.

Today,

For the first time,

At my seasoned age

 

I am a trespasser on this land

And I see things which are like molecules,

 

Little vacuoles of anger come

To spit fire now

And taste their own ashes later.

 

So your life’s composed on all sides

Of tense bisector eyes

Which contort

 

And then summon themselves up to the sun

With feather tears and

Dance club validation

Well

 

That’s what

Being a nice person is,

Isn’t it?

 

Somehow I’m no longer in the mood for “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” since having taken in this U.S.A. – England 2019 Women’s World Cup semifinal. It goes like this.

England was down 2-1 when one of their girls threaded this beautiful pass to this other, who netted the ball to tie the game. After a review, though, they found her to have been offsides, by about one foot or so, if that, thus nullifying the goal.

About 15 minutes later, an England girl was going in for a pass that was a scoring opportunity and took a wild fall from an approaching American. On the ensuing penalty kick, the American goalie made an incredible save, diving and grabbing the ball at the corner of the goal right as it was about it go in. The game ended in a 2-1 U.S.A. victory.

After the game, they showed the England girl who’d got her goal taken away. She looked about 25, broad-shouldered but with a friendly-looking face and an upbeat disposition. Her face was pale except for her eyes, which were wet and had red rings around them. Looking at her, my eyes welled up with tears.

And I was looking around at all the players walking around after the game, the Americans celebrating and the British clapping in obligatory class and concession. And I just wish I wouldn’t have seen any of this. I wish I wouldn’t have watched the game at all.

And I was looking around for any pair of players who were from opposing teams, congratulating one or exchanging any pleasantries. But I just didn’t see it. One American girl tried to help up a British girl from the ground, and though the British girl wasn’t rude, she didn’t extend a hand and it was clear she didn’t want to be touched by the American. The British girl who got her goal taken away was clapping, in observance with the general custom of a game’s end, being the loser. She definitely handled it way better than I would have. I would have cussed and insulted the ref, after that offsides call, gotten thrown out of the game, and then seen that ref in my dreams that night, which of course would have been stupid, almost as stupid as watching this fu**ing crap was in the first place.

 

For some reason I sometimes get nervous friending people (it’s probably a good reason I just don’t know of), so it seems somehow less painless if I’m on about my ninth Natty Ice sitting around the crib after work. Typically I turn in about three or four on these nights and hopefully snooze off ‘til about two… well on this night a frazzled frenzy piqued me from my sleep roundabouts 11:30 but the crushing human sensation was undeniable. It was like I knew what the glory of death was like. A lot of people were from my high school and the experience was an undeniable roller coaster of eyes, memories, images and emotions, pounding in and out of my mind like a drug invented by Bassnectar.

Sometimes you have to lean on this high school sh**: like I friended this one girl I worked with and she not only declined but blocked me… to be honest it wasn’t even someone I liked that much, it was just like more awkward not to friend her than to friend her seeing as we’d worked together for a year and a half. Then with this other girl from my high school, well-shaped, I got the same feeling like we didn’t know each other that well but our scholastic past bought me the social media privilege and hey I guess I’ll take what I can get these days. Then even being friends with the guys is cool: it gives you another “like” here and there and if nothing else another half-amusing meme complaining about women. We all possess inner beauty. But for other times, there’s still shots on social media sites.

 

 

I live two miles from the nearest grocery store with fresh produce,

One and a half miles from the nearest laundromat and

Two miles from the closest post office,

But just two blocks north and one block east of me lies

Terre Haute Brewing Company,

A brewery of rhinoceros proportions –

I like going in there in the middle of half price growler Mondays as

They’re playing “Touch of Grey” by the Grateful Dead and

“Rhythm of the Rain” by The Cascades,

And it’s the type of thing that people will get mad at me for,

I know,

Going in there and filling up my growler,

Then walking back to my apartment with that giant brown jug

Of world-class beer all for my enjoyment,

I know,

I’ve just rendered an especial luxury,

Sidestepping reality in multiple ways

 

 

The frat row in Terre Haute, Indiana

Is interspersed with inexplicable closeness

With the grid-bound innards of the municipality

In a way that makes no sense —

 

I sit here in my apartment having all night taken in

Sounds of dogs, trains, curmudgeons and little kids

And now, at 1:28 A.M.,

There is drunken yelling coming from a block over and

Although we live two miles from the nearest decent grocery store,

There is still all this life,

Which I marvel at, in my own way.

 

Sometimes on my walk home

Down 7th St. which is mostly strewn with endless residencies,

I’ll see some buxom college ages smiling at me

Just hoping everything is ok and

Reality seems ephemeral, the subservient

To these strange, inexplicable moments of seeing these

Explosively beautiful college girls who are 15 years younger than me and

As old as I am,

I still don’t really feel like I know everything,

Probably because all we ever seem to crave are

Change and madness.

How egotistical we are
To take that master piece of music
And claim it as our own.
.
How pompous we are
To assert ourselves
As so inextricably linked
To its grandiosity and perfection
As to render a false connection thereto
For all of time.
.
And how noxious we are
Not to slow down and look around
And notice the music of people’s laughs,
People’s smiles,
Not to notice the music of police sirens,
Motorcycles and freight trains in the night
As they all create an orchestra of their own
Under chameleonic skies.

The artist has “love” in his daily membranes
And that is an offset —
It is something powerful and
Not transmissible within conventional realms,
Not the product of logic or mandatory deed,
But rather permanent