Wrong
These are the wrong times
the best people
are dead
we turned around twice
everyone has left
holding the bill
as trains ended
we’ll have to make it up ourselves reconstructing lines
to a better future
walking home through the night
in the wrong times
Coming Soon
I look forward to
not remembering
to mistaking the film
for a dream
for the dream
being my past
for a childish sense
of justice to prevail
for the bad
to be punished
unless she’s very pretty
in which case
the nurse’s
come for the pan
made to lead
wanna breed
do what I do
don’t wanna think
things get complicated
you get frustrated
calm you down
with what I’m making
a man
help me understand
was I built for
more than slaving and war
man
without a plan
is worth less
than food digested
visions and fears
advertise nightly
sacrificing
to buy them outright
no guarantees
many will leave
made to build
it’s about the timing
a man
I forget what I am
weighed down by
convention and skin
man
nothing else
when this spirit
leaves where it’s been
Middle-Class Art
I admire how empty
your life is
your work as a blur
of leisure bits
while war threatens
your neighbors
you paint a perfect portrait
of the dog
I admire how ugly
your wife is
how you love her
with all your heart
and your children
so promising
how they feel the void
with all their guts
middle-class art
taught in the classroom
where to start
where boredom rules
institutional measures
robbed of every pleasure
the kids feel it in their guts
the meaning’s out there
as the planet slides
into an abyss
and civilization’s threatened
with non-existence
you can’t say
we don’t deserve it
it’s written in every
stroke of your brush
You Probably Didn’t Like Yourself, Either
keep us one person apart
distance preserves image
no one’s in my head
we’re not so different
all alike in the dark
and one’s the limit
I delete the action
as soon as it happens
you probably didn’t
like yourself, either
Holidays
between the laptop and the phone
cookies and the bone
you rebound to come
face to face with the loneliness
after messages you've sent
the sounds of clarinets
marinate you
with your onliness
putting in so much work
into becoming unique
towering over
your own edifice
scanning the ground
worms in your beak
for tiny creatures
to comfort to kiss
stirring in your flock
they’ve already taken off
mocking in your thoughts
your own decision making process
ideas invade me
ideas captivate me
I wrestle with them
then they leave me
not completely
secretly becoming
a part of me
until I can’t remember being different
you cling to them
I reject you because
I don’t have your connection
to them
I make them my own
and you get irritated
you take a new position
and then I’m frustrated
and cite irreconcilable
differences
while the devil just farts
in our general direction
Talking the election with my dentist
the pain is real
now he can’t reproduce it
cavity was the big one
they’d already filled it
he told me when
he became a citizen
took a pledge not
to be a communist
And he mentioned Khomeini
And how the promises reminded him
And how he ignores the rhetoric
All the bashing of Muslims
I talk with people
I don’t agree with
I try to understand
why do they think this
There are reasons
histories and emotions
That in the sunlight
hurt a bit less
And I was spitting out
the blood and mouthwash
I felt thankful we could
have the discussion
he suggested antibiotics
I took them and then
I voted for the communist
who was just a 70’s moderate
he wondered what happened
to all the moderates
he feared the disappointments
of the last mayor
