Bad Hair Day, Revised & Expanded Page 3
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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∞•∞•∞•∞•∞
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?”
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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