Why Philosopher’s Don’t Require Search
Warrants
I watch them take down another tent
city,
from the safety of friendlier windows,
no one has an infinite ceiling to
climb toward
like some determined arachnid on
the spindly-long bucket list
aching brain bleed cribbage mind
out-thinking itself
which is why I curl up with many balls
of yarn,
why philosophers don’t require search
warrants,
and with an opinion instead of an
view,
I get to thinking about how Goya’s Colossus puts Lady Liberty to shame,
almost swallowing the entire skyline
as his later Saturn
did his children
and these tight checkered past pants I
wear
out to a market of over-ripe
cantaloupes
are a personal sacrament,
that strobe-cackled way Phyllis Diller
told jokes
with all those wild clothes on,
like some disastrously beautiful
surprise party
that had imploded on itself
Brando loathing Chaplin as a director
for all his long silences
and everyone else hating Brando
for all that sudden noise
coming from the Hollywood Hills,
it’s the newly puritanical going to
bed
with their Spring water,
that guilty way I scratch behind my
ears
blow my nose and look for survivors,
so compassionate these days that I
could
be on a search team or a member of a
book club
that meets twice a month
to drink too much wine
and talk shit about our husbands
and kids
while Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea
gets wider all the time,
growing to a chasm of humanity really,
and Paul Gauguin
dies of painting as much
as syphilis.
***
Everyone is a Snitch at Sing Sing
It seems
to me that the Department of Corrections
is making assumptions when you name a
prison that,
everyone
is a snitch Sing Sing, how could they not be?
unless it
is meant to be ironical, but these prison
types don’t always seem imbued with
the best of humours
which
leads me to assume the former
as the warden of my cat grants
visitation rights
to
the foolish house mouse,
knocks
over all my papers so that
the building of the pyramids must
start
all
over again
and
this letter opener way I run my knuckles across my eyes
after a
long day
which is not to blame the day for
wanting to
stick
around; if there must be an indictment,
then this
has become one of the Self
removing greedy batteries from
squeamish fire alarms,
a bushel
of dandruff from great unwashed heads…
someone
get me an updated map of Europe,
I hear Germany is on the move again.
***
The Punch Clock Having Nothing to do with
Boxing Even though it is Always a Fight
Lithuania is waning,
I’ve seen the same reports you have,
they must have a leak somewhere in the
national fabric,
those vampires from payroll always
syphoning
a little off the top before taxes,
the punch clock having nothing to do
with boxing
even though it is always a fight;
I just want to sit in cigarette
stairwells
watching the nicotine swirl around,
cluster cloud
and dissipate…
Who wants a good book?
Villains are always more interesting.
It must be all that dirt under the
nails.
The constant miscues that don’t even
try to be perfect.
***
‘This shadow sitting in near dark’
This shadow sitting in near dark,
the murder moors all those silly black
press clippings away,
and I roll up an old tv guide,
slam another fly back down into
the waiting 200 eyes for pennies
afterlife,
the middle of this blue garage sale
housecoat
open so that I can still put myself
out
there in a physical sense,
dangle like some forgotten door
knocker
around food that almost fries itself,
dredge holiday lakes of all their
orange
family water-winged laughter –
the books I read all end themselves,
a literary suicide;
all those words to arrive back
at this single final pure silence,
you gotta think Irony has been
angling for sponsorship this whole
time;
riding the rollercoaster of
Chance
back to original
scream.
***
Mr. Patterson Hides Under a Quilt
It all begins with a simple pattern.
The human brain wired to find them.
Discernable shapes in the carpet and
curtains,
slowly working towards you.
Mr. Patterson hides under a quilt,
and not for the cold as things would
seem.
Under another pattern,
though he never once commands
such ironies.
Even his birth name close.
Another Patterson.
All that shivering rattle of bones
under something held tight to his
blood-throbbing neck
like a mugger's attentive blade.
So many pictures on the wall
of a wife he can hardly remember.
Her touch, now no different than a
heavy-handed
rolling pin through a fresh bed of
flour.
And the darkness gathered all around.
Getting closer all the time.
