Tuesday, September 1, 2009

The Gentleman from San Francisco’s 401(K)

Action, action, action,
Armchair factions? Lottery
ethos insisted that I note down
wallets, pomegranates, and youth,
the speaker of my house demanded
“sift through and sow magnifying lenses,
devour defenses, battery power insurance”

Being a gook, I wasn’t allowed solemnity.
I asked for indemnities but He was absent,
I called for anti-poet Parra, he was laughing,
I ingrained my thoughts on bra, ob-la-daing,
And I’ve been truant, now like an old hit song,
I was dying for a bathtub, aching for lost loves

Our cellophane bag lunches swallowed the oceans,
but that is not our concern but God’s, always, forever,
so let’s just live, live, live til we die, die, die, die slowly,
in a gooey death refusing to—retired—believe that the
consumerist blame is not on the veiled abundant plastic
fishes murderous in reefs, but on the leeches in a forest
of a capital city’s rivers and old houses and banks and . . .
 
I was happy to see you but you were not so happy
to be born, and though there was the TV, sure,
“I know I can’t hunger or clamor for more,”
throwing your arms round ‘n’ round
in desperation, asking for respite,
for salutations, while I sighed
in my own incarceration

In twelve years
I will be
free,
see

1 comment:

  1. "...The lottery insisted I note down
    wallets, pomegranates, and youth..."

    "...so let's just live, live, live, live til we die, die, die, die slowly
    in a gooey death refusing to leave or even---retired---believe
    that the consumerist blame is on the veiled abundant fishes
    copiously murderous in the reefs..."

    Nice visual structure too. Love it!

    ReplyDelete