.

There is this homeless-looking dude sitting outside the cafe window. When he glares at me, I nod obediently, and then slam down my computer charger, out of frustration. I’m at the cafe because we’re out of power at my house after a rampant little episode of powerful vituperation on the part of the gods in the sky last night. Time goes by and I see the role this world has chiseled down for me on this day. One man across the street walks in circles, essentially. The homeless man’s look has gone from knowledgable and sagacious to scared, maybe frustrated. I look up at the tall parking garage across the street. This town is built on nothing. It could all end, anytime, at a stocky dude from Indianapolis with bad breath and a Gorillaz t shirt that’s too small for him. I see this and I see the good in the homeless dude sitting there and I know you’ve heard this a thousand times but we live in the land of the haves and the have-nots and within this game the fruit, the fat, the plenty and the colors, are often the spoils of those who simply don’t call them their own but rather tally them along like a stray dog. The spoils are never your own and we live in the land of the haves and the have-nots and the haves envy the have-nots and the have-nots know the haves like a tic-tac-toe board. Know this and you will not solve the malady but organize it into a tamed Rotweiller on a leash that will outlive you.

I haven’t seen Ben in about half an hour. He was up there singing “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” on karaoke and then a couple minutes later I saw that dark-haired, tattooed girl pressing her tit against him and talking to him. Sure we’d hooked up a couple times. I remember really liking how his mouth looked when he was about to come. Sh**, I liked everything about it: I liked his friendly co** inside me, how his body would thrust, the music he had on and the magazines he had laying around on the carpeted floor. There are other guys out there. No, there are not other Bens. I know that. But there are other guys out there. And there is music I can listen to when I start feeling like this. And I guess I don’t have to ride the train and see those hot girls, on the way home, either. I can just walk home. I have my pepper spray on me. I would get really sh**faced but I have to work tomorrow. And I don’t have to get really sh**faced. All I need is this big city I’m in. This is something I know and anyway I find this scuzzy dude up here kind of funny who’s doing “Stranglehold” by Ted Nugent.

With each new pressing day

The charms and ornaments of life

Float up to their consciousnesses and

Eventually become detritus, pure

Syntax to be sneezed on and

Discarded and sometimes

You

See a piece

Of a subservient of a sum and

You are not in the wrong but it is

Life that has made catharsis

So objectionable to these people

Like empty, posing vessels spelling

Words with other words

The paradigm of life

Tells us to achieve and

To own and

One thing we’re

Supposed to own

Is people — wives,

Husbands, nieces and

Florists but

Ennui and

The erratic

Flow like the Cedar Rapids

And

Nothing

Will

Smile at you

Like the one-eyed, crooked

Paraplegic lobster

On the hot,

Sweltering sidewalk who

Can only smile,

And do nothing else

All over the baseball league

In every game

They were denouncing the disease “ALS”

Which stands for something

Of which I’m not sure

.

And now here’s this sanguine dude

With a bizarre, contrived facial expression

Ejaculating any number of bland,

Stock responses to questions,

.

He funded the project,

.

He wants to beat ALS and

.

He’s so lucky to have met all these people

.

But you can see it in his eyes that he’s

Rolling in the profit and

In his mind he’s somewhere else

So I switch it from baseball and

See the Mavericks and Clippers go down to the wire

In basketball

105-100 and

.

We all weasel through

Dire excursions and

Cut off a limb to

Do what we want to love and

Nobody started the fire.

It is

A prank call

To your libido

As you withstood six blows

And they got you with the seventh

On the Sabbath day

Nothing running free and

The flesh hound cowering

All grayed from

Noise and tremor

I drive to the library with high hopes,

A car pulling out of the narrow,

Curved exit right as I’m

Trying to pull in.

.

I walk in to the scene

Of a man talking very loudly

To his four-year-old kid

Who was, himself,

Very loud.

.

I walk back to 813.

.

I look around.

.

It does not look like a poetry section.

.

The editions are bright and bold,

Suggesting a cluster of

Mass media fiction.

.

The books are proud,

Massive and prominent,

Not bedraggled, worn,

Humble and embarrassed.

.

I open one of the books

And it’s something about

“I live in a body

That the world does not think is my own.”

.

I slam it closed.

.

I open another book.

.

It’s a woman mentioning

That her father beat her

And now is on his death bed

And I cannot truly say that she “details”

This, since there are no details.

.

It is like an experience

Of getting hit with a blunt

Baseball bat by a

Person who is bored.

.

I am bound,

Now, to that

Poetess’ meaningless

Beatings, and the

Carboard,

.

Meaningless reality

Of this father lying in

This hospital, ascribed

.

Many things which are

Worn, bedraggled,

Embarrassed and humble,

.

