.

The art museum in South Bend

Stands right downtown

On Michigan St.,

Down the block from a 10-story hotel

And the event center

That stages musicals, plays and concerts.

.

I take a sidewalk

Offset from the street 20 feet

To get in.

.

Stooped at the entrance

Is a boy of about 14

Looking moderately ornery.

.

I walk in and see three women —

Two grown, standing,

And one, younger, sitting at the front desk

And greeting me with a smile.

.

I wander over to one of the exhibits,

Then to another one,

And another one,

Thinking,

It’s incredibly stuffy in here.

.

I think,

I am in a woman’s habitat.

.

Over in another room,

Out the window,

I see a delivery dude,

Scowling with a hurried,

Stressed look and disposition.

.

So inside the museum

I see nothing but women

And outside the museum

I see nothing but men.

.

But it feels right going into that museum

And I don’t take any pictures

And I don’t post anything on social media

.

And I walk out of there,

Getting a professional smile

From the pretty girl who avoids my stare,

To forever be known as

That weird dude who went into

The art museum in South Bend.

It is with a sly poker face

That I drive by the overpriced apartments

Downtown,

The ones I can’t afford,

.

And throughout my day

In the emotional desert

I will look for color

In the eyes of others

.

And find it when I’m least prepared

And most poised to temper my frustration

With the humor of water on wood,

The nonsense of light fired

.

As hurling through space,

In blaze

Impressions, sometimes,

Are derelict,

As the gay dude initially thinks

I’m coming on to him

To then sit listlessly

A couple nights later

As I ignore him,

Talking to the gorgeous female bartender

With the spectacular body,

Articulating, expressing and,

Generally,

Embodying everything

I’d initially wanted to see in the gay dude

The other night

When

I smiled at him.

It’s your pride

That stinks up the room

When you’re so sure

That you’re reaching a plateau,

A platform that’s going to jettison you

From your former life

Of squalor, of insecurity and lack of meaning,

And people

.

Have every

Right

To feel compunction

When they sense that flight in you

And

.

When they knock you down to size

Maybe you’re just giving them

What you hadn’t, before,

And is rightfully theirs all along and

This is the human experience you chose

With body needy, flawed and

Doomed for collapse.

She was talking to me about something

And I didn’t really care anyway

I was just happy to have the company

And conversation

Like a movie that would be impossible to make now

And somewhere a plane was taking off

And she trailed off,

Left off,

Manufactured a stoppage to her rhetoric and

Withheld the remainder of

What she thought she’d say

And she smiled at me and walked away

And I’d never realized it before

But she was conferring with her God

And she wanted to keep that story to herself

Like the folklore that defines us and

Makes us who we are

When nothing else is working and

I didn’t know it but I still had

A lot more sinews to grind,

More blood to give and more

Love to waste on the way to this

Rainy, cool August night

At my respite two miles out of town

Were you blessed with

Resiliency or

.

Did you just

Get through

The sh**

You had to get through?

.

It depends

Who you ask.

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