.

The very economic concept of growth

Encourages subterfuge —

The disguising of the self in

As elaborate and boorish of a costume

As possible.

.

All around town,

We keep our heads down,

Fight little battles,

Wars,

We

.

Live juxtaposed closely to

Maniacal laughs,

To fake smiles, to

Rage and carnage,

Bee-lining toward the next

Obligation and

.

Laughing at the bank and all

Of its ephemeral,

Androgynous sovereignty.

You were about like the rest of them, I guess —

Very little makeup,

No skimpy clothing,

Modest, functional body and

A little bit on the shy side.

.

I mostly

Dealt my attention to other things

Like the titles

And the general morale.

.

There were worlds of anxiety rushing through me

But somehow the endless rows of CD’s helped a little bit

And you stood behind the counter like something

I knew was feeling some of what I did —

.

You saw the phalanx of aggressive ambition,

The bloodlusting, bloodletting and maybe even

The eventual debilitation of music itself

As an expressed art form

And of little stores like this which were

Probably as close to a tabernacle

As I’ll ever get

On this sultry, maniacal planet.

The Fourth of July

Now approaches and

Loud explosions are a big

Part of the objective

And 90 miles to the west

Chicago sits as a sort of explosion

Of sorts

Ejecting various verbose,

Booze-obsessed individuals

Who will thereby lodge in northern Indiana

Obsessing with horror movies

And Malort

And generally

Reminding you of a certain dark,

Awkward truth traversing

The inner bowels of our world,

In case you needed it.

The boyfriend upstairs

Laughs like Woody Woodpecker

At 100 decibels

All hours of the day

Like a rapacious quest,

Like an imperial attack

On North Vietnam

Rendered for arbitrary victory.

.

Well now the girl has “kicked him out”

After he totaled her car,

To then regain him on Memorial Day weekend,

Finding him laughing a little slower and

Talking a little lower.

.

Sometimes you just gotta turn down the volume.

It was a rainy, unseasonably cool evening in the bar downtown. Pain was in the air, you might even say. It was the kind of night where you didn’t look anyone too closely in the eye. We were in Indiana. We were in the shadow of Chicago, of the University of Notre Dame, of Michigan, and of crop life that looked so relatively beautiful, compared to us.

As usual, it was really easy for me to tell who was into me and who wasn’t. Then again, some people were just in there going through the motions. Some of the girls working there achieved poignant, extended smiles, that even seemed a little genuine. Some seemed nervous. We were all dispatching from our own corner of zodiac, of size and shape, but on this night, these things seemed pronounced, with no prevailing method of unity and solidarity apparently emerging too clearly.

The bar was having karaoke. The one girl was there, too, who like, peeled the paint off the walls, doing country songs, and sh**. She was really good, I have to admit. She was really attractive, too, and really nice, to the point of accepting me hitting on her with the sort of congeniality that comes with doing what you love and loving what you do.

The time eventually came for me to go up and sing. I chose “Ft. Worth Blues” by Steve Earle. I was dressed in a royal blue windbreaker and New Balance sneakers — the cosmological antithesis of Steve Earle, roughly. 

Before singing, I made a brief announcement into the microphone.

“I’m going to attempt to sing a Steve Earle song other than peckerhead road,” I said. “I hope nobody has a stroke or anything.”

A couple people laughed, nervously. I heard a lot of grumbling. I saw a lot of people talking to each other, seriously. It never ceased to amaze me how sensitive people around here were, especially since they usually seemed so unscrupulous in acting like I creeped them out and denying me positions as bank teller and pest control technician.

I started singing, kind of nervous.

Transposed onto the new world

By a mountain of time,

By a litany of portals into anxiety,

I breathe in

To find myself being crushed

Under the constraints of capitalism.

.

In disbelief,

I scowl back at my former self,

Remember the emptiness of being a little kid,

The impetus for mischief,

And now,

As a beleaguered flare

I

.

Feel that I am lifting up,

That I am supporting,

All of my comrades,

And so I walk on eggshells,

I breathe in the day,

I breathe in my childhood and

Notice the beauty of the world

And all its cruelty,

Purveying its gallows denizens

With mad fury.

The music that plays when you walk by

Is something that I have not heard yet

Because if I had

It would catapult me onto a king’s throne

Surrounded by wild, staggering flames,

Roaring lions and a moat surrounding a castle.

.

The music that plays when you walk by

Swims in my blood

And is full of sacrifice,

Full of life and death,

Fiery red, gold,

Reincarned, loved and hated,

Its melodies entrancing

.

And its rhythms coldly defining

The mortal makeup of this life,

The fatal beauty of you

Like a beacon

Lighting my lunar, puerile eyes.

Yesterday on my 10 a.m. break from work

I wheeled over to this grassy area behind a Home Depot

In South Logansport

And just sat there in my car.

.

It was amazing how good it felt

To lounge in my car

On a 64-degree first of May

And not worry about anything.

.

The blank, cruel, unyielding truth of the world

Showed itself to me

And it was all I needed.

.

This lady drove by

And looked at me.

.

I kind of smirked back, half checking her out.

.

She circled around again

A couple minutes later,

Pulled up next to my car and asked me,

“Can I ask what you’re doing, just sitting there?”

.

I responded, simply, “No.”

.

Coincidentally, I’d planned on

Getting back to work

At about that exact instant,

So I started up the car I was in

And headed back.

.

All the while,

Too,

I retained my docility in answering people’s questions

Clearly and in expedited fashion,

And there’s something to be said for that.

Homeless,

Angry,

I will lash out at you

When you

Are terrified,

Attempting to cross the street

In your hometown

And suddenly the dumpster

Doesn’t seem so bad to me

And suddenly the dirty dish water

In the sink

Doesn’t seem so gross

And I am guided by a white-hot light

In this life

Wherein I perceive the western sky,

Wherein I perceive the full moon

And invent,

Thereupon,

A new donkey dance,

And you will know my pain

And you will be me in your next life

Unless you can orchestrate one

Activity at a YMCA,

Activity at the moist tendrils

Of a corpus callosum.

The YMCA is moved now

From atop the riverbank

To down in the basin on the opposite side,

Yielding thoughts of dank mildew

And the type of stagnancy which would align with its

Positioning right next to the court house.

.

I think of going there and working out

And my blood pressure ascends a couple of points —

I think of violent force,

Of awful food being served to me,

Food I can’t even get down,

That makes me gag,

.

I think of being compromised and

Deprived of my song,

Of my chirping, humming vision that

Should be mine in this life but that

Seems to kindle homicidal,

Coal-black eyes from the

Shining, beacon-coddling officials

Of our society.