And haphazardly passed off as

Nascent.

.

I look on the lower shelf and see

David Sedaris and think of his

Moral compunction

Delivered

.

In flummoxed,

Deadened sentences.

.

Finally I go

Over to the librarian

And ask her if there’s a “classics”

Section and I find that and

It’s all fiction, no poetry,

The one exception being

The Odyssey, which I have at home.

.

An attractive blonde girl

Is suspicious of me

And traipses out of the library

Hurriedly

And I can’t help but think,

Did she find what she needed here,

Maybe too much.

.

I have the weird premonition

Then

To go to my old middle school

But I go to my old high school instead

Realizing that that would make more sense.

.

There’s a baseball game going on

And I saunter in, passing

The “donations” box with

One one-dollar bill in my wallet.

.

After about 15 minutes,

I see an old friend

And say hi, wave.

.

He comes over and talks to me.

.

Unbeknownst to me,

He’s been teaching freshman algebra

At the high school

On a substitute’s wage and

.

We exchange stories of high schoolers,

Me telling of the 16-year-old black dishwasher

At work

Trying to pick a fight with me

Outside work

Right in front of a cop

And saying “Run it” over and over,

Him telling of the kids saying they’re gonna

“Smoke his pack.”

.

I look at the fat, black

Pitcher of my high school

Who’s the son of one of my old friends,

.

And that lazy way he has of

Helming that ball over the plate,

.

I look across the street

At the stately houses,

Houses which possess people

Who use bug spray, people

Who work dishwashers,

.

People who spend $8000

To replace furnaces and

People looking for a way,

.

And,

You might say,

This was what I’d been looking for

All along.

I once met a man on the street and

In an explosion of light

He gave me a smile,

Some humor,

And a piece of advice

That stuck with me forever

As my beacon in life.

.

I would see that man at the grocery store and

There would always be somebody in front of him

Who’d lost their food stamps

Or was trying to use faulty coupons.

.

But he’d never yell at the customer and

He’d look over and see me and say,

Hey,

Almost with that whole bath of light he’d wielded on the street.

.

I would see that man

At the movie theater,

Seeing bad movies and

Always stepping on pieces of gum

That had been thrown into the aisle.

.

He wouldn’t notice me in the theater.

.

I would see that man getting his car fixed and

Always have to get a new replacement part

Because they couldn’t fix it and

Couldn’t find one used.

.

He never got mad at the mechanics and

He would see me out of his peripheral vision

While scowling and sweating

And he wouldn’t say “Hey,”

But I could tell he was embracing me in his own way,

I could tell he held out a little light for me.

.

I could see it in his skin.

.

I could see it in the past.

.

I would see that man,

When we got older,

Bringing coupons into Arby’s

And paying the cashier with pennies and nickels and

He would see me and not recognize me,

Smiling at me with greyed, addled eyes

That poured a trace amount of light out of them

So small that you’d have never known it was in there.

.

But I saw it.

.

I saw it in the past and I remembered that man.

.

And I would see that man in the newspaper,

Deceased, divorced from his wife,

Leaving two kids who live in town and

Enjoyed going to the movies and

Eating in restaurants

.

And I would sit back and marvel

And bask in the glow

Of the beautiful life he had lived

And how it had touched me.

I’m living out here in the middle of nowhere

Two miles south of South Bend

Because in town there are burglaries in

Every neighborhood I can afford.

.

It’s ok, in general,

Nice and comfortable,

But sometimes when I’m heading out of town at night

After work

Into the endless black abyss

I get this really ominous feeling.

.

The other night

Before I went running after work

I got it really bad but

Didn’t encounter any dogs, luckily.

.

Today I sit on a beautiful Saturday

Before work and

The only sound to be heard

.

Is this dude up the road

Firing his gun. He doesn’t seem

To do it in any particular system or

With any certain rhythm,

.

Giving the impression

That

It’s just something he does

Until he feels a way

That’s different

From how he feels now.

.

I do that too.

.

I go out for beers after work, sometimes.

.

And hell, it works.

.

That’s a lot of what this world is —

Mortal beings striving for immortality.

*Sunshine Sammy returns: “Why don’t you wanna fu** Missy Elliott, di**head?”

.

Why don’t you wanna fu** Missy Elliott, di**head? You too good to fu** her there, homie? You have to come on to her so we can sell this song that goes “Put your thing down / Flip it and reverse it”. Whew! You’re throwing a stick in the spokes of the American economy. You don’t like big hoes? Just last week you said you liked big hoes? What? Oh, that was Mike D. Look, just wait ‘til you see her hair. It’s made outta rattlesnake hide. Who do YOU love? I’ll let you think about it, princess.