Daughters, Ballparks, Or Neither

Of course you probably don't wanna
fire on these, these manta rays I call
"guns." They swim until they arrive;
they swim until they're
done. You know where I'm staying, Starks?
I'll get you that platinum-laced Jersey at
the stroke of midnight, ya heard? Eesh, cameras.
Everybody hates cameras. Just look at them,
looking at you, taking your picture.

Eesh. Anyway today
I grew some words, like celerity, which means "rapidly."
Like rapid celery with celerity these celebrities wither
away with amphetamines and not eating. Tiny,
invisible hair covering their bodies like brineshrimp,
(which is One Word in my dictionary, harumph, yaaaas).
Bulimic is the new bucolic, transplanted like a houseplant
into the cemetery, cool and austere and stripped-down
and unaugmented, as well as serene, not-to-be questioned.
But with all this said it's hard to believe we will continue to
afford the dead the physical space they seem to deserve
when all the living ones keep writing petitions and retching
sweaty violence toward our daughters and
let's just keep them all apart, anyway. Separate but Equal
brand Mouthwash is good enough for me. My gums sparkle
clean and pink health and my sheath never quivers, because
I don't have one, because I don't need a protective covering
over my unit, because I'm a man, MAN, and my testes
hang out like this and my huge Andromeda straw just lays
there, gathering legend, because sperm need to just chill,
brother? Can you feel it? All that biology so thick you gotta
put on some anti-shades to see through all the layers of complexity,
so complex that no sarcasm can put us to sleep tonight; instead,
it's Pure Quality. And an understanding--
as simple as, let's say, "Lay still now for eight hours!"--
of anatomy and miracle glands.

Even Pharaohs Eat Lunch

Daddy's got it backwords, i mean backwards,
back toward the woods i bear my sideburns
meaning firearms: WANT TO FIRE ON ME?

I scuttle ships with the best of 'em, scoop
skittles like the rest of them, chest in chin,
feeling brave & thin, like a mushroom grin
on a day-glo necklace Santa--Christmastime on Mars!
Not again!

& so-forth, Mars bars, broads at the bars with
the Farmar Jersey on and I say, "Hey, nice
Jersey, what's the deal?" And she says, "Hey,
nice try kid, I'm pregnant, feel," and I say
"Great belly. Oh, a kick? Nice talking to you."

(This is needles-haystack--meaning needless--
to say: I'M IMAGINING EVERYTHING)

And her name is Cynthia and her breasts are
fucking fantastic (while we're imagining we'll picture
her topless, hotter than Megan Fox)
and this fantasy tops the list of weird things
to talk about, like cysts, or conversation with the
wife about your lurid trysts.

& I insist not to be a night-bear, not to be afraid
of the nightscare, everything is a nightwear
possibility: the rug, the furniture, Jones' hat
that was mine which was Amanda's and now:
who knows? Time moves like a globe sometimes:
Around, moving like a clown on steroids, getting
angry for no reason, quoting Danny Glover,
telling Mel not to kill himself.

But that's not the point. Another comma, another mid-
spin re-direct check-point check express-lane bypass
and I die of grass--Digress like Reader's Digest
(now online only)...

Throat clearing done. So I want to say:

I can communicate quite well. Deft language becomes me.
Or, I create it with ease. See how concise we can be?

But the usual limits bore me, I do not walk here,
ON THE SIDEWALK, rather in the grass
(maybe pulling up weeds for the fun of it, fuck you
Monsanto)

Which is why I write like this
like a child who absconds from the bus
mid-transit and gets hit by a semi

yeah, i got a semi
every time I look at pictures from semi-
formal Junior year, drinking that potion, juice
& everclear, ever clear that this year I would be
having a lot of great sex, fucking in the old train
station, but that's getting tawdry.

I mean,
The usual inexact man would say
I color outside the lines.

This is kind of true: It's accurate in the same way
that I'm a kind-of-honest person, which is something
we all attest to, but which is almost always a dangerous
lie, more dangerous than the lies we speak.

It is really this: most of us want to be truthful. We want
to be honest people.

But we fail in that. Every single day
it's like I don't recognize the person in the mirror.
"Hi, Douglas Brain here, um, sole survivor of
a recent airplane crash, um, borderline personality
syndrome (something must explain this madness),
borderline drug-addict who thinks he can write well,
well...." I've already stopped talking because it's the
truth, at least the last part,
and they aren't expecting that... but what if it's
all true? What if nothing really means anything? Such
hard work being a Nihilist, yeah right The Dude.

Let me try again:
"Ok, that was an exaggeration. But you probably
wouldn't hire me or date me. I stay up late and am
remarkably slow at ordinary tasks. I'm regularly late.
Women floor me. Drugs have abounded
in my personal life, like friends, except they aren't friends.
They're drugs.

But so am I, DROUGHT, Drugged Main, an animus
you cannot comprehend, a complex snow leopard
in an otherwise warm, canine world. I am a wolf,
a sad legend. My eyes are capable of tearing up
often. I say things I don't mean
nearly as often as I do the opposite.

I am spoiled, undisciplined, sloppy, somewhat arrogant.
But worse of all, I'm entitled, slopping about like an
over-educated busboy.

People at McDonald's probably work harder than me.
Even at 25, you've got to start somewhere.
From now on I'm taking life seriously, but don't
quit reading just yet, I feel prodigious, like a mummy
waking up, casting off the quilts of dead lunches and
a million sad sandwich stories.

Since you asked

1. Dielectric breakdown

I am a horse blinded in a thicket
shielded by everything and nothing
rambling, rambling, rambling;
completely lost.

So this is what it comes to. Angry at most everybody, and probably most of all, myself.

Live cleanly. Drink moderately. Seek adventure
only so far as it fits within a hallmark card
or your online journal
nobody reads, might as well keep it in a fucking diary
locked to the world.

Live clean. Work hard. Be effective
but recreate, give people money,
buy all sorts of things. Want love? How about
an airline ticket to the nearest lovely destination.
Low fares straightaway. Want companionship?
Well, there’s always the internet,
which we swear, says Match.com, connects
actual people. And Mark203 met Skier_hottie24
and damn if its wasn’t sex on the first date,
a spring marriage nine months later and
a rainy divorce two springs hence, with one
unhappy, mistaken child now on Our hands,
groping about like a misshapen question
or an accusation.

Be good, be normal, Do Not Be Strange,
unless you’re a character, wherein TNT welcomes
you (or is it USA?), although you have to be on TV.

Fit in, get a job, move ahead in the world
while the human race inexorably
pushes back the limits of the Earth
thereby poisoning limitless tracts of land,
rivers, lakes, oceans, air, coral-reefs, wetlands –now
practically gone – our rainforests, our heavenly
world right here on Earth the next windfall
for the goddam Gold-Diggers at Mobile Energy Inc.
who give generously at all their local houses of
Jesus, making them helluva good citizen
may God bless them for their charity,
& so forth.

Gross, Comma, Comatose Lime

Aforementioned limbs:
none, as yet.
Still working on it. It was so slippery,
she said, embroidering her daddy's glove.
"Dad will wear this in honor of me and
my great success raising honey bees,"
she said. Her name was Mathilda;
of course, she was a Mousavi supporter.
And Dr. Dre said--Nothing, you idiots!
Doctor Dread is dead! He's locked in my
spacebud! He withered, like the arm,
just now mentioned, of the T-Rex,
(what a scavenger fake!)
when we pursued engagement.
Which won't work. Of course. John Bolton
said so.