overworked today,

  Tar-clogged lungs reminding me

  It’s time to quit smoking again.

  How much of this shit can a body take?

  I’m gridlocked amid cars, fumes, and orange barrels.

  I’m standing in line at any bank or government office.

  I’m being overcharged at a glitzy bar for a skimpy meal.

  I’m screaming at the automated answering device

  That’s taken over for people who used to answer phones.

  TWEAK!

  It’s a huge, crushing disappointment

  Or the culmination of a series of small, nagging ones.

  I’m trying to explain to my boss

  That he’s talking out his ass again.

  Or I’ve made the mistake of discussing politics

  With a Bible-thumping fascist from Kansas.

  TWEAK!

  It’s not an audible sound. This tweak you can feel it!

  Like fingernails screeching across the chalkboard.

  ∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞

  Our Tribal Dance

  Rush hour passes across America, time zone

  to time zone, and glacial mosh pits form gridlocked

  causeways, like colorful, chrome-embellished lava flows,

  in manmade canyons of the corporate monolith.

  Stressed-out commuters, we come

  slam dancing through boulevards and mean streets

  like fingernails turned back

  nearly to the breaking point.

  Tattoo artists

  in stretch limousines cruise past homeless people

  jealously guarding transistor radios that screech

  rock-riff samples of urban sounds

  while the music industry balkanizes into a fragmented rivalry

  of arcane graffiti somewhere in Bosnia.

  Hawkers and hookers congregate to sing hymns

  in a parking lot where the cathedral once stood

  beside Madison Avenue execs manufacturing

  the franchise mythology of a profligate culture.

  Beef brokers peddle rainforests in the form of tacos and hamburgers.

  As the last vestiges of the Iron Curtain fade

  and the gears of our military-industrial complex

  groan to a virtual standstill,

  gun traders turn with pokerfaced gleams in their eyes

  to third world nations steeped in endless conflict.

  Traffic signals change color

  and the dancers lunge, plunge,

  crash, bash, slash, thrash

  through the raging avenues of America.

  A camouflaged youth group in black

  leather and army boots,

  we assemble on an immense asbestos landfill

  bathed in neon light and the choking smog

  of a carbon-ravaged dusk.

  Tonight, we get shit-faced and do our tribal dance of disaffection.

  ∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞

  Bad Hair Day

  America, your hair is a awful mess

  You feel all bloated and gassy

  And your acne’s been flaring up again

  Your butt’s gotten as big as the backside of a Buick

  And liposuction is so expensive

  America, you’re having a bad hair day

  For decades you’ve been chewing your fingernails off

  Your terrified children keep and bear arms

  If they’re not on drugs, they’re on probation

  Or fighting off PTSD upon return from the oil wars

  America, your music’s a beat without melody

  Your lust for money can never be quelled

  Thus far, the corporate coup has been a bloodless one

  We’ve got fascist oligarchs running the country now

  They plan to erect the boondoggle to end all boondoggles

  America, your deodorant has all worn off

  Your stinking civil wars go raging on

  And you still haven’t fully recovered from

  The scalpings and lynchings of your checkered past

  From your witch hunts and spooky family values

  America, you’re lost in a reality TV daydream

  Stilted sound bytes and alternative facts

  And the saddest part of the story is that the welcoming words

  At the foot of the Statue of Liberty now translate

  Into every language as: BEWARE OF DOG

  ∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞

  Parting Shot

  It didn’t a
rrive with the mail. He was not greeted at the door by a friendly deliveryman asking for a signature. He found it on the doorstep in place of the person who presumably rang the bell and scurried away, leaving him this unsealed package to clear out of the doorway. Inside, a pile of Kodachrome and Polaroid snapshots loosely piled in a box like shiny rocks. A shoebox of paper tombstones. A pictorial history documented on thin veneer by the one who always had to make a big impact. The one who scissored her face out of every shot just to leave him a little something to think about in her absence.

  ∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞•∞